So, there was this third atomic bomb, and it didn't really go off. And we kinda forgot to go looking for it after the war. But the good news is: you just found it.

Ah yes, Tokyo's historic banana district.

It was only a matter of time . . .

There are instruments that any of these radiation safety offices should have called "radioisotope identification devices" that should fairly easily sort this out, in terms of the source of the problem.

"Glass bottles in a basement" doesn't sound like a reasonable downstream result of "airborne particulate fallout."

Hmm. What is the Aum Shinrikyo doing nowadays?

dopeydwarf: Soon to be making an appearance in a Tokyo neighborhood near you!

Came to say the same thing.

I'm not saying it was godzilla;

But, it was godzilla.

\ there goes tokyo; go go godzilla

So does much of Grand Junction, Colorado, for that matter. And so what?

I've seen this movie.

Places all over the globe are probably going to experience similar things except since nobody is checking, nobody will know what is killing them.

....And Americans still don't know their rain has been radioactive all summer.
Take a Geiger counter to the grocery store and check out the produce yourself,
It's all hot. It's a fact.

Don't stand downwind during a meltdown that was hidden for months.

/bioaccumulative

newton: ....And Americans still don't know their rain has been radioactive all summer.
Take a Geiger counter to the grocery store and check out the produce yourself,
It's all hot. It's a fact.

Don't stand downwind during a meltdown that was hidden for months.

/bioaccumulative

Know how I know you know nothing about radioactive material?

FTFA: "Officials searching for the cause found "glass bottles in a cardboard box" in the basement of a house in the neighborhood which sent radiation detectors off the charts, he said on NHK.

"We suspect these bottles in basement could be the cause of the high radiation reading and we are hastily working to confirm it," he said.

Radiation experts are now checking what contaminated the bottles, a Setagaya ward official told CNN, declining to be named in line with policy.

They told the local government there are no immediate health hazards.

Radiation levels just a few feet from the contaminated spot are normal, Hosaka said."

My GOD! They've found some antique uranium glass! Depending on when it was made, it could be made with up to 25% uranium. Or I suppose they could also be old bottles of radium, which was mixed in with paint to create glowing watch and clock dials up until the 1960's.

In other words, my bet is on left over crap forgotten in somebody's basement.

Committee_For_Aesthetic_Deletions: newton: ....And Americans still don't know their rain has been radioactive all summer.
Take a Geiger counter to the grocery store and check out the produce yourself,
It's all hot. It's a fact.

Don't stand downwind during a meltdown that was hidden for months.

/bioaccumulative

Know how I know you know nothing about radioactive material?

It's all them bananas he's been eatin'

Committee_For_Aesthetic_Deletions: newton: ....And Americans still don't know their rain has been radioactive all summer.
Take a Geiger counter to the grocery store and check out the produce yourself,
It's all hot. It's a fact.

Don't stand downwind during a meltdown that was hidden for months.

Seriously WTF ? Months ?

/bioaccumulative

Know how I know you know nothing about radioactive material?

ZOMG YOU ARE A PAID SHILL
PAID SHILL
PAID SHILL

/Shillin' like a villain
//Maybe this thread will summon "She who makes Farkers into Bronies"

"Tokyo neighborhood has a higher radiation level than the Fukushima evacuation zone"

This is good news, right?

One Bad Apple: ZOMG YOU ARE A PAID SHILL
PAID SHILL
PAID SHILL

Who's the paid shill? Me?
Yep, it's me. I admit it. I work at an evil nuclear power plant. And they PAY ME FOR IT. (zomg!)
Even worse, I've been a radiochemist at an evil nuclear power plant and I now run the chemistry training program.

Still wondering if anyone else sees the several items in newton's post that give clear evidence of his ignorance.

I submitted this with a headline about tentacle pron

/my headline was funny dammit
//goes to kick some sand

BigBooper:
My GOD! They've found some antique uranium glass! Depending on when it was made, it could be made with up to 25% uranium. Or I suppose they could also be old bottles of radium, which was mixed in with paint to create glowing watch and clock dials up until the 1960's.

In other words, my bet is on left over crap forgotten in somebody's basement.

First thing that comes to mind.

