It Pays to Increase Your Jargon Power
With Dr. Egghead

a) The strain felt by writers when they have written introductory and closing paragraphs, but still have to write the rest of an essay.
b) What diet pill companies want people to believe they have.
c) What you feel when you get the bill from the auto body shop.
d) The amount of a radioactive material deposited in the body at a given point in time (in units of mass or radioactivity).

2. WHOLE BODY COUNTER

a) A specially-designed surface in diners where customers can eat while lying down.
b) Someone not content just to do a headcount.
c) A hospital employee whose job it is to count how many whole bodies come out of the operating room.
d) A chamber equipped with instruments to measure gamma radiation being emitted from anywhere in the body.

3. ALARA

a) b) Name of a failed apple harvesting company.
b) Acting in the manner of Ra.
c) Acronym for "As Low As Reasonable Achievable." Usually "ALARA Principle," which dictates that radioactivity released to the environment and radiation doses be not merely in compliance with regulations, but further reduced below the allowable limits, given the technologies and financial resources available.

4. EFFECTIVE DOSE EQUIVALENT

a) The number of naps taken during the day by a nuclear plant operator working night shifts to effectively enable him or her to stay awake on the job.
b) The dose delivered by a placebo that works as intended.
b) What a swig of whiskey was back in the days before anesthesia.
c) A dose estimate that takes into account the combined effects of internal and external radiation, the selective uptake and distribution of radionuclides, and their varying effects on different organs. The effective dose equivalent is calculated by multiplying the dose to an individual organ, such as the lung, by a weighting factor which addresses the likelihood of a cancer mortality from radiation exposure to that particular organ.

5. BIOLOGICAL HALF-LIFE

a) The time it takes for half a room of biology students to fall asleep.
b) The portion of a soccer player's life spent playing halfback.
c) The time it takes for half a log to decay.
d) The time it takes the body to eliminate half the mass of a given absorbed radionuclide.

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Answers:
1. d
2. d
3. d
4. d
5. d