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Earthquake In Japan, Large Hadron Collider, Genetically Modified Food, Space Junk, Messenger Probe To Orbit Mercury, Bio Fuel Breakthrough, And Much More…
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Panicking about the panic? You’re well overblowing the media response to the Japan nuclear crisis. At least the national nightly news I watch was just as emphatic as Justin in telling people not to take iodine and that they don’t need to worry about the fallout from the moment there were reports of run on the pills.
Hey bfos
You are correct that the media has settled into the correct response, but in the beginning it was full of graphs showing the “cloud of radiation” and when it would hit us. Thankfully things settled down quickly when they couldn’t find experts to come on and confirm their headline.
on the other hand…
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700121506/Radiation-from-Japan-can-hurt-you.html?s_cid=rss-33
I’m certain there was beer involved in this episode. This all zany guy cast minus the woman was like a Sunday night football dude-fest. It was great fun and all good.
On the subject of nuclear power, I’m generally for it. But, in recent times it makes me extremely uncomfortable given our new breed of Republicans that dominate the political spectrum who willingly thwart attempts at regulations, captive to their corporate lobbies and bottom line interests. They attack education; they attack science; they proliferate misinformation and disregard facts and data for their ideology. Will they invest in the generation that will be the future stewards of this awesome power. And, what do they care about transparency? Will they defend safety over profits? Look what they allowed happen to the financial industry.
As much as i am an advocate of nuclear power, with the potential of hundreds of new plants being built, I feel it requires a sound political infrastructure to manage safely. Ultimately, I don’t think we are in that place right now. Our house is not responsible enough to bring a gun into the home.
Justin, I agree that we should be building nuclear reactors in this country.
Thankfully, it will!
Right now, (with possible short-lived exceptions) the chain reactions have stopped.
But the current problems with cooling only involve what are called decay products.
On the other hand, some radioactive material has been released into the environment.
To my knowledge, none of these are long-lived isotopes.
In case anyone cares, the pre-print on the LHC time-traveling Higgs can be found here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1373
It’s actually not very interesting, and not actually very “news”, either.
Kaluza-Klein models and closed timelike curves, so 1980’s!
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0370-2693(85)90692-6
Justin, you’re right about the time-paradox not being avoided by restricting the types of particles which can time travel.
I couldn’t agree more!
I like what your guys said about GM foods.
Eric,
I’m in near-total agreement with you. Nuclear power would be safe if handled properly, but people have shown a tendency not to do the right thing. The difference between our views is that I don’t think humans have a choice; we have to embrace nuclear energy because we aren’t going back to a time without high energy demand. The question is whether we accept strong regulation to keep us safe—or we don’t, and end up turning over the planet to the next species.