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Japanese Use Wild Monkeys To Track Radiation
PolygamousRanchKid writes "Scientists in Japan are taking a novel approach to measuring the impact of radiation in a forest affected by the Fukushima nuclear crisis: enlisting the help of local wild monkeys. Takayuki Takahashi, a professor of robotic technology at Fukushima University, told CNN Wednesday his team was working on a collar fitted with a dosimeter to measure radiation levels that could be fitted to the monkeys before they are released back into the wild. Takahashi said the experiment would help researchers understand how radiation in the forest can affect human beings, as well as wild animals. While human scientists have been monitoring radiation levels from the air, the use of monkey 'assistants' will give them a clearer idea of conditions on the ground."
Isn't this kind of where King Kong comes from?
Anyone else want to gather about 100 irradiated monkeys and send them to PETA for some tlc?
if they gave them a room full of a million typewriters they'd actually just scream and hurl feces. That's probably what I'd do too.
You win my vote for most concise explanation for Slashdot ever.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Make the cunts responsible for the catastrophe go in.
As long as we send in everyone responsible. For example, the nuclear luddites would need to be sent as well. After all, they're the ones who prevented fuel rod recycling or the construction of new reactors.
But I imagine that somehow you'll only consider "responsible" some subset of people who you happen to disagree with. Responsibility only sticks to the enemy.
As someone who lives in a mountainous area of Japan, I will hazard a guess:
Japan is not exactly teaming with wildlife choices are:
Bear
Deer
Rabbit
Fox
Tanuki (a dictionary will tell you its a racoon-dog, more to the racoon end of the scale though)
Kamoshika (Hairy mountain goat thing)
Monkey
Throw everything out that hibernates.
Throw out everything that has terrain limitations in very dense bush, or steepness.
Throw out things that are difficult to catch or dangerous.
Think Kamoshika's are protected/endangered are pretty elusive and don't leave the mountains....
Monkeys seem like a good choice, and are probably slightly more similar to us (in case they start showing full blown radiation sickness) than an Andrias japonicus
...you know we're all fucked when the first one says "NO!"
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Japan reprocesses fuel rods. It has just completed building a large facility at Rokkaisho to deal with about 800 tonnes of fuel rods a year. Previously it sent fuel rods to Britain to be reprocessed as well as processing rods at a smaller prototype plant at Tokai. It does have a backlog of rods in store to deal with though.
Several reactors in Japan were built from the 1980s onwards -- the newest Japanese reactor, Tomari-3, a type-3 PWR in Hokkaido only started up for the first time in December 2009.
After all, they're the ones who prevented fuel rod recycling or the construction of new reactors.
Any citation to back that crap up? From what I understand fuel recycling has been hampered by technical complexity (breeder reactors), fear of uncontrollable proliferation in a full-scale Pu economy and non-competitivity in face of cheap uranium and oil. And the first obstacle in the construction of new reactors has always been that extending the operational life of existing ones, as was done in Japan and is currently done in Russia, is by far the most profitable move.
From my point of view one of the most serious obstacle against the credibility of nuclear energy is probably the smug and haughty attitude of those innumerable assholes ready to deny at any cost the shortcomings of their pet technology and to wipe off any legitimate concern as necessarily coming from so-called "ludites" and "joe-six-packs". Are you certain that you are not the blind idiot here?
Any citation to back that crap up?
Five plants under planning or construction were abandoned from 1994-2003. The decision to extend the life of the Fukushima plant came later. It's also worth noting that the next generation fast breeder plant at Rokkasho has experienced significant opposition to its opening despite being the only real way to recycle fuel rods in Japan (aside from the prototype plant at Joyo, which apparently is much smaller). And that the waste ponds at Fukushima did contribute to the severity of the accident.
From my point of view one of the most serious obstacle against the credibility of nuclear energy is probably the smug and haughty attitude of those innumerable assholes ready to deny at any cost the shortcomings of their pet technology and to wipe off any legitimate concern as necessarily coming from so-called "ludites" and "joe-six-packs". Are you certain that you are not the blind idiot here?
And why does that indicate anything other than a problem on your part? You might not have noticed, but this is Slashdot. We have a fine tradition of smug and haughty argument. The world manages to survive somehow. I don't see anything magical about nuclear power that should exclude it from public discourse or a treatment by the attitude.
Witness for example, the very post I was replying to. A smug and haughty AC demands that the very people "responsible" for the Fukushima accident be the subjects of testing rather than cute, fluffy monkeyys. I merely pointed out, in kind, the fundamental error in that statement, namely, that responsibility adheres to far more than the villains of the day.
Why don't you go ahead and complain to everyone doing this? Not just the people you disagree with? I see no reason why I should disarm my rhetoric, just because I happen to be on the wrong side in a public debate.