Background (on) radiation
Your article is misleading and contains factual errors. Geobacteraceae species have been identified as uranium metabolizers since the late eighties. Uranium reduction is necessary in former mining sites because the uranium tailings, once oxidized by the sun and oxygen outside of the mine, become easily soluble in water and travel through the groundwater for many miles around the site.
Single-celled extremophiles can deal with toxic uranium in very different ways
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.
Karen Silkwood
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.
Nuclear Reactionaries - T. A. Frank
The K Project , or also Operation K , was a series of five high altitude nuclear explosions , nuclear tests performed by the Soviet Union during the years 1961 and 1962. [ 1 ] Their purpose was to test the performance of anti-ballistic missiles of the ABM System A and their resistance against nuclear blasts in their vicinity. Artificial radiation belts were created and their effect was measured. [ edit ] Description
The K Project
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.
Cute ‘Pluto-kun’ cartoon dispels plutonium fears
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.
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.
Radioactive Devices Found in Remote Caucasus
Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1911 Some 15 years ago the radiation of uranium was discovered by Henri Becquerel 1 , and two years later the study of this phenomenon was extended to other substances, first by me, and then by Pierre Curie and myself 2 . 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.
Marie Curie - Nobel Lecture: Radium and the New Concepts in Chemistry
A van belonging to Russian radiation safety experts is parked near a grounded BA jet at Domodedovo airport, Moscow. Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AP 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.
Radiation found at 12 sites in Litvinenko case | World news
A Poison for Assassins | Wired Science
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-119213" title="Pierre and Marie Curie in the laboratory" src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/07/9460157944dad7218abce0282460518_640x400.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="400" /> 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.In January, 2009, my wife happened to hear a Public Radio review of a wonderful play. These Shining Lives is a luminous play about the women who worked at Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois in the 1930s. Catherine Donohue finds work painting watch faces at Radium Dial. These Shining Lives, which started a new run at the Raven Theater starting Ocober 25, 2009, follows the ten-year span between Catherine's first days as a watch painter to her final days as she fought fiercely though dying from brutal radium poisoning that painfully degenerated her bones. She was the principal plaintiff in a lawsuit that sought to hold the Radium Dial Company accountable for its negligence.
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.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 ConditionsFukushima
Thermococcus gammatolerans is an archaea extremophile and the most radiation resistant known organism. Discovered in 2003 in a submarine hydrothermal vent in the Guaymas Basin about 2,000 meters deep off the coast of California, Thermococcus gammatolerans thrives in temperatures between 55–95 °C with an optimum development at approximately 88 °C. The optimal growth pH is 6, favoring the presence of sulfur (S), which is reduced to hydrogen sulfide ( H 2 S ).