Author: Student

Some good articles from The Japan Times

Hey, remember when we mentioned the mass amounts of low-level nuclear waste post-Fukushima and how that was a mess and what the heck they were gonna do about it? Well, conveniently the day after: Sprawling radioactive waste storage facility opens for business in Fukushima
The Japan Times has some good Fukushima articles if you go through the tag (filed under “Keywords”).
A predictable article:
Government, Tepco ordered to pay ¥500 million in damages for Fukushima disaster
And an interesting read:
Battling nuclear demons: Mental health issues haunt those who were the first line of defense after 3/11

Not about Fukushima but it came up:
Greenpeace activists enter French nuclear plant and set off fireworks near spent-fuel pool to show vulnerabilities

uh i found out the hard way that JapanTimes only gives you 5 free articles 🙁 for reference
-Sachi

Futures Panel 1990

Drawing from the philosophy of the Finland facilities toured in Into Eternity and what we’ve discussed in class about the opposite approach -monumental signs used to indicate nuclear waste as “hazard!-pay-attention-yet-don’t”-… I’m starting to write about these semiotic endeavors and critiquing their suppositions for my VCS sci-fi class! I’ve been researching the documents produced by the Futures Panel of the 1990’s, a team of archeologists, linguists, semioticians, etc. hired for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant development project. The team had to probability theorize various societies that would likely lead to “human interference”. Some of the scenarios are super fascinating and sci-fi literature in their own right. Various news outlets recently picked up this history I’ve seen via google search…but, in the PDF from the DOE, Page c-40 of a summary I will attach here outlines a really amusing scenario called A Feminist World, 2091 for 100 years out. It killed me… basically speculates on a female dommed popuation and mass ideology that devalues aggressive male science and therefore ignores the signs at WIPP. Here’s the document
-Elise 🙂

Stitches by David Small

Hey, y’all! This isn’t a news thing, this is a thing about a thing I read. It’s a graphic memoir called Stitches by an author and cartoonist called David Small. I originally read it for my mental health/comics class, but it was unexpectedly relevant to this class as well. Not scientifically, but– uh– let me just tell you what it’s about.

The book (which is a comic/graphic novel) goes back to David’s young life. He was born in 1945 and had a lot of sinus and respiratory problems. His father was a radiologist who believed that radiation could cure his ailments, so he did a lot of radiological stuff to David, which leads to him getting cancer at 14. His parents don’t tell him he has cancer– they lead him to believe it’s just a cyst, and he ends up having two surgeries in which they remove the cyst, but also his thyroid and one of his vocal cords, leaving him mostly mute. There’s more stuff that happens, but that’s the relevant bit… it’s an amazing book with fantastic illustration. I own it if anyone’s interested in reading it, and it’s $5 on Amazon– it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

Anyway, have a good week and stay safe.

— Essie

Radioactive Pups + Canadian Petitioning

I was gonna send in this article about the “radioactive puppies of Chernobyl”, but I saw that someone has it in the drafts? Here it is anyway since I’ve been holding onto it for like a week like an idiot: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9k3kqz/please-do-not-pet-the-radioactive-puppies-of-chernobyl

I don’t know how credible it is or anything, just thought it was interesting.

On another note, some Canadians are petitioning for more research on cell phone radiation. We’ve talked about it in class, so I thought it was funny that Canadians are also… very concerned about this, apparently. The article says they have 16 different petitions about it!: http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/more-canadians-petitioning-the-government-about-fear-of-cellphone-radiation

(Edit: 7 petitions about cell phone radiation, 16 total.)

Anyway– here y’all go! Have fun with these worried Canadians and puppies that are bad to touch!

— Essie

A Man, A Decision, A Nuclear Missile

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41314948

“A later investigation concluded that Soviet satellites had mistakenly identified sunlight reflecting on clouds as the engines of intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

Does these mean that the satellites literally picked up a concentrated area of brighter light? Does brighter light, at that altitude, contain higher levels of cosmic radiation? Could that cosmic radiation be misinterpreted for the radiation of a missile? Do we have satellites that can pick up concentrated areas of high radiation?

 

Louis Vowell