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We noted in August that some parts of Tokyo have more radiation than existed in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zones. And see this and this. There are indications that radiation levels are increasing in Tokyo. Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen took 5 random soil samples in Tokyo recently, and found that all 5 were so radioactive that they would be considered radioactive waste in the United States, which would have to be specially disposed of at a facility in Texas:

Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14...

Tokamachi City in Niigata Prefecture is located 205 kilometers west of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. It's not even under the plume according to Professor Hayakawa's map. Tokamachi is the green arrow. Fukushima I Nuke Plant is the red tag "D". (Map created at Jukurabe.) From Yomiuri Shinbun (1:37PM JST 8/22/2011): Tokamachi City in Niigata Prefecture announced on August 22 the result of the survey of radioactive materials in the soil in nursery schools and kindergartens in the city. 18,900 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found in the sludge at the bottom of the container that collects rainwater at a...

Mushrooms Join Growing List of Radioactive Threats to Japan’s Food Chain Mushrooms joined the threats to Japan’s food chain from radiation spewed by Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, as the country expands efforts to limit the effects of the disaster. Japan is under pressure to enhance food inspections as it has no centralized system for detecting radiation contamination. About two-thirds of Japan’s prefectures now plan to check rice crops, the Mainichi newspaper reported yesterday, citing its own survey. Half of Japan’s rice is grown within range of emissions from the crippled nuclear plant, and farmers are awaiting...

From Asahi Shinbun (3:02AM JST 8/11/2011): The survey by the Ministry of Education and Science has revealed that 296 schools in 12 prefectures have used beef from cows suspected of radioactive cesium contamination. 2 schools used the beef whose cesium level exceeded the provisional safety limit. According to the ministry, as of August 9, the meat from the cows that may have eaten radioactive rice hay was used in school lunches in 278 elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools, and special education schools, and 18 kindergartens, in 20 cities and towns in Japan. 127 schools in Yokohama City used...

From the blog of Dr. Bin Mori, Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences;SNIP "I want to tell you how some European countries have been disposing the trees that were contaminated by the fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident 25 years ago. Japanese timber trading companies started to buy Norway Spruce [Picea abies, also commonly called European Spruce]- "whitewood" - from Germany, Finland, and Sweden in great quantities, and the import continues to this day. "Compared to Japanese Cedar, Norway Spruce has less knots, whiter color-tone, and best of all it is cheaper than Japanese...

A ton of mushrooms containing ten times the safe level of a radioactive metal has been seized and destroyed by health chiefs. The Bulgarian consignment of dried wild mushrooms is thought to have been irradiated by caesium 137 from the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine 25 years ago. It was found by a UK Border Agency team looking for illegal immigrants and impounded before it reached the shops. Levels of radiation are measured in becquerels. The EU sets a maximum limit for caesium 137 in food of 600 becquerels per kilogram – double the level in Japan. But the amount of...

Is this the beginning of a new wave of deformed animals which could take over the world? An earless bunny born Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant could be the start of lots of strange goings-on in the land of the rising sn. Amateur footage posted on Youtube shows an earless mutant rabbit, and the person who made the video claims it was shot just outside the exclusion zone near Japan's crippled Fukushima plant. The development has given rise to fears that the nuclear radiation leak is worse than expected and human babies with mutations may be next on the list....

The federal government, in search of a place to dispose of its radioactive waste, is once again considering New Mexico. Three of seven sites under consideration for disposal of some of the lesser radioactive nuclear power plant waste are in New Mexico, including the possibility of adding it to the inventory of waste headed for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside Carlsbad. A second site near WIPP is also on the list of possible locations, as well as Los Alamos National Laboratory. The waste, much of it from machinery in old nuclear power plants, is technically categorized as "low level,"...

Japan Automakers Check Radiation On Car Exports Manufacturing.Net - April 22, 2011 TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese automakers have begun checking the level of radiation on cars to be exported from the country in a bid to ease worries among foreign consumers, an industry group said Friday. The automakers will inspect radiation inside cars and on tires before shipment, said Hirokazu Furukawa, a spokesman for the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association. No radiation has been detected so far on cars to be exported from Japan, he said. "Some foreign consumers voiced concern over radiation. We want to erase their worries by taking...

