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OSAKA (AFP) - Extremely high levels of radiation were detected in water leaking from reactor two of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, forcing the evacuation of workers, its operator said Sunday. A spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said the level of radiation found in the leaked water in the turbine room was 10 million times higher than it should be for water inside the reactor, indicating damage to the fuel rods. "We detected 1,000 millisieverts per hour of radiation in a puddle of water at the reactor number two. This figure is 10 million times higher than water usually...

Fukushima one week on: Situation 'stable', says IAEA Shameful media panic very slowly begins to subsideBy Lewis Page • Posted in Physics, 18th March 2011 12:56 GMTThe situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan, badly damaged during the extremely severe earthquake and tsunami there a week ago, continues to stabilise. It is becoming more probable by the day that public health consequences will be zero and radiation health effects among workers at the site will be so minor as to be hard to measure. Nuclear experts are beginning to condemn the international hysteria which has followed the...

From the BBC:2226: The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, quoting a senior official of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, said the US made the offer immediately after the disaster damaged Fukushima No 1 nuclear plant. According to the unnamed senior official, US support was based on dismantling the troubled reactors run by Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) some 250 km (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo. However, the government and TEPCO thought the cooling system could be restored by themselves, the report said. Am I reading this right?Our government demanded that the Japanese dismantle - that is, permanently remove - over five gigawatts...

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Back when I was a kid, I joined the Navy. Testing indicated I was relatively bright for a volunteer, so they sent me off to Nuke school. It seemed that I was gonna be able to put together all that Trigonometry, Calculus, Chemistry, Physics and other crap I learned in High School to some kind of good use. First step was BEEP school. Basic Electricity and Electronics. After that there was Specialty schools. I wanted Electronic Technician or Communications, but they wanted Electricians more than that, so I got Electricians Mate school instead of my first two choices. Then came...

I repeat, there was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity from the damaged Japanese reactors. By "significant" I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on - say - a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background