Radioactive Snails Crawl Up From Beneath 397
slidersv writes "Reuters is reporting discovery of radioactive snails in the area where three hydrogen bombs were lost by US in the 1966. The radioactive creatures crawl up from underground, where authorities suspect deposits of uranium and plutonium may be located."
Radio-Cochlear Overlords (Score:5, Interesting)
Jokes about radio-cochlear overlords aside, two things come to mind:
- If we don't survive nuclear holocaust: what creatures, more robust than we, will? (Reminds me of the thriving Chernobylian fauna [phschool.com].)
- What ungodly mutations must an organism undergo to thrive therein?
If the future is bleak for humanity, it may be less so for simpler, more robust organisms.Re:Radio-Cochlear Overlords (Score:5, Funny)
As George Carlin once said: "It's not the planet that needs saving, it's us!"
Re:Radio-Cochlear Overlords (Score:4, Funny)
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DU isnt regular uranium, learn the science, not the hype. There has been a study done on the effects of DU ammunition. The UNEP report concluded in 2001 and found that the hazards are minimal. The most significant hazard seems to be that someone will pick up a round and keep it in close proximity of their person for an extended period of time.
The interesting thing about the DU 'debate' is that most of the people who have done scientific studies on the DU will say 'it's not p
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Re:Radio-Cochlear Overlords (Score:4, Informative)
But it implies learning the science, rather than just believing what you've been told by a different source that the science is.
Depleted Uranium is certainly more radioactive than common dirt. According to the UNEP report which you referenced, and of which a summary can be found on the WHO web site [who.int] Depleted Uranium "is weakly radioactive and a radiation dose from it would be about 60% of that from purified natural uranium with the same mass." It's no use in current reactors, though we've been stockpiling it since the 50's for use in some future reactors which could make use of it. So far, none have, but it's still theoretically possible.
According to a pamphlet the US Army published for its troops back in the early 90's, DU can be relatively safe to handle, if all proper precautions are taken.
Unfortunately, I can't find the pamphlet right now, but, some of the interesting bits from it:
DU radiation is almost completely Alpha, with very little Beta, and no Gamma radiation. What this means is that it's very easy to block the radiation. A good lead-based paint (such as those used over the DU tank armor) is 100% effective. If the paint gets scratched (as tanks tend to do), covering the exposed area with duct tape will be safe enough.
It also recommends treatment for DU wounds, including making sure the wound is completely cleaned, and passing a geiger counter over the area to make sure everything was taken out.
The radiation in this case makes it actually safer, as it makes it easier to find, including areas sprayed with microscopic bits, as it has a tendency to powder if it passes through, say, steel.
The dusting is what makes it particularly dangerous to civilians: it passes through tanks on the battlefield, gets powdered, dissolves in rain, sinks into the ground, contaminates crops, and never goes away.
Uranium, whether depleted or not, is also highly toxic, on the level of arsenic, so it's not good to get into the bloodstream. (Of course, being shot with DU bullets will probably kill you long before you have to worry about it's poisonous effects.)
Re:Radio-Cochlear Overlords (Score:5, Informative)
After all, the stuff barely gives off radiation, and what it does emit is alpha particles, so what you really have to worry about is getting it into your system (it can't irradiate you through your skin). And if you do ingest/inhale it, you've got far worse things to worry about than radiation damage - heavy metal poisoning is far more likely.
What I don't get is why DU gets all the bad press, and white phosphorous, lead and napalm don't. Hell, if you want to look at the really nasty stuff left over after a war ends, landmines beat all of the above. Why does it only become "nasty" when it's got the slightest hint of radioactivity? Oh right, because it's that evil nucular stuff, so it must be worse... somehow.
Re:Radio-Cochlear Overlords (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, we hit reproductive maturity late. This means that the time period in which we might be subject to radiation damage, but can't start breeding yet, is longer. Say hello to sterility and genetic damage! We're omnivores at the top of the food chain, so irradiation of plant and animal life can work it's way up to us more easily, either by subjecting us to contaminated food, or to starvation if food sources die out. We're social animals, so we do not do as well when our numbers take a hit - individual humans can't survive alone as well as other animals. Our life expectancy is fairly long, so the likelyhood of getting cancer is higher in humans than in most other species, since cancer takes time to develop.
All of the above means that biologically we're particularly vulnerable to fallout. Culturally we're also reluctant to subject ourselves to risk - a 1 in 100 rate of radiation damage would be too high for humans to consider safe, and too small to affect most other species. Most animals in the wild don't live long enough to have to worry about cancer, and it takes an awful lot more radiation in the short term to aflict them with radiation poisoning or sterility.
