Cherenkov Radiation is a sonic boom for light. Single-celled extremophiles can deal with toxic uranium in very different ways. Karen Silkwood. Karen Gay Silkwood (February 19, 1946 – November 13, 1974) was an American chemical technician and labor union activist known for raising concerns about corporate practices related to health and safety of workers in a nuclear facility. She worked at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, United States. Silkwood's job was making plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods. She joined the union and became an activist on behalf of issues of health and safety at the plant as a member of the union's negotiating team, the first woman to have that position at Kerr-McGee. In the summer of 1974, she testified to the Atomic Energy Commission about her concerns.
For three days in November, she was found to have high levels of contamination on her person and in her home. Her family sued Kerr-McGee on behalf of her estate. Her life was featured in Silkwood (1983), an Academy Award-nominated film based on an original screenplay by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen. Nuclear Reactionaries - T. A. Frank. Grand old particles: Republican Senators Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee at a 2009 hearing on nuclear power. Photo: Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images. hen the White House released a budget proposal in February calling for $54 billion worth of federal loan guarantees for the construction of nuclear power plants, part of the idea was to woo the other side of the aisle.
Congressional Republicans had spent the better part of a year blocking a piece of climate legislation known as the Waxman-Markey Bill, and it was hoped that some nuclear seduction might soften their opposition. Even if the White House had no luck with the GOP, what would be the harm—really—of firing up some new reactors? Well, Republicans can love nuclear if they want. Nyone with even a passing interest in politics knows that Republicans stand for a few bedrock ideas. The only trouble was that the original idea remained forever an idea. So who paid for all of this bungling? The K Project. The Soviet Union's K project nuclear test series was a group of 5 nuclear tests conducted in 1961-1962. These tests followed the 1961 Soviet nuclear tests series and preceded the 1962 Soviet nuclear tests series. The Soviet Union test series summary table is here: Soviet Union's nuclear testing series.
Detonations[edit] The detonations in the Soviet Union's K project series are listed below. Electromagnetic pulse[edit] The worst effects of a Soviet high altitude test were from the electromagnetic pulse of the nuclear test on 22 October 1962 (during the Cuban missile crisis). The Partial Test Ban Treaty was passed the following year, ending atmospheric and exoatmospheric nuclear tests. This map of Kazakhstan shows the missile flight path (in blue) for the K Project warhead-carrying missiles.[12] The nuclear missiles were launched from the Kapustin Yar site east of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) in the upper left part of the map. Aftereffects[edit] Table notes[edit] References[edit] Warm seawater forces Conn. nuclear plant shutdown | World news. Ijerph-06-00174. Cute ‘Pluto-kun’ cartoon dispels plutonium fears. In the early 1990s, Japan's Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC) -- a nuclear energy research organization which is now part of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) -- created a pro-nuclear PR cartoon entitled "Pluto-kun, Our Reliable Friend.
" The aim of the animated film, which features the company mascot Pluto-kun, is to dispel some of the fears surrounding plutonium. Scroll down for a rough summary. + Video [~1:30] The video begins with Pluto-kun disguised as a ghost. He explains that much of the fear surrounding plutonium is due to misconceptions. He says that it is very unfortunate that plutonium is used in nuclear weapons [like the one dropped on Nagasaki]
. [1:30] Pluto-kun provides some basic information about plutonium. . [2:30] Misconception #1 -- Pluto-kun addresses the fear that criminals could obtain plutonium and build a nuclear weapon. . [4:00] Misconception #2 -- Pluto-kun addresses the fear that plutonium is deadly and causes cancer. Rare photographs of atomic bomb testing at Bikini Atoll. The majority of the photos depict the Baker shot of Operation Crossroads. Baker, the second test, was an underwater detonation and significantly more destructive (and radioactive) than the airburst Able shot, which is shown in the 5th photo (the print without a border). The Able shot utilized the so-called 'Demon Core,' which killed Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotkin in two separate criticality accidents.
The Baker shot produced no visible flash and was therefore safe to view; the Able shot was marred by being more than 700 yards off-target. Furthermore, because the Army/Navy Joint Task Force miscalculated the amount of light that the water vapor would absorb, the goggles provided to journalists and personnel blocked 99.9% of the light of the blast; the resulting press coverage labeled the test as "a dud," complaining that the bomb was nowhere near as spectacular as the destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might suggest. Radioactive Devices Found in Remote Caucasus.
National Geographic News January 31, 2002 The International Atomic Energy Agency has dispatched a team to a remote area near Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region in the Caucasus to help local officials find two portable devices believed to be highly radioactive, Science magazine reported in its current issue. "The crisis began with a fax on Christmas Eve from Georgian authorities" said the report in the February 1 issue of the magazine. "Three men gathering wood near Lja on December 2, 2001 had found two containers that appeared to have melted the nearby snow.
IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency based in Vienna, Austria, dispatched three investigators to Tbilisi on January 4, but heavy snows and rough terrain prevented them from reaching the objects, agency spokesperson Melissa Fleming told National Geographic News. "Our delegation has been in the region since Sunday, primarily training a local team to secure these objects," Fleming said. Devices are "Almost Impossible to Move"
Marie Curie - Nobel Lecture: Radium and the New Concepts in Chemistry. Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1911 Radium and the New Concepts in Chemistry Some 15 years ago the radiation of uranium was discovered by Henri Becquerel1, and two years later the study of this phenomenon was extended to other substances, first by me, and then by Pierre Curie and myself2. This study rapidly led us to the discovery of new elements, the radiation of which, while being analogous with that of uranium, was far more intense. All the elements emitting such radiation I have termed radioactive, and the new property of matter revealed in this emission has thus received the name radioactivity. From that time onward numerous scientists devoted themselves to the study of radioactivity. Far from halting, the development of the new science has constantly continued to follow an upward course. Viewing the subject from this angle, it can be said that the task of isolating radium is the corner-stone of the edifice of the science of radioactivity.
Radiation found at 12 sites in Litvinenko case | World news. The number of sites contaminated in the public health alert linked to the death of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko has doubled to around 12, it was revealed today. The home secretary, John Reid, told the Commons the number was likely to rise again. Also today, a spokesman for the former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar, who fell badly ill after attending a conference in Ireland, said doctors believe he was deliberately poisoned.
"Doctors don't see a natural reason for the poisoning, and they have not been able to detect any natural substance known to them [in his body]," Valery Natarov said. Mr Gaidar fell ill at a conference on Friday and returned to Moscow earlier this week. Irish doctors initially suspected the 50-year-old's ailment was connected to his diabetes. Updating MPs about the inquiry into the death of Mr Litvinenko, who died of radiation poisoning last Thursday, Mr Reid stressed that the risks to public health were "very low indeed". A Poison for Assassins | Wired Science.
In the late 19th century, a then-unknown chemistry student named Marie Curie was searching for a thesis subject. With encouragement from her husband, Pierre, she decided to study the strange energy released by uranium ores, a sizzle of power far greater than uranium alone could explain. The results of that study are today among the most famous in the history of science. The Curies discovered not one but two new radioactive elements in their slurry of material (and Marie invented the word radioactivity to help explain them.) One was the glowing element radium. The other, which burned brighter and briefer, she named after her home country of Poland — Polonium (from the Latin root, polonia).
In honor of that discovery, the Curies shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with their French colleague Henri Becquerel for his work with uranium. Radium was always Marie Curie’s first love – “radium, my beautiful radium”, she used to call it. The Hardest Part of Making a Nuclear Bomb. The Case of the Living Dead Women - The Radium Dial Case in the newspapers - The Case of the Living Dead Women - The Radium Dial Case in the newspapers. Radium Girls. Radium dial painters working in a factory The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark paint at the United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey, around 1917.
The women, who had been told the paint was harmless, ingested deadly amounts of radium by licking their paintbrushes to give them a fine point; some also painted their fingernails and teeth with the glowing substance. Five of the women challenged their employer in a case that established the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers. United States Radium Corporation[edit] From 1917 to 1926, U.S. Radiation exposure[edit] The U.S. An estimated 4,000 workers were hired by corporations in the U.S. and Canada to paint watch faces with radium. Radiation sickness[edit] Many of the women later began to suffer from anemia, bone fractures and necrosis of the jaw, a condition now known as radium jaw.
Robley D. The Accident at Chernobyl: What Caused the Explosion? | Atomic Insights. On April 26th, 1986, at 1:23 am, Alexander Akimov did what he and thousands of other nuclear plant operators have been trained to do. When confronted with confusing reactor indications, he initiated an emergency shutdown of Unit 4 of the large electricity generating station near Pripyat in Ukraine. By doing so, he unwittingly initiated an explosion whose effects continue to be felt throughout the world.
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, it is appropriate to understand what went wrong and what has been done to prevent it from happening again. Initial Conditions Before pressing the AZ button – used to initiate an emergency shutdown – Akimov and his fellow operators were immersed in the conduct of a special test. The procedure was designed to prove that the reactor would be provided with sufficient cooling water even if a complete loss of power to the large electric generating complex occured while the emergency cooling system was inoperable.
Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iversen, Crown Publishing Group. The gripping and outrageous history of the Rocky Flats plutonium The gripping and outrageous history of the Rocky Flats plutonium bomb plant is intertwined with the author's personal narrative of growing-up in a beautiful landscape with deadly, but hidden contamination from the plant. I bought the book after hearing the author interviewed on NPR, thinking it would be a straight-on expose of Rocky Flats, the details of which had not been familiar to me.
