Come swim in the Pacific and get a tan without leaving the water!

New highly radioactive leak at Japan's Fukushima plant

TOKYO (Reuters) - The operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant said on Thursday that 100 metric tons of highly contaminated water had leaked out of a tank, the worst incident since last August, when a series of radioactive water leaks sparked international alarm. 

Tokyo Electric Power Co told reporters the latest leak was unlikely to have reached the ocean. But news of the leak at the site, devastated by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, further undercut public trust in a utility rocked by a string of mishaps and disclosure issues.

More Fukushima'd than ever....

Fukushima

Fukushima radiation levels underestimated by five times - TEPCO

TEPCO has revised the readings on the radioactivity levels at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant well to 5 million becquerels of strontium per liter – both a record, and nearly five times higher than the original reading of 900,000 becquerels per liter. 

Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission with a half-life of 28.8 years. The legal standard for strontium emissions is 30 becquerels per liter. Exposure to strontium-90 can cause bone cancer, cancer of nearby tissues, and leukemia.

Nightmares from Japan

Keeping track of the events. Even by those who have left Japan.

Radioactive water could be soon reaching the sea.

Tsunami debris is beginning to reach the US west coast, but it's highly unlikely it is radioactive.  In fact, it is not a large island of debris but very spread out.  Fukushima's disaster began well after the tsunami.

Check fish with Geiger counters?

You can get your scientists to try and solve the problem.

Or you can indulge in fearmongering.

Update 11/8: Credo petitions for world scientists to get involved.

If cats reported the news

No. Not for a long time, kitty. Oil in your seafood from the Gulf or radioactive isotopes in your fish from the Pacific?... neither one, thank you.

Dr. Susan Shaw - Marine Environmental Research Institute from Blackbird Media on Vimeo.

Schwarzenegger's scandal and his actual screwing of California. Thanks, Ahnuld. And speaking of sexual oopses .... 19 best unintentionally sexual church signs (h/t to Marcellina of The Practice Room)

Research Suggests Weight Gain Is Contagious

Congress to vote on extending Patriot Act

Threatening kids who want to debate the Constitution?

Partisan teachers:

When it comes to grading, Republican and Democratic professors at one unnamed elite university put their ideologies into practice, a new study finds: Republicans welcomed inequality, handing out more very high and very low grades, and Democrats’ grades grouped more tightly around the average.

Republicans also gave black students lower grades than their colleagues. In both cases, the researchers stressed, there was no way to know which approach better reflected students’ performance.

The reason behind the Rapture prediction. And after apologies, Camping is now giving another date....

Science that leaves you aglow

MESSENGER delivers its first image from Mercury

Bug Highway:

How much fresh water is left on earth?

Another video of the Japanese quake.

And all things radioactive: Caesium fallout from Fukushima rivals Chernobyl.

Why are there so many different ways of measuring radiation?

Workers at Japan's quake-hit nuclear plant are trying to prevent radioactive water from seeping into the sea.

Tom Tomorrow helps explain it all.

The radioactive ocean that we've been using as a bomb site and dumping ground:

Radioactive pollution in the ocean is nothing new. We've been loosing the stuff offshore since 1944.

One way to not worry about the environment

Is to cover it in as much oil in the shortest time possible:


Moscow -

More than 30,000 birds have died along the Russian coastline following an oil and sulphur spill in the Black Sea. "The damage is so great that it cannot be estimated. This amounts to an ecological disaster," Alexander Tkatschov, the governor of the affected southern territory of Krasnodar, was quoted as saying Monday by the Interfax news agency.

President Vladimir Putin would fly to the area immediately, government chief Viktor Subkov said.

The oil spill occurred when a severe storm in the Black Sea caused tankers and cargo ships to break apart on Sunday, spilling thousands of tons of fuel and sulphur.

San Francisco -

Hundreds of workers attempted to save wildlife and halt the spread of a large oil spill in the San Francisco Bay that has continued to spread and led to the closing of many beaches on the US West Coast. More than 200 birds have been buried alive in oil and 60 have already died, radio broadcaster KCBS reported late Saturday. More than 220,00 litres of oil have leaked into the bay since Wednesday after a huge container ship slammed into the Bay Bridge.

Only 75,000 litres of oil has been cleaned up so far, and 13 kilometres of floating barriers had been deployed to halt the spread.

Sixty boats, including 20 special craft to remove oil from the water, were involved in the more than 500-man cleanup effort, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Update 12/9: And now, South Korea:

Seoul - A Hong-Kong registered supertanker that collided with a barge spilt an estimated 10,500 tons of oil into the Yellow Sea off the coast of South Korea Friday, according to the Maritime Ministry. The Hebei Spirit was eight kilometres north-west of the Taean peninsula, 110 kilometres south-west of Seoul, waiting to enter port when it was rammed by an unmanned barge carrying a crane.

The crane punched three holes into the tanker that had a cargo of 260,000 tons of crude oil. The barge had loosened itself from a tug in stormy weather.

More than 30 ships and helicopters have been deployed to prevent a larger oil spill amid fears that the leak could reach the coast by Saturday.

Apparently the Japanese have been taking notes about how Cheney operates.

Secrecy above citizen safety:

KASHIWAZAKI, Japan (AP) -- A strong earthquake shook Japan's northwest coast Monday, setting off a fire at the world's most powerful nuclear power plant and causing a reactor to spill radioactive water into the sea - an accident not reported to the public for hours.

The temblor killed at least nine people and injured more than 1,000 as it toppled hundreds of wooden homes and tore 3-foot-wide fissures in the ground. Highways and bridges buckled, leaving officials struggling to get emergency supplies into the region.