In fact, in the case of the Chernobyl life, we evacuated low radiation areas where the lack of human presense is doing more good than the radiation is doing harm - either the animals are more resistant than us, or they are suffering losses to radiation that we would consider dangerous, but that local life doesn't especially notice.
Basically what it boils down to is that nuclear accidents and nuclear weapons are a larger problem for mankind than for the rest of the planet. I've always thought of radiation as more of a safety hazard than an environmental one.
Re:Radio-Cochlear Overlords (Score:5, Insightful)
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The animals that survived clearly did so because they were more intelligently designed.
(Apologies to the person who made this comment last time around)
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Beetle-mania (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, we just tell ourselves that to cover for the undeniable fact that we were scraped together at the end of the Creation project. And at that, using leftovers after the main project deliverable: implementing every imaginable variation on the the concept of "beetle".
And if that weren't enough to kick us in the anthropocentric nutes, it's clear we aren't even in the same league as termites, as measured by biomass or biodiversity. This caused some severe editing of the Creation story, particularly Genesis 1:25 - 1:31, which originally went something like this:
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, We have checked our deliverables and Creation is complete; so let there be Slack; and God saw the Slack, that it was good, and God separated the productive phase of the Project from the mindless consumption of excess Resources.
27 And the Slack was fruitful of all manner of Diversions of surplus Resources; so God said, Let Us celebrate; and the Celebration begat the Kegger, and the Kegger begat Beer, and Beer begat all manner of amusing indiscretions. And God saw that these where more or less Harmless.
28 Then God noticed that the Project had this left-over mud, and this He fashioned into a Man; but there was not enough fuel left over to fire the clay, so when Man was half-baked, He breathed upon Man and brought him to life.
29 Then Man opened his eyes, and looking on God asked, are You Me? And God said no. Then looking around, Man asked, Is all this for Me? And God said, No, you are only the half-baked leftovers, but if you study Creation perhaps you can become full-baked. And Man thought that this was Bad, and set out to Improve on Matters.
30 So Man said,let there be Self-Serving Sophistry, and let there be Willful Ignorance; and these were fruitful beyond all Measure, and so begat Religion, Conformism, Bigotry and every manner of Officious Narrow-Mindedness. And Man thought these were Good, and he wrote his version of Events down so that none would ever challenge Conformity without Fear.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good, except for the bits that came after the Beer which in retrospect looked somewhat Doubtful. And God, seeing that Slack had used up the Resources He needed to Fix the Problem, said, Let there be Muddling Through; Let there be Counting On Things Working Out in the End. And seeing that these were not Satisfactory and He was over budget anyway, God said, Let there be Hope. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
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Re:Radio-Cochlear Overlords (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution is NOT thwarted by allowing "weak" individuals to live. Evolution takes place when those better fit for reproducing reproduce *more* over the long term.
Evolution is not a progression towards a perfect being, it is a reaction to changing environmental stresses. You cannot stop it, it's not a Plan, it's just the mathematics of breeding played out over millennia.
Evolution depends on a varied gene pool to be able to pull new traits from. Removing any genes, even "bad" genes, from that tool box LIMITS the capability of our species to evolve. Taking your example to the extreme: kill off all genetic strains of humanity until you are left with a single "strongest" line. Now severely change the environment. The "strongest" is suddenly at a big disadvantage and our species, lacking any other lines to draw from, quickly becomes extinct.
How can so many of you people get this stuff so wrong? It's not like what I'm describing is a deep arcane mystery. It's obvious to anyone who spends more than two minutes considering how evolution works.
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In the 60's they worked out how much radiation damage was caused by things like hiroshima and basically worked out our tolerance by drawing a straight line on a graph.
The problem is chernobyl has shown that it isn't a straight line at all - at low-medium radiation exposure we are quite hardy - just as resistant as the animals around us (as you would expect - there's nothing 'special' about humans that would make us especially vulnerable). Predic
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But that isn't restricted to humans. Background radiation is pervasive, and every
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Funny enough, I was microwaving a bowl of soup yesterday and some sort of gnat-like bug flew in as I was shutting the door and I didn't notice until I saw it flying around while the microwave was running. For several minutes it just kept buzzing around like nothing bothered it at all. My only other experience with microwaved creatures was when I was young and a rather large spider (tarantula size) that had had me hunting my room for hours was finally caught- su
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The physics of microwaves.
