Which I agree with entirely. The linear model is used for all safety limits because it's the most conservative model. We know it's not right but because we have nowhere near enough data from experiments to define the "real" model we use the conservative linear assumption.…

The International Committee On Radiation Protection, who are the international authority on this, disagree:

while existence of a low-dose threshold does not seem to be unlikely for radiation-related cancers of certain tissues, the evidence does not favour the existence of a universal threshold.…

That's exactly the problem. 10 units is not 10 times worse than…

Martin Lindberg – I rather suspect you dont live on the Coast – or any coast.

chris/bloodsplat -???????
(Never run soul/pyschic/spirit stuff past me thank…

but you could be called fucking stupid.

The dismissive tone indicates that perhaps 2/7 days of sanity is better for the soul than a lifetime of paranoia.

I won't be quibbling about what generated it until after I've got everyone to higher ground.

Depends on what generates the tsunami: one of the larger ones to roll over Big O was apparently a ‘slump’ tsunami, triggered by a big earthquake much further south. There are quite massive trenches off the coast of Big O, and when a side…

10 units of radiation dumped on one person is 10 times worse (for that person) than 1 unit dumped on 10 people. The chances are that one of those 10 will still likely get hit with the "damage".

It…

Which is fun to say because it's impossible to prove or disprove since most cancers go unnoticed.

The problem with low dose radiation exposure is we just don't know how humans respond. One thing we do know is that…

Strikes me as a very useful analytical phrase...

The accepted model amongst most health physicists is the linear no-threshold response model discussed in this article.

That posits that any increase in radiation will cause an increase in cancers. “Background” radiation causes cancers – it isn’t safe, it’s just unavoidable. One particle track going…

I guess flick straight…

Hey, I may be fucking stupid, but I'm not dumb!

If there's an earthquake locally, I won't be waiting for the text – I'll be grabbing the emergency supplies (which includes a radio) with one hand and the family with the other, and heading up the nearest hill.

Um... okay.…

You're certainly not the first to suggest that, but it's extraordinarily hard to test experimentally.

However, what I was noting is that it's possible that we need a certain amount of…

life on earth has evolved to deal with low dose radiation and it seems that different animals respond differently.

Hmmm...I suspect that DNA mutations from random low level radiation events may even have sped up our evolutionary rates.

The active ingredients in the Clinicians range of products, when professionally recommended, will provide nutrient support for patients suffering from various conditions. It is not intended that the information describing the properties of the Clinicians range should imply a claim to cure any disorder. The philosophy of…

Here is what the iodine is supposed to do.

From the release:

Some are simply seeking products in case the fallout reaches NZ ” explains the Clinicians Technical Support Team.

I wonder who they might be???? Unidentified…

It's a really good discussion of low dose radiation hazards. For entirely understandable reasons everyone is nervous about radiation hazards but the problem is we really don't know what the effects are from low dose radiation exposure. We…

Yup, in those cases, it's unlikely the mobile network would be jammed, so texts…

Churnalism

Rinse and repeat

Yes, although I was thinking more of the situation where there is an earthquake elsewhere on the Pacific rim which wouldn't necessarily be felt in NZ, but which…

There are similar tsunami plans further south that…

NHK has long…

Waiting for a TXT alert would, in that case, be rather unwise.

Edit: It also suggested that anything at all you can do to get people to high ground is…

From the Bay of Plenty Times 1st October 2009
It was the first real test for the Tauranga and Western Bay tsunami warning system and evacuation plan.

While…

Outside those times,…

See this link discussing that in detail.

Precis:

What was an article about nuclear safety by a MIT risk…

Perhaps Thawte could do an electronic certificate system to show when someone claiming expertise actually has any.

(Disclaimer: Link…

Ken Ringtone?.
Fnah Fnah

At least 125,000 people have been evacuated from Fukushima, but you're right in that it's difficult to move people from Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi, or even…

That's the reason the cities could be rebuilt…

Also, it's one thing to evacuate a small bunch of ex-pats, quite another to evacuate the population of a region as densely populated as Japan.

9:07pm... Apple said it is delaying its launch of the iPad 2 in Japan. "We are delaying the launch of the iPad 2 in Japan while the country and our teams focus on recovering from the recent disaster," said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris.

[[http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110315004749.htm|Radiation hazard detected / Massive leak feared after fire at spent nuclear fuel…

Those French people had darker skin I believe.

6m22s of tsunami

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/13/some-perspective-on-the-japan-earthquake/

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7638

Dear All,
The situation in Tokyo appears grim today. Rumours are flying fast, and seperating fact from fiction…

Yup, the hydrogen comes from the water used as coolant, reacting with zirconium. But Karl Grossman has not suggested a better alternative, and there's a good reason they use water, it doesn't get activated by the radiation, so it can be vented.

Wki mentions what they are used for.

That'll learn me for not following your links while reading. So much information, so little time. Umm, any other excuses? I followed a link from Twitter. Doh!

Like Stephen (Hi Stephen, hope you’re keeping safe – Jack P), I’m still a bit worried, and not convinced the story we’re hearing is the whole story. The BBC was discussing how they are almost certainly trying to…

life goes on, but, the supermarket shelves are rapidly emptying due to panic buying. the threat of rolling power cuts is having…

Actually, that is not a fair comment. While I agree that the…

It also helps when you don’t have media being reduced to gibbering hysterical wrecks at the mention of the N-word that isn’t nigger or Nazi. I think there’s a serious need for…

I'm going to disagree with both of you. Hadyn's problem tweet came from a newspaper. I had the same problem reporting on the Christchurch quake: I stopped quoting Newstalk ZB after…

The Pacific islands near us seem to have been okay.

Gareth Morgan's hotel in Galapagos got trashed, but.

I thought that might be the case. Even the people in the innumerable first-person videos posted to the wires…

great title for a film/photography/story project of some sort

Interestingly during golden week, or Oban, I recall reading that 10 million people leave the Kanto plain (Greater Tokyo area – population 42…

I've just been watching a live stream of NHK,…

I'm still in Tokyo and I'm having troublr convincing some concerned folks that it's not a tsunami-ravaged, radioactive hellhole. Life goes on here in that ordinary, onwards Tokyo kind of way.

There's a big difference…