He who pays the piper, calls the tunes
In 1954, a U.S. thermonuclear test at the Bikini atolls prompted the [[Japan] Meteorological Research Institute to begin nuclear research that year. Three years later, the institute began monitoring environmental radiation in the atmosphere and the oceans, which was still going on when Aoyama got the disturbing e-mail. The undertaking had already set a world [...]
No Big Fukushima Health Impact Seen, UN Official Says: Scientific American
VIENNA, Jan 31 Reuters – The health impact of last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan appears relatively small thanks partly to prompt evacuations, the chairman of a U.N. scientific body investigating the effects of radiation said on Tuesday. … “What we have seen in Chernobyl – people were dying from huge, high exposures, some [...]
New Take on Impacts of Low Dose Radiation « Berkeley Lab News Center
I first heard about the LNT (linear non-threshold theory) of the health effects of radiation exposure via Prof. Lenz’s blog (I couldn’t find a search function on the blog, but here are a couple of items that came up in a Yahoo search: Bernard Cohen on LNT junk science and Nobuo Ikeda on LNT and [...]
a fifth of the cesium fell on Japan, most of rest fell into Pacific
Update: Lost the link to the original article, but here’s another one – Japan nuke radiation higher than estimated Well, that’s a bit of a relief, isn’t it? But read the headline if you want to raise your blood pressure a few degrees: The Fukushima nuclear disaster released twice as much of a radioactive substance [...]
Radiation in Tokyo’s Setagaya-ku due to radium, unconnected with Fukushima
As I was grabbing some breakfast this morning, I caught the following bit of news about a radiation hot-spot in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo. Turns out, this may have nothing to do with Fukushima (and of course everyone assumed it did), which is funny because that blows out of the water the assumption that there ain’t no [...]
Slides for Wade Allison talk in Tokyo | Lenz Blog
This popped up in my reader, and I’ve just downloaded the slides and quickly scanned them with my ol’ eagle eye, and my objective, expert opinion is that, if you are at all affected by the Fukushima disaster, or know anyone who is, then you would be well advised to read this. My policy, based [...]
Wade Allison in Japan | Lenz Blog
Prof. Lenz blogs about Wade Allison’s press conference at Tokyo’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club recently. Readers should do their own homework, of course. I reproduce the comments here because it seems there is a lack of balance in the reporting on this matter, both in Japan and abroad. At 500 becquerels per kilogram, a person would [...]
Japan – It’s A Wonderful Rife: Fungi Can Solve Japan’s Radiation Woes
Haven’t blogged about anything for a while – burnout, I guess, getting bored with the subject. But today I read an article that woke me up: Fungi Can Solve Japan’s Radiation Woes | Japan – It’s a Wonderful Rife. Pop over to Andrew’s blog to read the whole thing. It brightened my day. I sincerely [...]
Sunflowers ineffective in radiation decontamination | Majirox News
Apparently, the sunflowers are not doing their thing. Too bad. TOKYO majirox news — Sunflowers are virtually ineffective in soaking up radioactive cesium from contaminated soil, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries MAFF on Sept. 14.Ministry officials carried out the tests from May in areas near the radiation-spewing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.Ministry officials [...]
Triumph of hope over experience
Now that all eyes are on Japan’s new “leader” and his fellow “leaders”, and expecting great things from them, namely the swift cleaning up of all radiation contamination, reconstruction of the tsunami/earthquake devastated areas, putting the Japanese economy back on the path to growth, lowering the strong yen, and generally leading the Japanese into the [...]