The wavelength of your average microwave oven is about 1.2mm, so anything smaller than that can stay cool. Microwaves area also unevenly spread throughout the oven so there are areas where your gnat could have flown and not been affected.
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Kosher food (Score:4, Interesting)
Makes you wonder about the real history of Kosher laws in Judaism.
Re:Kosher food (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. I imagine the radioactive exhaust of the flying saucer that parted the Red Sea contaminated some of the food supply for at least the next 40 years. Coincidence?
Re:Radio-Cochlear Overlords (Score:5, Funny)
Cue very slow W 0 0 T.
Re:Radio-Cochlear Overlords (Score:5, Interesting)
Or more importantly, in a fight, who would win:
- Radiocative snails
- Sharks with frickin lasers on their heads
Mod "Interesting" for snails, "Informative" for sharks.Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Oh no (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Oh no (Score:5, Funny)
Snails on a Plane?
Re:Oh no (Score:5, Funny)
*Must* *resist*.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:*Must* *resist*.... (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't this now be 'our radioactive underlords'
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The French.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Lame and overused joke extravaganza (Score:3, Funny)
Clearly, they are in cahoots with the giant bug that was found on Google Maps, not too long ago.
Also, I understand they are radioactive...
But do they run Linux?
On a more serious note, I find this fascinating - radioactivity is one of the least understood and possibly most useful sciences in the world.
-Red
You forgot one (Score:2)
I'd put in the crappy 4 steps to profit one, but I don't feel like it right now.
no, no, no... (Score:5, Funny)
Much better.
It eats you, starting with your bottom (Score:3)
Just one little word of advice (Score:5, Funny)
If you're in Tokyo right now...
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!
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And what about Thule? (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought the TFA might be talking about the crash of the B52 in Thule. This incident refers to a 1966 crash in Spain whereas the Thule incident happened in 1968.
Perhaps scientists should check out the Thule site for similar happenings? More here: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot.php?biotID=5 [www.semp.us] and http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/low/dates/stories/ january/28/newsid_2506000/2506207.stm [bbc.co.uk]
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-George W. Bush
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Would make a great B-movie, though.
I for one (Score:5, Funny)
In, oh, just over twenty years, which is the time it'll take for the snails to crawl from Spain to menace Tokyo (which, as we all know, is the ultimate goal of everything radioactive, oversize or alien in this world).
Re:I for one (Score:5, Funny)
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My Favorite TV Show (Score:3, Funny)
Snail Jokes (Score:5, Funny)
ah, I get it... (Score:2)
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Top points will be awarded for the person who can tie in an 'escargot' pun.
Extra points if it bashes the french.
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Abdication of responsibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a kid, I was raised to clean up the mess I made, not entangle everyone else (financially) into the task. I broke a window, I worked it off.
It's all about responsibility...
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From TFA: The governments have yet to agree on who would pay for a clean up, according to a U.S. embassy spokesman in Spain.
...
Since 1966, the United States has helped pay for Palomares residents to be checked for signs of radiation poisoning.
Well, at least they are still talking about it. Even though I generally disagree with US foreign policy, in t
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Psst: the military is paid for by taxes.
Just thought you'd like to know that.
- RG>
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If some oil carrier spilled a large part of its cargo somewhere, say Alaska, would you say that the people living there should pay for the cleaning? After all, it was there for the good of these people as well and they knew the risks living near the coast...
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Spain was not member of NATO in '66. Spain only joined NATO after democratization in '82.
It's like people that think that Hawaii was part of US in time of Pearl Harbor.
Why were they flying nuclear bombs around in 1966? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not really good at history, so I'm wondering if someone could explain why in 1966 the Americans had B-52 bombers flying over Spain carrying 4 nuclear bombs.
Was this some kind of pre-emptive strike plan?
We're ICBMs not so good back then?
It seems to me that if you could damage and capture one of these planes, you could lay your hands on 4 nuclear bombs. Something that would be a bit of a security risk.
Re:Why were they flying nuclear bombs around in 19 (Score:4, Funny)
I, for one... (Score:4, Funny)
I, for one, didn't expect that.
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(It just had to be said.)
Re:Why were they flying nuclear bombs around in 19 (Score:4, Informative)
As for why it was there, the US had plenty of nukes in western Europe, with the idea that if a war broke out, those bombs would be headed into Russia. Where this particular plane was going I do not know, but it wasn't alone or out of place over Spain.
