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Photos Show The Lingering Radioactivity At Chernobyl And Fukushima (mashable.com)
mdsolar quotes a report from Mashable: In areas of Russia and Japan that have been decontaminated by the government, allowing for people to move back, life has tried to continue but evidence of radiation remains. Greg McNevin, a photographer working with the environmental group Greenpeace, set out to visualize the radiation that persists in many of these areas. The resulting project juxtaposes radiation data onto long exposure photographs from the affected regions. Using a programmable LED rod that when connected to a Geiger counter (a device that measures ambient radiation) translates the analog signal into a light display, McNevin walked through long exposure photographs he was taking of affected areas, showcasing the live radiation data his counter was reading.
for it to be meaningful they should show other parts of the world for comparison.. I'm sure they'd find some inhabited places with higher levels of natural radiation.
I agree with the only knowledgeable person in that 'article' that this is just a type of art, with no scientific or social usefulness. Without the data being recorded (was the sensor calibrated?) known, realising how useless official 'safe limits' for radiation are (often lower than naturally occurring background radiation), and the Linear Non-Threshold (LNT) model having been discredited decades ago, one can at most say that they put it together in a pretty fashion.
But since we're talking about Greenpeace here, the PR mouthpiece for both the fossil fuel and solar/wind industries, I'm not shocked at this.
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
update your fears
I am quite sick of mdsolar's crap. How does this shill get all his diarrhaea on Slashdot's front page?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Not that anybody would expect Greenpeace not to be biased in a particular way but the best way to promote a personal agenda is to combine fear with emotional impact. Take peoples' own irrational fear of radiation, a modern day boogyman owing to ignorance, throw some semi-science at it, then slap on some implicit 'what about the children?' and voila. 5/11 photographs in that "article" are of schools/nurseries, and another three are homes/gardens. It's the same way anti-bacterial products advertise; by implying a danger to your family *in your very own home*. What are the actual radiation levels compared to the global background? How do they compare to a routine long-commute flight? Or an x-ray? We must have excellent survival rates and adjusted life expectancy data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how do they compare? They were directly nuked after all.
Why take any notice of these Geenpeace jerks? They have lied in the past and when caught out claim that it is justified, in order to draw attention to an issue (what they consider an issue anyway).
"but evidence of radiation remains"
If you find yourself somewhere that evidence of radiation doesn't exist then you aren't on this planet! what would be shocking is if there was no evidence of radiation.
The picture would be much more interesting.
To give a non-specialist a good understanding of what radiation levels were detected they should calibrate in units of banana equivalent dose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
How did this get on /.? Seriously how much aging hippie liberal douch political cock was sucked here. This isn't science. This isn't technology. This is pure politics of the most dishonest and partisan form. Time to find a new tech news source.
While this is an interesting experiment we'd need to see some sort of baseline to place any meaning on this. I propose walking around some nuclear power plants that didn't have a reactor core breach. I have a few more suggestions, like walking around a coal fired power plant, in a few of those big old granite buildings that governments like to construct for people to gather, some rocky beaches, and just some random homes.
I recall reading that the radiation levels in New York's Grand Central Terminal exceeds that considered acceptable by the Nuclear Regulatory Committee for a nuclear power plant. With regulations like that it's no wonder the nuclear power industry is in such a sad state today.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Why I can't view the full images without scrolling? Who edits these pages?
Coal never killed anyone that wasn't expecting it. Safe. dependable. Coal. It's from God.
My house will show higher radiation than the homes in Japan as mine is brick and stone. All of this is simply art with an attempt to deliver alarmist reactions to information that is not calibrated nor has a reference.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Considering Greenpeace's main anti human mission/message, you'd think they'd be happy with anything that kills or drives people away.
For example, there's no place in Europe that has such a flourishing, healthy ecosystem as the area around Chernobyl.
-Styopa
Chernobyl is not in Russia, it's in Ukraine. Unless this article was written in the early 80s. Slashdot is becoming a cesspool of misinformation.
After the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, people were pointing out radiation found all over the state. The problem was, they had no baseline. The radiation was naturally occurring and had been there all along. At the nearby Limerick power plant, they installed monitors on the entrances to make sure workers were not getting exposed at work and taking radioactive dust home with them. One worker keep setting the sensors off, when he came to work. Here his house had a serious radon problem in the basement. This is what brought the problem of radon in homes to national attention. This shows the problem with detecting and cleaning accident contamination. How do you know you have taken the area back to the natural level before the accident, when it has been radioactive all along?
This scumbag mdsolar works for the fossil fuel industry. So stop with this evil anti-enviornment anti-nuclear pro-fossil-fuel propaganda.
It looks to me like the lights have been added to the photos after they have been taken. Look at the two photos of the nursery school. The first one is a closeup and there are lights floating in the air. Assuming it would be real measurements, it would be complete lines of LEDs, which would be either on or off. However there is no sign of any off LEDs even in the closeup with plenty of ambient light.
The second picture of the nursery school shows the LEDs going through an area in the shades. However no light is emitted on the carpet or anything else, which would indicate a light source while the picture was taken.
The next picture from the garden in Ryozen does seem to have ambient light from the LEDs at first glance. However only those in the back of the photo. Looking at shadows, it seems that there is a road with street lights to the left of the photo and the ambient light from the LEDs is in fact streetlight, which passes behind the building to the left. If the LEDs would light up the surroundings, they would do so in the shadow of the building too. Again the unlit LEDs are missing. The plants behind the "fence of LEDs" are clearly visible and the view isn't disturbed in any way by rows of unlit LEDs.
One of the largest exposed Granite lumps in the world is near my house and the "background" radiation near it is higher than whatever the "normal" average background level is supposed to be. It would be interesting to see the same types of photographs taken in the large state park and recreation area that surrounds it. Without any sort of reference values or calibration they are completely useless for any real purpose except propaganda.
"Measuring radiation in the air and translating it to a dose of radiation in the human body is extremely complicated work that this project doesn’t take on directly."
I read this as "I have no idea what I'm talking about".
The fact that radioactivity occurs natural and that many of these levels could be above a natural level. They may also be of little concern for people in general. Background radiation is all around us, and I think because its not contained in a enclosed area but rather in a outside environment. I think build up is much less problematic. The question is, will anyone really want to develop in either place, and will people take a chance on living there?
It seems to me like a Schrodinger's cats fight. You are both right and wrong at the same time.
You just do not take into account there is no such thing like two types of radiation: internal vs external. These are only the exposure to the actually four types of radiations: high-energy photons (UV, X-rays and gamma-rays), beta radiation (electrons in fact), alpha radiation (helium nucleus or any other atom fragments) and neutrons. Some of these are actually blocked by the skin and a very thin layer of it in fact and others are not.
But skin cancer is due to exposition to high-energy photons which are penetrating (think about why we use X-rays in first place).
However, it is true, if the radioactive isotopes are ingested, they are much more likely to reach, damage critical organs and cause death. It doesn't mean exposition to radiation without ingesting it is harmless.
So, in conclusion, both arguments are strictly wrong. Opening the box shows us both cats are dead.
Achille Talon
Hop!
You just don't like the guy's led gadget.
The same checking, scanning needs to be done around TMI - Three Mile Island
Cry all you want but the nuclear power revolution isn't going to happen. In the last 30 years only one reactor as been approved to be built. In the light of Fukushima don't expect another one to be approved ever again. This is the reality. Accept it nuclear fanboys, nuclear is fucking dead!