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Japan

Submission + - US Alarmed Over Japan's Nuclear Crisis

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Washington Post reports that the US is urging Americans who live within 50 miles of Japan’s earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to evacuate as Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that no water remains in a deep pool used to cool spent fuel at the plant and that radiation levels there are thought to be “extremely high.” Jaczko’s testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee suggests that damage to the plant is worse than the Japanese government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., has acknowledged. On Tuesday, the company said water levels in the three of the site’s seven fuel pools were dropping, but did not say that the fuel rods themselves had been exposed. Left exposed to the air, the fuel rods will start to decay and release radioactivity into the air and lack of water in at least one spent-fuel pool sparked fears of a worst-case scenario: the fuel could combust. “If there’s no water in there, the spent fuel can start a fire,” says Eric Moore, a consultant to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on nuclear plant design and safety issues. “Once you have that fire, there’s a high risk of radiation getting out, spewed by the fire.” The power company says a reduced crew of 50 to 70 employees — far fewer than the 1,400 or more at the plant during normal operations — had been working in shifts to keep seawater flowing to the three reactors now in trouble. Their withdrawal on Wednesday temporarily left the plant with nobody to continue cooling operations."

Comment Advanced Technology (Score 1) 642

by Barkmullz (#28896787) Attached to: Fewer Than 10 ET Civilizations In Our Galaxy?

Carlos Cotta and Álvaro Morales from the University of Malaga in Spain...suggest that using spacecraft that travel at a tenth of the speed of light, the colonization wavefront could take some 50 million years to sweep the galaxy.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

- Arthur C. Clarke
Space

Journal Journal: Second Test Launch of SpaceX Falcon 1

Journal by Mick Ohrberg
The second test launch of the SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket took place today at 6:10 pm PST. After successfully having completed launch, first stage separation (2m 51s), second stage ignition (2m 55s), fairing separation (3m 16s), and reaching an altitude of 300 km, the vehicle was seen entering what is referred to as roll oscillations (4m 30s). Shortly thereafter, telemetry was lost. The second stage is assum
Censorship

NFL Caught Abusing the DMCA 357

Posted by kdawson from the poorly-chosen-victim dept.
Implied Oral Consent writes "You know how the NFL puts up those notices before every game saying 'This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience, and any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited?' Well, Ars Technica is reporting that Wendy Seltzer thought that that was over-reaching and posted a video of the notice on YouTube. Predictably, the NFL filed a DMCA Take Down notice on the clip. But Ms. Seltzer knows her rights, so she filed a DMCA Counter Notice. This is when the NFL violated the DMCA, by filing another Take Down notice instead of taking the issue to court — their only legitimate option, according to the DMCA. Unfortunately for the NFL, Ms. Seltzer is a law professor, an EFF lawyer, and the founder of Chilling Effects. Oops!"

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