Stanford Day 10

35.7 µS/hr @ 8:12 am

Missed collecting yesterday due to a family trip.

Stanford Day 8

48.4 µS/hr @ 2:14 pm

Probably an accurate reading today.  I held him close while I held the detector to his neck.

He’s a surprisingly tolerant cat sometimes.

Stan, Day 7

28.1 µS/hr @ 7:43 am

(35.1 µS/hr @ 4:45 pm)

He was furiously eating.  I’m planning on making another attempt later today and correcting this reading.

Amusingly, he has come to accept the presence of the detector and accepts that I will press it against his throat.  He just won’t let it get in his way anymore.

Stanford, Day 5

63.0 µS/hr @ 6:55 pm

Today’s reading is late because this morning was a bit hectic.

Stanford, Day 4

89.8 µS/hr @ 8:09 am

The number should be going down day-by-day, not up.

I attribute the crazy readings one or more of these factors:

  • Experimental error.  Stan doesn’t much care for the detector being shoved in his face.  The readings change drastically depending on which part of his neck you reach.
  • Calibration, or lack thereof.
  • Secondary decay byproducts that are more radioactive.  I will research that in a bit. (EDIT: Iodine 131 decays into Xenon 131, which is stable (not radioactive).)

I think I saw an even higher reading, but Stan is a long-haired cat and obscured the screen.  The detector doesn’t keep a high-water mark in it’s history, just averages.

Stan, Day 2

35.6 µS/hr @ 8:10 am.

Correction: 86.4 µS/hr @ 2:23 pm. [1]

There’s definitely some variability to the readings due to experimental error.  The highest readings come when I press the device directly against his throat, which he does not like.

I get better cooperation if he’s eating while I take the readings.

He also does not like the sound the detector makes, so I’ve disabled it, but that removes some of the fun (for me) during the data collection.

If I had a bunch of these detectors and placed them in each room then we could track his movements around the house based on sound alone.  There are noticeable rises in detector activity when he merely enters the room.

[1] this is a lesson in experimental error.  Stan jumped up on my lap at an opportune moment and was willing to rub his face against the detector, leading to the highest score to-date.  Figuring out how to get consistent results is going to be a problem.