yeah, especially when that fire was burning. One of the most lucky things in this was the wind direction, i think. It will have taken the majority of 放射性物質 out to sea.

But still, the most worrying thing about released stuff they're talking about there is if it enters the food chain, because that's where it could cause cancers. But the government seem to be doing all the right things to make sure it doesn't, so i think it's ok.

Saying that, if i lived outside the 30km exclusion zone North West of the power plant, i would have left a while back.

The thing i still don't understand is which parts of the radiation cause the DNA mutations...?

Bemusing: Chinese man turns himself in seeking deportation over nuclear fears

“... An investigative source said the man may have thought that he would be safe from radioactive contamination from the plant in northeastern Japan if he came all the way to Nagasaki in southwestern Japan. Chiba Prefecture in eastern Japan is located about 200 kilometers south of the Fukushima plant... ”

Eikyu Wrote:According to the latest news, the exposed workers received between 2000 to 6000 millisv or 2 to 6 sv. Thats puts them in the severe to fatal dose range on the xkcd chart.

source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/2...from=main4
http://xkcd.com/radiation/

According to that same article they were lucky though as only their feet were exposed. Guess they wouldn't be with us much longer otherwise.

Quote:The thing i still don't understand is which parts of the radiation cause the DNA mutations...?

"Ionizing radiation damages tissue by causing ionization, which disrupts molecules directly and also produces highly reactive free radicals, which attack nearby cells. The net effect is that biological molecules suffer local disruption; this may exceed the body's capacity to repair the damage and may also cause mutations in cells currently undergoing replication."
Wikipedia The way I see it, alpha, beta and gamma rays can all cause this type of damage.

Eikyu Wrote:Fukushima radioactive fallout nears Chernobyl levels

Pretty shocking headline, though it might be exaggerated.

Actually, it is not an exaggeration at all. The radiation levels are 10x that of Hiroshima immediately following the dropping of the nuclear bomb in WWII. I have already grown an 11th toe as a result.

[ファブリス]

Another insane tsunami footage. I wonder what sort of building the person was standing on to feel safe there...

Quake shakes Japan's science

Anime/Manga Releases Delayed, Cancelled After Quake

nest0r Wrote:Quake shakes Japan's science

I'll add to this. I'm a simulation researcher and my University has put strict restrictions on all computational research in order to save electricity. The result is making it practically impossible for me to get work done ... However, I am thankful that, in our area, the earthquake did not destroy the equipment. I can only imagine how difficult it must be.

I don't know if it's too late, but found this on Ryuichi Sakamoto's twitter

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/171460.html

"But the problem is that they (Japanese authorities) are saying the radiation levels are low and that people can live outside the 30 kilometer zone. They want to continue making nuclear power stations, mining uranium and making lots of money. It's criminally irresponsible.
"
Thu Mar 24, 2011 9:4AM

I don't know if it is anymore criminal than continuing to use oil, coal or natural gas. They have caused far more pollution and killed far more people than nuclear energy. If it is criminal that we have not invested more into wind or solar, I agree.

BTW, why don't the news organizations go berserk over the poison (herbicides and pesticides) we intentionally spray on our food, or the hormones and antibiotics we give the animals we eat?

@jettyke

Looks like a similar article to the Chernobyl-on-steroids interviewee, e.g. a fear-mongering anti-nuclear ‘professional expert’ feeding a given interviewer's desire for irresponsible sensationalism:

http://junksciencewatch.wordpress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Busby

I'd stick with more moderate, well-reasoned appraisals that don't attempt to play the blame game, generate conspiracies, dramatize, etc.

Here's a tip: When you see a one-sided argument that's being allowed to go on despite an ingratiatingly faux-neutral tone from the interviewer, from a single expert whose credentials include a title or two, a glossed-over history of science-related partisanship, and perhaps a slightly informalized first name like Chris or Artie, be very wary.

@nest0r

It's good advice

Don't know if it is related to the irrational hysteria in Western media, but General Electric is the 2nd largest largest company in the world. As their name suggests, they own various power generating businesses and also a large chunk of the American media.

More on the corruption/lax regulation issue:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...lenews_wsj

"Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has two distinct and often competing roles: regulating the nuclear power industry, and promoting Japanese nuclear technology at home and abroad."

""The regulators are so friendly with power companies that they don't hold them responsible for so many things," said Tetsuya Iida, a former nuclear-industry engineer who heads a think tank."

""METI has unabashedly sent retired officials to the power industry, and politicians have received campaign funds [from companies]."

And reassuringly:

""It's totally not the case that the [accident] happened because there were some kind of cozy ties between Tokyo Electric Power" and the regulators, said Mr. Nishiyama, who represents the ministry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. The accident "won't be an occasion to rethink" regulation, he added."