A couple of decades back, one of my older great-aunts was digging through some old stuff in the attic, and found some interesting old bottles like that. She was going to take them to an antique store to try and sell them, and wondered if the full ones were worth more. The full ones that had "RADIUM TONIC" on the labels. Luckily, someone else knew what they were, and arranged for disposal... no, I don't know where, which is another level of "oh crap."

So this is today's herpa derp thread?

BigBooper: My GOD! They've found some antique uranium glass! Depending on when it was made, it could be made with up to 25% uranium. Or I suppose they could also be old bottles of radium, which was mixed in with paint to create glowing watch and clock dials up until the 1960's.

In other words, my bet is on left over crap forgotten in somebody's basement.

Yup. Of course, CNN doesn't get as many page views if it doesn't scare monger people.

Committee_For_Aesthetic_Deletions:

Who's the paid shill? Me?
Still wondering if anyone else sees the several items in newton's post that give clear evidence of his ignorance.

That's how the all the previous Fukushima nuc threads went down. Everyone with any actual knowledge of what radiation does is eventually accused (by the dumbasses that are just panic mongering Luddites) of being paid to post dismissive info on Fark.

Don't I wish.

The more knowledge you try to teach them the more they will hate you for it. You've been warned.

TFA: The zone includes ... parts of Minamisoma.

I think this may be an after-effect of the collapses of the I-35W bridge and the Metrodome roof.

One Bad Apple: Committee_For_Aesthetic_Deletions: newton: ....And Americans still don't know their rain has been radioactive all summer.
Take a Geiger counter to the grocery store and check out the produce yourself,
It's all hot. It's a fact.

Don't stand downwind during a meltdown that was hidden for months.

Seriously WTF ? Months ?



Tepco admitted to the meltdown in May. Tsunami and first meltdown was in February.

BigBooper: FTFA: "Officials searching for the cause found "glass bottles in a cardboard box" in the basement of a house in the neighborhood which sent radiation detectors off the charts, he said on NHK.

"We suspect these bottles in basement could be the cause of the high radiation reading and we are hastily working to confirm it," he said.

Radiation experts are now checking what contaminated the bottles, a Setagaya ward official told CNN, declining to be named in line with policy.

They told the local government there are no immediate health hazards.

Radiation levels just a few feet from the contaminated spot are normal, Hosaka said."

My GOD! They've found some antique uranium glass! Depending on when it was made, it could be made with up to 25% uranium. Or I suppose they could also be old bottles of radium, which was mixed in with paint to create glowing watch and clock dials up until the 1960's.

In other words, my bet is on left over crap forgotten in somebody's basement.

Everyone panic!

/chem teacher brought in some old uranium glaze tableware for us to try out the geiger counter on in high school
//i am now a mutant that lives underground
///has nothing to do with the uranium

newton:


Tepco admitted to the meltdown in May. Tsunami and first meltdown was in February.

That's weird because most of Fark knew about it within days. A "meltdown" was suspected early on but conditions prevented absolute positive confirmation for a while. That's not the same as months of denial followed by "admitting" it. It's not being sure and then finding out when when it is safe to do so.

7of7: What that really means is that the radiation risk has been way overblown, as usual.

Well, that's not exactly what it means. It means more that the people dealing with the cleanup are following standard HazMat operating procedures, with at least two layers of buffer between the actual contaminated area and going home for lunch. The evacuation zone probably consists mostly of yellow and green zone (alternately, "warm" and "cold"). Warm zone means that it's not contaminated, but potentially could become contaminated, and cold zone is a more generic "making sure people don't get near the warm zone" thing than an area in actual danger.

The only part of your warm zone that's actually likely to become significantly contaminated for most spills is your orange bit - the decontamination corridor that gets your workers from the cold zone to the actual hot zone.

//Yeah, I tend to kind of mix and match the two zoning nomenclatures a bit. It's the same scheme either way.

BigBooper: My GOD! They've found some antique uranium glass! Depending on when it was made, it could be made with up to 25% uranium. Or I suppose they could also be old bottles of radium, which was mixed in with paint to create glowing watch and clock dials up until the 1960's.

Uranium isn't particularly radioactive until you get a fission chain-reaction going. Even the weapons-grade stuff has a 700 million year half-life, vs. only 1600 years for radium. Shorter half-life = higher activity.