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Have you ever seen Dr Strangelove? Of course, it is a comedy, but it is based on a real situation: during cold war, there were constantly dozens of nuclear warheads flying around with the r
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According to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_arrow/ [wikipedia.org] there are 11 weapons known missing from the United States' arsenal. An enemy could just be a small group of people with a grudge. I guess it depends on the life of a nuclear weapon as to how much of a risk losing one is.
I knew the political answer to my original question, the cold war is pretty much common knowledge, but I'm more interested in how people currently rationalize the cold war in their heads. Also, given North Korea's recent activitie
"I feel like I could... like I could..." (Score:2, Funny)
wikipedia is your friend (Score:5, Informative)
The B-52s were performing Airborne Nuclear Alert duty under the code-name "Chrome Dome" where bombers would loiter near points outside of the Soviet Union (see Dr. Strangelove).
During this program a mid-air collision between a B-52 [wikipedia.org] and a KC-135 [wikipedia.org] tanker aircraft occurred during aerial refueling [wikipedia.org] over Palomares [wikipedia.org], Spain on the 17th of January, 1966.
Four megaton-range hydrogen bombs [wikipedia.org] were lost. Two were recovered eventually fairly intact while the other two underwent a minor detonation of the conventional explosives that were an integral part of them. The safety fuses in them prevented a disastrous nuclear detonation. However dispersion of both plutonium and uranium material over several hundred hectares resulted in thousands of tons of contaminated radioactive soil having to be sent back to the USA. The USAF decided this was too expensive to risk again, and it ended that part of the airborne alert program.
There have been several reports of contamination remaining in the area in recent years and currently U.S and Spanish governments have agreed to investigate the need for further clean up, this time sharing the costs.
Interestingly the search efford for the missing bomb out at sea was performed using the Bayesian search theory [wikipedia.org]. Eventually the bomb was recoved with the help of a local fisherman, who then claimed salvage rights from it under the high seas (usually a reward of a few percent of the actual value). But not before U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had publicly stated a value of no less than two billion U.S. dollars for it. The Air Force settled out of court.
There's also a bomb off the coast of Georgia (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sitting here on the outskirts of Tokyo... (Score:4, Funny)
And now I have to worry about not just nuclear excitement to the northwest, but also radioactive snails??
Well, I guess I can at least give a play-by-play when they---holy shit WHAT'S THAT?! NO NO NOT WITH THE TAIL NOOOOOOOO
NO CARRIER
This is mere ONE of about 14 other nuke accidents! (Score:3, Informative)
March 10, 1956, Over the Mediterranean Sea
July 28, 1957, Over the Atlantic Ocean
February 5, 1958, Savannah River, Georgia
February 12, 1958 Savannah, Georgia
September 25, 1959, Off Whidbey Island, Washington
January 24, 1961, Goldsboro, North Carolina
December 5, 1965, Aboard the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) in the Pacific Ocean
Spring 1968, Aboard the USS Scorpion (SSN-589) in the Atlantic Ocean
List does not include the much larger list of fully recovered and contained accidental weapons drops.
Some diverted material (noit in weapons) was CIA swapped to israel some think.
Enough weapons grade plutonium was mysteriously stolen from the US gov over the decades, according to accurate reports, to build over 20 H bombs.
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So, rather than having been repurposed as weapons, it could still be polluting the faciliti
Ah the snail... (Score:5, Funny)
No wonder it's snails (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Holy fucking shit (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe it was packed into the same box as the moon landing videos.
Re:Holy --deleted-- (Score:5, Informative)
three U.S. hydrogen bombs fell by accident 40 years ago may trigger a new joint U.S.-Spanish clean-up operation, officials said on Wednesday.
The hydrogen bombs fell near the fishing village of Palomares in 1966 after a mid-air collision between a bomber and a refuelling craft, in which seven of 11 crewmen died.
Re:Holy --deleted-- (Score:5, Funny)
Such simple times when you could have a crash, lose 3 nukes then shrug and say 'ah well, never mind'.
These days every ounce of anything remotely useful for bomb making needs to be accounted for just in case some nasty terrorist gets their hands on it. What went wrong? I want the good old days back when you could casually leave weapons of mass destruction lying around near fishing villages ('if they trawl one up they'll probably just throw it back, right?) and not worry about it.
Re:Holy fucking shit (Score:4, Informative)
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So I'm reading the wikipedia article you listed there, and I learn that they searched for one of the bombs using something called, "Bayesian search theory".
Who would have thought nuclear weaponry and anti-spam technology would be somehow related?
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Re:Holy fucking shit (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Holy fucking shit (Score:4, Funny)
1) The French eat snails.