But this is not that kind of book. Personal-narrative elements dominate the first half of the book and set the stage and give way to an examination of the problems caused by the Rocky Flats facility, and include compelling descriptions of terrifying accidents at the plant. The problems at and around Rocky Flats are viewed through the eyes of people who worked in the plant and lived nearby, as well as their families.
Overall: the book was a very enjoyable read and told a story so compelling that I had a hard time putting it down. Thermococcus gammatolerans. Thermococcus gammatolerans is an archaea extremophile and the most radiation resistant known organism. Along with the genera Palaeococcus and Pyrococcus, Thermococcus belongs to the Thermococcaceae family, sole family of the Thermococci (called "Protoarchaea" by Cavalier-Smith), a class in the phylum Euryarchaeota of Archaea.[2] Thermococcus species live in extremely hot environments such as hydrothermal vents with a growth optimum temperature above 80 °C.
Thermococcus and Pyrococcus (literally "ball of fire") are both chemoorganotrophic anaerobic required. Thermococcus spp. prefer 70–95 °C, whereas Pyrococcus prefer 70–100 °C. The resistance to ionizing radiation of T. gammatolerans is enormous. History[edit] Thermococcus gammatolerans was discovered in 2003 in samples collected from a hydrothermal chimney at the Guaymas Basin about 2,000 meters deep off the coast of California (27° 1' N, 111° 24' W). Mechanisms of resistance to radiation[edit] Applications[edit] Etymology[edit] Deinococcus radiodurans. Deinococcus radiodurans is an extremophilic bacterium, one of the most radioresistant organisms known.
It can survive cold, dehydration, vacuum, and acid, and is therefore known as a polyextremophile and has been listed as the world's toughest bacterium in The Guinness Book Of World Records.[1] Name and classification[edit] The name Deinococcus radiodurans derives from the Ancient Greek δεινός (deinos) and κόκκος (kokkos) meaning "terrible grain/berry" and the Latin radius and durare, meaning "radiation surviving". The species was formerly called Micrococcus radiodurans. As a consequence of its hardiness, it has been nicknamed Conan the Bacterium.[2] Initially, it was placed in the genus Micrococcus.
After evaluation of ribosomal RNA sequences and other evidence, it was placed in its own genus Deinococcus, which is closely related to the genus Thermus of heat-resistant bacteria; the group consisting of the two is accordingly known as Deinococcus-Thermus.[3] History[edit] Description[edit] Nuclear energy becoming less sustainable. Environmental costs: In a new study, scientists question the sustainability of nuclear power because of anticipated declines in high-grade uranium ore. Above is Australia's Ranger uranium mill in Kakadu National Park. Credit: Gavin M. Rudd SYDNEY: The case for nuclear power as a sustainable alternative energy source is challenged by new evidence that greenhouse gas emissions from uranium mining are increasing. An Australian report, detailed this week in the journal Environmental Science and Technology argues that the availability of high-grade uranium ore will deplete over time making the fuel more environmentally and economically expensive to extract.
The find adds to existing concerns about nuclear energy, such as the problems of disposing of radioactive spent fuel and whether uranium processing leads to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Increasing environmental cost The ‘grade’ of uranium refers to how much of the element is found in the ore, an important economic factor in mining. Australian uranium blows to Antarctica. Nuclear winter easy to produce. Plutonium hitchhikes in groundwater. 'Uranium-eating' bacteria to clean-up radioactive sites. Cleaning up depleted uranium with fungi. How Bacteria Clean Up Nuclear Waste. After an Atomic Bomb Test: Rare and Unpublished LIFE Magazine Photos From 1955. Man pulled over for being radioactive. Why are these trees made of uranium? Finland's Crazy Plan to Make Nuclear Waste Disappear. Jelly Sea Creatures Disable Entire Nuclear Power Plant. 5 times we almost nuked ourselves by accident. In 1958, America accidentally dropped a nuclear weapon on two little girls' playhouse.
Robot Sub Surveys Radioactive Ponds So You Don't Have To. This insanely sinister infographic illustrates the power of the world's strongest nuke. For Frequent Fliers, a Radiation Risk in the Skies. A US government program secretly injected people with plutonium. 5 Foolproof Methods for Detecting Secret Nuclear Bomb Tests.
The 6 Most Reckless Uses of Radioactive Material. Japan's nuclear exclusion zone. Cynical Synapse. The nuclear merit badge / The Christian Science Monitor. The Radioactive Boy Scout. Smoke Detectors and a Radioactive Boyscout. International Nuclear Event Scale. Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant. Marie Curie: Why her papers are still radioactive. How many people live near a nuclear power plant in the USA? | ZEIT ONLINE.