A few dabs of paint on your grandfather's wristwatch aren't much cause for concern, but a jar full of the stuff would be something to take seriously. Ask David Hahn (the "radioactive boy scout") what happens when you screw around with it.

One Bad Apple: That's how the all the previous Fukushima nuc threads went down. Everyone with any actual knowledge of what radiation does is eventually accused (by the dumbasses that are just panic mongering Luddites) of being paid to post dismissive info on Fark.

Don't I wish.

The more knowledge you try to teach them the more they will hate you for it. You've been warned.

Oh, I know. I've been in nuclear power for 21 years.
I learned long ago that people cling to their ignorance as though it's gold. As soon as you try to explain any actual facts (backed up with science) their eyes roll back in their heads and the drool starts to puddle. After teaching them for two hours, they've understood little of what's said and believe exactly what they did before all the wasted time, breath, and effort.

Thanks for trying to warn me, anyhow.

I'll just do this like the farker trolls.

ZOMG you peoples is stoopid! Thnik, sheeple! THNIK!!

Pfighting Polish: TFA: The zone includes ... parts of Minamisoma.

I think this may be an after-effect of the collapses of the I-35W bridge and the Metrodome roof.

It's true. Take a look at this mutated "Minamisomatan'
Link (new window)

BigBooper:

My GOD! They've found some antique uranium glass! Depending on when it was made, it could be made with up to 25% uranium. Or I suppose they could also be old bottles of radium, which was mixed in with paint to create glowing watch and clock dials up until the 1960's.

Or the old-school orange Fiestaware^TM!

It is going to be interesting to see how many odd things like this get flushed out with the current combination of monitoring technology and terror paranoia.

Then again, every now and then they find interesting things like these:

1982 - Radioactive steel scavenged from a nuclear reactor was melted into rebar and used in the construction of apartment buildings in northern Taiwan, mostly in Taipei, from 1982 through 1984. Over 2,000 apartment units and shops were suspected as having been built with the materials.[15] At least 10,000 people are known to have been exposed to long-term low-level irradiation as a result, with at least 40 deaths due to cancer.[16] In 1985, the Taiwanese Atomic Energy Commission covered up the discovery of high levels of radiation in an apartment building by blaming a dentist operating an imaging machine. However, in the summer of 1992, a utility worker for the Taiwanese state-run electric utility Taipower brought a Geiger counter to his apartment to learn more about the device, and discovered that his apartment was contaminated.[16] Despite awareness of the problem, owners of some of the buildings known to be contaminated have continued to rent apartments out to tenants (in part because selling the units is illegal), and as of at least 2003 and likely to the present, no coordinated effort has been made to track down the remaining affected structures. The Taiwan AEC has harassed medical researchers looking into the consequences.[16] Some researchers from Taiwan claimed that the gamma rays from the cobalt-60 had a beneficial effect upon the health of the tenants.


December 6, 1983 - Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, A local resident salvaged materials from a discarded radiation therapy machine carrying 6,000 pellets of 60Co. The dismantling and transport of the material led to severe contamination of his truck; when the truck was scrapped, it in turn contaminated another 5,000 metric tonnes of steel with an estimated 300 Ci (11 TBq) of activity. This material was sold for kitchen or restaurant table legs and building materials, some of which was sent to the U.S. and Canada; the incident was discovered when a truck delivering contaminated building materials months later to the Los Alamos National Laboratory accidentally drove through a radiation monitoring station. Contamination was later measured on the roads that were used to transport the original damaged radiation source. In some cases pellets were actually found embedded in the roadway. In the state of Sinaloa, 109 houses were condemned due to contaminated building material. This incident prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Customs Service to install radiation detection equipment at all major border crossings.

Source

It might be kinda fun to get a few USB geiger counters and just drive around a few cities making radiation maps a'la wardriving just to see what there is to see.

maxheck: BigBooper:

It might be kinda fun to get a few USB geiger counters and just drive around a few cities making radiation maps a'la wardriving just to see what there is to see.

Start with cities in Florida. It might explain a lot.

Please don't kick me off for this. You can see the radiation in Tokyo and the rest of Japan in realtime at:

Japan.failedrobot.com

/fark nuke engineers/ experts assured us this could never happen.