2) The French eat anything with garlic on it.
3) You takes your basic radioactive snails and then you puts your garlic on them nice and even like. Then you can em and sell em in France
4) Profit!!!
And it's only Frenchmen, so who cares what this does to their DNA. Maybe you'll get a glow-in-the-dark superpowered French mime. And he can fly, if he falls off the Eiffel Tower.
Re:Holy fucking shit (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, you crash a plane containing hydrogen bombs.
Technically, none of the bombs were "lost". The B-52 that crashed (due to a collision with a mid-air refueling tanker) carried 4 B28 1.1 megaton thermonuclear bombs. One of the bombs landed intact in the ocean, another landed intact on land, both were recovered. The parachutes on the other two bombs failed to deploy and their conventional high explosive charges went off when they hit the ground. Thankfully, the safety systems of the bombs prevented a nuclear explosion, but the conventional explosions nevertheless distributed a large quantity of radioactive bomb guts over a wide area (thus the contamination problems mentioned).
P.S. RTFA. UTFI (Use The F'ing Internet).
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Wow. Sounds like a very dirty bomb.
I sure hope the terra-ists never get a hold of that sort of thing.
It seems countries with WMD capability have been testing dirty bombs far longer than "W The President" told me! I hope he and his cowboy posse are able to round up the wrongdoers responsible for messing up the escargot crop...wait, that's French, right? I hate escargot.
Signed, Wingnut
Re:Holy fucking shit (Score:5, Informative)
"How the fuck do you lose a goddamn hydrogen bomb?"
"Uh, you crash a plane containing hydrogen bombs."
More here: http://www.milnet.com/cdiart.htm [milnet.com]
From the above source: "[the second most serious nuclear weapons accident on record - MILNET]" (it also goes on to describe a similar accident at Thule).
Ooops we dropped the nuke... (Score:2)
When the Glomar Explorer salvaged the K-129 [wikipedia.org] (or tried to, according to the 'official version' they only got parts of it) the CIA lost some of the ICBMs as they were hauling the hulk up from a depth of 5500m. One of the missiles apparently fell several thousand meters to the oc
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Pretty slim, I'd say. The fission reaction will only be started correctly if everything is working right inside the bomb, i.e. it is armed and detonated intentionally. Otherwise, you'll just wind up with an imprompty dirty bomb.
and what effect it would have had... a tsunami perhaps?
Not likely. The energy required to power this event dwarfs even the most powerful nuclear weapon. Maybe if you stick
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Almost no chance of nuclear explosion. There simply isn't enough fissionable in a bomb to go up unless you set it off in one specific way, requiring timers to set off a series of chain detonators at exactly the right time, sensors to tell the timers when that time is, an altimiter to determine the bomb is at target height and charged batteries to power the whole
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No chance. Nuclear weapons have multiple safeguards against accidental detonation. Even if the impact detonated the high explosives in the warhead, it would not produce a significant nuclear yield. To produce the spherical shock wave needed to implode the plutonium core, a large number of initiators must all fire simultaneously, with very p
Cognitive dissonance (Score:3, Funny)
the safety systems of the bombs
Whuh? Does that mean someone can hand over a bomb to his adversary (under duress, perhaps), but neglect to tell him the safety's on? The first guy then pulls his reserve bomb out of his ankle holster and *blam* blows away the bad guy!
Re:Holy fucking shit (Score:4, Informative)
As reported by wikipedia, there are currently 11 such weapons known to be missing from the United States arsenal. It should be noted that these weapons are not the pitiful 1-5 kiloton weapons that Korea is detonating. It is likely they are 10+ megaton city-killers.
All that being said, I wouldn't worry too much about the situation. Anyone (or anything) with the capability to decipher how to actually set one of these missing weapons off is most likely nothing short of a country. Countries with nuclear weapons aren't something terribly dangerous, due to nuclear deterrance (MAD).
Add to that the fact that the US is unable to find these weapons (Some are presumed destroyed or at least damaged beyond repair)and I find it much less likely these will be a threat than, say, the car that passes by me when I walk to school.
Re: Holy fucking shit (Score:3, Funny)
Wonder what Freud would have said about that jargon...
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It should also be noted that the thing that separates a 1-5 kiloton weapon from a 10+ megaton city killer is tritium which has a relatively short half-life of ~12 yrs thus after 40 yrs approx. 12.5% of the original tritium is around to create that megaton nuclear event. Thus these bombs are no longer "city-killers". Though the uranium and plutonium primaries
Who lost them? (Score:2, Funny)
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