A plume of radioactive dust from Japan’s nuclear disaster is expected to drift over the United States mainland in the next few days. President Obama urged Americans to “plan their own exit strategy.” “While we don’t know exactly how dangerous this cloud may turn out to be there are steps you can take to protect yourself from exposure,” the President said. “For example, now would be a good time to visit the Southern Hemisphere. The plume is expected to bypass this region on its first trip around the globe. So, you should be relatively safe there.” Following his own advice,...

There seems to be little question remaining over whether or not there is a rather blatant agenda in some segments of the media when it comes to natural gas drilling in this country. For the latest example, one need look no further than Ian Urbina’s latest piece in the New York Times with the excitable title, Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers.Never one to soft sell a good meme, the Times skips right past any of the normal environmental hazards associated with energy exploration and goes right for… radiation! With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a...

“After my annual physical in late November, I was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer. After reviewing all the options with multiple physicians, I decided to take a proactive approach and have surgery, which will be performed December 20 at Johns Hopkins Hospital by Dr. Alan Partin. Thanks to routine screening, this was diagnosed very early and I expect a full and speedy recovery. I scheduled the surgery for the Monday before Christmas anticipating that the Senate would have recessed by that time and that there would be no disruption to my work in Oregon or Washington. However, it now...

When probing the deepest reaches of the Cosmos or magnifying our understanding of the quantum world, a whole host of mysteries present themselves. This is to be expected when pushing our knowledge of the Universe to the limit. But what if a well-known -- and apparently constant -- characteristic of matter starts behaving mysteriously? This is exactly what has been noticed in recent years; the decay rates of radioactive elements are changing. This is especially mysterious as we are talking about elements with "constant" decay rates -- these values aren't supposed to change. School textbooks teach us this from an...

As Germany's wild boar population has skyrocketed in recent years, so too has the number of animals contaminated by radioactivity left over from the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. Government payments compensating hunters for lost income due to radioactive boar have quadrupled since 2007. It's no secret that Germany has a wild boar problem. Stories of marauding pigs hit the headlines with startling regularity: Ten days ago, a wild boar attacked a wheelchair-bound man in a park in Berlin; in early July, a pack of almost two dozen of the animals repeatedly marched into the eastern German town of Eisenach, frightening residents...

<p>SNIPPET: "Officials with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and the Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee are investigating how a lead-lined safe containing radioactive material went missing from a storage area at the hospital."</p> <p>SNIPPET: "Gibb Vinson of the IEMA, the state agency that oversees the handling of hazardous materials, said the safe could not be found after construction crews completed a construction project at the facility on July 13. Officials suspect the construction crew may have inadvertently thrown out the safe with debris headed for an area landfill. Vinson said the safe is not believed to have been stolen, although the state is still investigating."</p>

Radioactive fish near Vt. nuke plant deemed common MONTPELIER, Vt. — When a fish taken from the Connecticut River recently tested positive for radioactive strontium-90, suspicion focused on the nearby Vermont Yankee nuclear plant as the likely source. Operators of the troubled 38-year-old nuclear plant on the banks of the river, where work is under way to clean up leaking radioactive tritium, revealed this month that it also found soil contaminated with strontium-90, an isotope linked to bone cancer and leukemia. Three days later, officials said a fish caught four miles upstream from the reactor in February had tested positive...

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- A Vermont health official says it may be impossible to determine if the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is responsible for a fish containing the radioactive isotope strontium-90 being found in the Connecticut River. But radiological health chief William Irwin says there are strong indications Vermont Yankee was not the source of the strontium-9i0.

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- Vermont Yankee officials say that while cleaning up after a leak of radioactive tritium at the nuclear power plant, they found another, more potent radioactive isotope in soil near where the leak occurred

Siegfried Hecker, sitting in a cold conference room, was asked by his North Korean hosts if he would like to see their "product." "Yes," Dr. Hecker replied. "Do you mean plutonium?" Hecker, former director of the U.S. weapons lab at Los Alamos and familiar with the hazardous properties of plutonium, was surprised when two technicians carried a small red metal box into the room. Inside was a white wooden box containing two glass jars -- they looked like marmalade jars -- one containing a piece of plutonium metal, the other plutonium powder. He later asked if he could hold the...