This user mdsolar submits a lot of stories. All of them are negative about nuclear power. Isn't that an interesting pattern?
This user AC makes a lot of ad hom attacks and defensive comments about nuclear power. Isn't that an interesting pattern?
I don't think this is about "agreeing". He actually stated a fact. We know what happens when we irradiate a region to the point where most people leave. It happened in Chernobyl.
Right now, Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl is one of the greatest nature conservation parks in the world. It was a very clear proof of the fact that humans are one of the greatest if not the single greatest threat to biodiversity, and a far greater threat than significantly elevated background radiation combined with some of the more harmful isotopes that penetrate key organs and remain.
Whoever modded OP -1 troll needs to take a long look at findings at Chernobyl.
I've looked at the findings at Chernobyl and it is not clear proof of that at all.
It is clear proof that exposure to radionuclides prevents basic biological functions of things like fungi and bacteria that may appear insignificant at the top of the food chain, but not at the bottom of it where life is very active.
Trees are not rotting at Chernobyl, this is very bad. Apart from the accumulating fire danger that threatens to spread the fall-out elsewhere around Europe and the Northern Hemisphere it indicates that some very basic biological functions have been halted at Chernobyl and aren't likely to restart any time soon. If you are going to talk about bio-diversity then you can't just point to all the fluffy creatures and say "see, they're fine" you also have to look at the slimy creatures that live in the dirt because they are the ones that are important to us beyond sentimental reasons.
In this case, there is a reasonable case that radiation is a factor. However, you'll find mutations in butterflies all the time, and some percentage of those are due to natural radiation. Funny you won't see similar studies based on exposure to sunlight. You'll find it has an impact, but the press won't really care so much.
That is because we are talking about radionuclide effect vs raditation effect, not a natural effect. It is clear that there is a mutagenic process at work here that is above normal rate of natural mutations. Coupled with mutagenic effects recorded in species of farm vegetables and flowers this is an indication that bio-accumulation of radionuclides is occurring and that there is an increasing rate of uptake because more and more mutations are being recorded. Additionally more radionuclides are being released everyday.
It takes years for these radio isotopes to move through the food chain, however they are there now and remain until they completely decay. I would expect the next species affected are lizards and birds. The gestation rate of cancer in humans is roughly 6 years, so we should unfortunately see the first cases of disease from direct exposure to radionuclides start appearing in humans (probably children) around 2017.
After that, the random time factor introduced by the process of bio-accumulation becomes a factor and I would expect a statistical increase of other types of cancers in humans to gestate some years after that followed by genomic effects decades after that. Funding for collecting this data at Chernobyl was cut after 10 years, iirc, so there is no hard data to understand what will happen in the human population after that. I'm not stating an opinion for or against nuclear power, I'm just pointing out this is how these radio analogues work in the foodchain and that this is what happened.
My top Internet Explorer annoyances:
* secure browsing. Trying to download a file with that enabled is frustrating.
* startup delay. IE shows the UI and lets you start typing in the location bar but shortly after loads startup pages over top of what you may have just typed.
Ignoring the politics of this discussion for a moment, what we are seeing here is the process of bio-accumulation expressed in nature. These are the radiological effects on small species at the bottom of the foodchain and what we are observing is the amount of time it takes these radionuclides to be moved through the food chain whilst affecting these creatures.
This is because radio isotopes present to a metabolism like a micro-nutrient that can be utilized in the body, for example pu-239 analogues iron so to a metabolism, it is used like iron would be. The creatures that consume it are themselves consumed by their predators.
Once ingested, radiation emitters are move somewhere in the body where that nutrient (analogue) is required. Alpha, beta and gamma radiation is emitted at various energetic levels as the radionuclide decays inside the body. The surrounding tissue absorbs the radiation and the gestation period for cancer, lasting roughly six years in humans, begins as a direct effect of exposure to the radio isotope. The indirect effect is on the genome and the DNA which is what I suspect we are observing now.
The affect of radionuclide contamination on humans is inevitable and the simple fact here is that the longer the radionuclides are release into the environment, the more there will be increasing the effects and variation.
Agreed, a very impressive trailer, maybe the best one yet. I've only got an hour or two per week to spend on games these days - I'd probably play if they had a usage-based subscription option instead of a fixed monthly rate.
At least for Thallium 208, it looks like it decays directly to Lead 208 [periodictable.com], also known, historically as Thorium D.
A little more research points to the spent fuel component of this fuel cycle actually Thaillium 233. I'd still like to learn more, however I thank you for the links.
I wanted to write a more detailed response however I'm tied up with things - I really appreciate your civility!
I agree that Slashdot's commenting system is good but it could be better. For example, I spent half my mod points a week ago on very long copy/paste spam touting someone's antivirus software. And there were many more copies that others had already downmodded. A couple possible ways to combat this: a) If someone posts something that's mostly a repeat of something else they've already posted, it should get automatically downmodded. b) if they are getting lots of downmods in succession, stop them from posting for awhile.
I've heard worse recordings, although I'd prefer a transcript.
Make sure your code does nothing gracefully.
