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Microbes for Bioremediation
The San Francisco Chronicle has a piece discussing current efforts to clean up nuclear waste sites with microbes. Current treatment procedures generally involve pumping out the contaminated groundwater, filtering it, and pumping it back, which is rather expensive.
We think that 1 soldier a day dying in Iraq is so bad, whereas that death rate is lower than the murder rate in Washington,D.C. or close to it.
You know, back in 2001 I used to argue that this 9/11 attack wasn't a big deal. If we make a conservative estimate of one 9/11 attack per year, we're looking at numbers comparable to swimming pool deaths. So we should spend as much money on this as we spend each year to keep people from drowning in swimming pools.
I didn't get very far with that argument. The quantitative risk in deaths per year isn't always the appropriate thing to be concerned with.
One soldier dying in Iraq IS bad. It's not that I think there's a risk of myself or someone I know dying in Iraq, and I'm more likely to be killed by a giant meteorite. But keep in mind that the figures reported by the media are the combat deaths. The number of noncombat deaths in Iraq is similar (jeeps flipping over, etc.). If you've noticed, not many people are making a big deal about the noncombat deaths compared to the combat deaths even though the risk assessment for both is about the same.
We expected the noncombat deaths. We were told to expect a smooth, orderly transfer of power, cheers from liberated Iraqis, lots of cheap oil, and a flowering of democracy across the region. In a large operation like that, you'd expect some car accidents, and friendly fire incidents. What you would not expect is a steady trickle of combat deaths. Each one underscores the fact that we were lied to.