J. M. Navarrete

Establishment of a radioactive contamination index in seawater from the Gulf and Pacific coasts in Mexico

This paper intends to establish one radioactive contamination index in seawater based on the relation A1/A2, where A1 is the radioactivity due to the contaminant radioisotope 137Cs and A2 is the radioactivity due to the natural radioisotope 40K, both expressed either as Bq/l in seawater or Bq/g in sea salt. At a second step, the same volumes of marine sediments were detected, but in this case results were expressed as Bq/g (dry basis) in order to find an index of radioactive contamination which remains more or less unchanged in seabed. The first results obtained show the adopted units are suitable for proposed contamination index, which might be useful to measure the extent and importance of radioactive contamination in every sea region of the planet. Therefore, it is a proposal for a direct measurement at greater range, which could be compared with punctual results all over the world to avoid the panic.

Determination of the natural and artificial radioactivity of a selection of traditional Mexican medicinal herbs by gamma spectrometry

This work presents the results of a gamma spectrometry analysis of 30 traditional Mexican medicinal herbs. The analysis was carried out using low level background shielding, a hyper-pure germanium detector, and a multichannel analyzer system. Natural and artificial radiactivity concentration from 226Ra (through 214Pb and 214Bi), 228Th (through 208Tl), 228Ra (through 228Ac), 40K, and 137Cs were determined in this analysis. The results show low concentration levels of natural radioactivity and no artificial radionuclides, and different contents of natural 40K, in the studied medicinal herbs. These low concentration levels of natural radionuclides, cannot be consider a health risk for common consumers.

Fulvic acids, fertilizers first and then stimulants of vital functions in vertebrates

It is very well known from ancient times that fulvic acids present in nature as a component of dead leaves and vegetables, are the active principle which promotes better crops, acting on mineral ions in soils by picking up them into plants tissues at higher concentrations. Tested in mice, by using radioactive labeled ions such as 32PO4−, 45Ca++, 59Fe+++ and 131I−, fulvic acids have demonstrated to stimulate the filtration of these ions from digestive tract to blood and then to urine by a factor larger than two. The following step on this research has been to find the effect caused by the presence in blood of electrolytes at higher concentrations, particularly viral infections resistance as a consequence of antibodies promotion.