Japan Extended Reactor’s Life, Despite Warning

"In 2003, regulators forced Tokyo Electric to suspend operations at its 10 reactors at two plants in Fukushima and 7 reactors in Niigata Prefecture after whistle-blowers gave information to Fukushima Prefecture showing that the company had falsified inspection records and hid flaws over 16 years to save on repair costs. In the most serious incident, Tokyo Electric hid the large cracks in the shrouds. "

http://prestowitz.foreignpolicy.com/post...on_display

And the latest news: Japan says plutonium found at Fukushima

Edit: adding one more link

Special Report: Japan engineers knew tsunami could overrun plant

Japan not mulling Tepco nationalization: official

“The Japanese government's chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said Tuesday in a televised press conference that no government entity was studying any plan to nationalize Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the critically troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.”

Live Updates on Tokyo's electricity usage

4,000 bodies still remain unidentified following quake

4000... dear god...

About the radioactive fallout stuff again... I wouldn't be surprised if it was near Chernobyl levels at this point - my main worry is, how far away from the plant has this level of radiation escaped?

zachandhobbes Wrote:About the radioactive fallout stuff again... I wouldn't be surprised if it was near Chernobyl levels at this point - my main worry is, how far away from the plant has this level of radiation escaped?

It goes pretty far, but its not that strong. And the further it travels, the weaker it gets.
http://eq.wide.ad.jp/index_en.html
I'm in Aomori and its only around .024 µSv/hour

zachandhobbes Wrote:About the radioactive fallout stuff again... I wouldn't be surprised if it was near Chernobyl levels at this point - my main worry is, how far away from the plant has this level of radiation escaped?

Radiation levels are completely normally almost anywhere west of Tokyo--the wind just doesn't blow west very often at all.

The radiation levels aren't really alarming at all. Don't compare to Chernobyl unless you actually have some numbers.

The wind may not blow west, but if certain foods are contaminated then it can spread country wide. Heck I'm 1500km away and I'm still paranoid of eating anything produced east of Kansai.

So its 18 days after the accident, nobody died, 3 people that were working at the REACTOR have been hospitalized, radiation levels throughout Japan are normal (they were higher for a few hours when the cloud passed), stations around the globe are reporting what elements were in that cloud and its consistent with the official info about controlled leak, cooling has been restored to a few reactors and people are still spewing "Chernobyl" with a straight face?

Shame on you zachandhobbes, you should work at Fox with this attitude...

Praying for meltdown: The media and the nukes Science and the public lose out with TV's Hollywood disaster film obsession

The Register Wrote:Words like "meltdown" and "radiation leak" have a mythical potency – and TV reported the mythology, not the facts. Fukushima came to represent man's hubris and his folly in "defying nature". The Daily Mail, for example, helpfully made this quite clear: "Nature's Deadly Rage, it fumed. You could hear echoes all over the media. BBC TV News described "nature’s fury".

Article about the overly sensationalist treatment of the disaster in the news.

The Onion had a pretty biting and accurate piece here: Deaths Of 20,000 Japanese Afford Planet Solid 15 Minutes In Which Everyone Acts Like A Human Being

... A sizable number of human beings around the planet were reportedly able to negate the sympathy and goodwill they had just exhibited toward Japan by moments later getting into an uninformed argument about the efficacy of nuclear power, making a crude Godzilla-related joke on their Twitter or Facebook page, or telling themselves they didn't even know these people so it wasn't really worth getting too upset about.

"In those 15 minutes, the thought of making light of the events in Japan did not even cross a single human being's mind, yet evidence shows this restraint expired sometime between the 15:00 and 15:01 mark, when certain segments of the population began to speculate that the disaster was somehow 'payback' for Pearl Harbor," said sociologist Karen Perkins, adding that within seconds deep heartache and grief quickly segued into trivial and barely related political debates. "By the 15:30 mark, millions had told themselves that the Japanese were a somewhat robotic and unemotional people who would recover just fine; by the 15:50 mark, 1.8 billion people were already thinking about lunch; and by the 16:15 mark, all but 0.8 percent of the world had moved on completely."

thurd Wrote:So its 18 days after the accident, nobody died

Really?
It may only be because of unknown deaths. I'm sure that at least someone died in the earthquake shake.

I can't believe the media is still going crazy over the nuclear plant problem. Don't they have perspective?
In the USA about 30,000 deaths/year from coal pollution

bodhisamaya Wrote:I can't believe the media is still going crazy over the nuclear plant problem. Don't they have perspective?
In the USA about 30,000 deaths/year from coal pollution

Impact is a little harder to quantify than one would expect after reading that slanted article. I've seen the numbers before and I used to trumpet them as a saving grace of nuclear power. However, recently, the fact that a single incident can cause such devastation and require massive evacuation makes me find them to be psychological nightmares hanging over people. I think this make them fundamentally worthless since they are fine until not fine, which makes them kind of psychologically comparable to natural disasters who spring up unexpectedly claiming wide masses of now un-tamable land (or sea). I somehow think the Ibaraki fishmen, fukushima farms, chiba farms, etc. would sing a different tune than the article may imply. But of course, such impact (among others) is not in the above article's calculation.

It's also interesting that the author says that the inclusion of Chernobyl's cancer rate would double the impact of Nuclear power (that's double the total impact of all nuclear power just from a single incident), but he doesn't include it because apparently partial/full removal of one's thyroid and possibly having to live on hormone drugs counts as 'recovery.'

But that's just my perspective. Take it for what it's worth