DSF6969: maxheck: BigBooper:

It might be kinda fun to get a few USB geiger counters and just drive around a few cities making radiation maps a'la wardriving just to see what there is to see.

Start with cities in Florida. It might explain a lot.

Maybe, maybe not. Florida's (and the US in general) problems might be halved if they would use radioactive steel in the construction of mobile homes.

Committee_For_Aesthetic_Deletions: One Bad Apple: ZOMG YOU ARE A PAID SHILL
PAID SHILL
PAID SHILL

Who's the paid shill? Me?
Yep, it's me. I admit it. I work at an evil nuclear power plant. And they PAY ME FOR IT. (zomg!)
Even worse, I've been a radiochemist at an evil nuclear power plant and I now run the chemistry training program.

Still wondering if anyone else sees the several items in newton's post that give clear evidence of his ignorance.

I didn't see a damn thing in his post that was evidence of ignorance. Full disclosure: I ate alot of fruits and vegetables this summer from the Pacific Northwest and I can't see anymore due to the radiation and resulting blindness. Instead, I use my mutant hypothalamus to sense the brain energy of my prey fellow Farkers.

yagottabefarkinkiddinme: Please don't kick me off for this. You can see the radiation in Tokyo and the rest of Japan in realtime at:

Japan.failedrobot.com

/fark nuke engineers/ experts assured us this could never happen.

If only you made some sort of effort to know how much is in a MICRO Seivert you'd laugh at that map.

There is and has always been since the farking planet cooled a small amount of naturally occurring radiation. IT WAS NEVER OR WILL NEVER BE ZERO.

maxheck:

It might be kinda fun to get a few USB geiger counters and just drive around a few cities making radiation maps a'la wardriving just to see what there is to see.


Well, I own several counters myself, and as it turns out, your project would be pretty boring and mostly would not work. Normal background level is quite low, on the order of maybe 10 to 50 counts per minute, and there is natural and seasonal variation, so you would have to integrate your counts for a long time to find any significant variation in background level at a given location. (probably days). Driving around would not work unless you can find a spot that is maybe 10 or 100 times background, which is unlikely. It might work from stationary locations, seems like someone is already doing this. If you want to find something that will make your counter tick in an obvious way, try a real granite counter top or an old thorium lantern mantel or old lens with thorium in the glass.

I do want to know what is in the bottles though. Maybe some old "radium water".

yagottabefarkinkiddinme:
/fark nuke engineers/ experts assured us this could never happen.

What? That radiation levels right near a damaged nuclear power plant could be as high as 1.5 TIMES the normal background level for most of the planet?

Horrors!

Ivo Shandor: A few dabs of paint on your grandfather's wristwatch aren't much cause for concern, but a jar full of the stuff would be something to take seriously. Ask David Hahn (the "radioactive boy scout") what happens when you screw around with it.

Well, but he was using Americanium, IIRC and he was attempting to actually make a home-brew reactor of a sort. They could detect ridiculous levels of it down the block. They had to take the garage apart and put it in drums.

This stuff seems to be limited (at least) to the room with the items. Prolly elevated outside, but nothing like our friend the boy scout.

KarmicDisaster: I do want to know what is in the bottles though. Maybe some old "radium water".

Nah it's prolly in the glass they used to make the bottles.

TheShavingofOccam123: Dear Tokyo,

My grandfather and his generation would like to sincerely apologize for leaving all that radiation in you country. However, please remember you did sneak attack Pearl Harbor in an attempt to destroy our entire Pacific Fleet. And had we invaded your country instead of using atomic weapons, your entire populace would have been hell bent on taking no prisoners and killing 80% or so of our invasion force.

So, sucks to be you. Next time, don't poke at a sleeping giant.

BTW, how's that Hill of Ears going for you? Did you add to the thing during your rape of China, Korea and much of the rest of Asia? And, hey, thanks for robbing my grandfather of his last year of high school. He joined early just to kick your ass. He didn't pay nearly the price of what many of his generation paid but still, missing out on graduating high school and instead watching enemy planes crash into ships isn't a nice life.

Sincerely,

BSD American

What's with blacks always wanting these reparations? I didn't own them! I wish they'd just get over it. Amirite?