Well, they always had access to it, but they just could not make it useful by mapping it to a specific identity.

I wonder how many unique individual DNA can be extracted on average by taking a sample of rain run-off from a busy city street? Let me coin the process here as "Gutter Diving."

Sorry, I have never seen a "repost" feature on Slashdot (you appear to have been here longer than me, so perhaps you can clue me in on that feature).

Furthermore, NYC is the most populated, densely packed city in the U.S. If you are going to maximize human suffering from a nuclear blast (or MOAB, per other posters), that is the primary target in the U.S. Since the point of my post was that having your own 777 could allow you to pick the optimal position to maximize damage, I believe my choice of NYC was reasonable.

I doubt Slashdot posts will be able to divert terrorists . . .

What if there is exactly just one flight left? How many repairs need to be made then?

Anyway, I think others have already put a lot more thought into this.

How hard would it be to make this plane "reappear" as another plane with a flight destination of New York City? It would seem like a legit flight (might have to make another plane disappear, but you have already seemed to master that trick once).

Of course, by then you have had time to retrofit the plane with your crude nuke you have put together (hell, you have the entire space of the 777 to fit the thing, so it could more primitive than the trinity test. . . ). You could then deviate the flight only at the very last minute to the best possible position to detonate for maximized damage (fighter jets would have no time to respond).

Probably being paranoid here, but why else would you need a 777 that could only be used for a short time before being discovered?

Are you sure? That sounds a bit geocentric to me . . .

Two things:

- Everytime we thought that a diety was responsible for something in our universe, we have been able create a mathematical model to replace that diety (e.g. Atlas).
- People can think of tons of crazy math that has no application to our universe.

Alright, perhaps we need to inform all these countries that they do, in fact, not have currencies . . .

An unstable currency is still a currency (Just because a "thing" has some attribute does not mean we have to create an entirely new "noun." That is why the English language has "adjectives.").

Two things:
-Crypto-currencies can still be awesome without "long term inherent stability" (are you sure you are a "geek?")
-You do realize that math covers everything in our universe and BEYOND. Accordingly, I would be careful about what constraints you put on it. . . as it is statistically more likely that your mind is just creating artificial constraints.

Irregardless, thanks for the links.

Other billionaires require some kind of impossibly complicated strategy to steal their billions. . .

Hope he takes the necessary precautions, though. . . Crypto-currencies are awesome. He deserves to spend the rest of his days in peace (For a crypto-genius, he could have picked a better pseudonym, though . . .).

I apologize if I find it silly that you are saying that water is more harmful (Stalin, no less) than diet pills that can kill you.

In fact, in consideration to the above link, I think Homeopathic diet pills are relatively safe and should be sold everywhere.

Thank you for the link. I will try to find the underlying data the article is based on. A key attribute I would look for would be the "uniformity" of the readings. When the contamination source is thousands of miles away, a uniformed air distribution could be assumed. With reports of "hot spots" and contamination maps indicating a wide range of contamination densities, I would think a different approach would be required. Either way, it looks like the areas where over 4 million people most at risk (Fukushima and Miyagi) were excluded. I really wish they would just throw all this data at a place like Google Data Explorer.

I think you are assuming the primary "vector" of contamination is the air and are discounting cumulative effects. Do all foods pull in Cs and Sr in equal proportions to ground contamination? Does Cs and Sr have the same biological half life in humans?

I want to know, but how much control do have when they decide not to tell.

Sr 90 has a molecular form soluble in water. Water is leaking from the plant everyday, so airborne models are not the full picture. Either way, please provide links to the model supporting these numbers. I am curious on how such models are created when beta emitters are so difficult to track.

Or perhaps they are more interested in Cs because they would have a hell of a time trying to measure Sr 90. Sr 90 seems the most dangerous, with a widely debated biological half-life.

Yes, or in this case, teeth are not developed yet (can they just remove a speck of tooth or do they need the entire tooth)?

Exactly my point. That is why I went off on CrimsonAvenger. And, no, I will not bother asking the manifestation of organized incompetence that is known as "TEPCO."

Thank you very much for the thorough explanation. This is why I come to Slashdot.

I see, thank you. So I guess Cesium 137 represents one of those "certain circumstances" that beta emitters can be measured. I assume the "degraded sensitivity" model would include some kind of 1/0.05 factor for the portion of gamma energy (i.e. oversimplified, maybe the process is 1/20th as sensitive to Cs 137 compared to a 100% gamma emitter).

Strontium 90, on the other hand, appears to be 100% beta decay (please correct me if I am wrong). Accordingly, I assume that whole-body counting process is not capable of detecting it (have to wait for baby teeth for that?). The question, I suppose, would be whether Cesium 137 could be a proxy for Strontium 90 detection. Both appear to be water soluble (Strontium 90, itself, is insoluble, but it can chemically react to create a soluble molecular form).

However, if we are talking about exposure through food, then the problem becomes much more complicated because of all the potential differences in biological interaction Cesium and Strontium may have (how much of this has been mapped out so far?). Is this understanding correct? Can anyone here add to this?

When it comes to internal exposure, I thought alpha and beta radiation were the more dangerous forms. Can anyone here confirm the "sensitivity" of quantifying alpha contamination through indirect detection, and how to assess beta emitter risk (any other methods that can detect it)? Any new technology companies addressing these on the horizon (that I can invest in)?