Radioactive water at Fukushima creeps toward Pacific

Deep beneath Fukushima's crippled nuclear power station, a massive underground reservoir of contaminated water that began spilling from the plant's reactors after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been creeping slowly toward the Pacific.

Now, more than two years later, experts fear it is about to reach the ocean and greatly worsen what is fast becoming a new crisis at Fukushima: the inability to contain vast quantities of radioactive water.

The looming crisis is potentially far greater than the discovery earlier this week of a leak from a tank that stores contaminated water used to cool the reactor cores. That 300-ton leak is the fifth and most serious from a tank since the March 2011 disaster, when three of the plant's reactors melted down after a huge earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant's power and cooling functions.

But experts believe the underground seepage from the reactor and turbine building area is much bigger and possibly more radioactive, confronting the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., with an invisible, chronic problem and few viable solutions. Many also believe it is another example of how TEPCO has repeatedly failed to acknowledge problems that it could almost certainly have foreseen — and taken action to mitigate before they got out of control.

Fishing ban continues

It remains unclear what the impact of the contamination on the environment will be because the radioactivity will be diluted as it spreads farther into the sea. Most fishing in the area is already banned, but fishermen in nearby Iwaki City had been hoping to resume test catches next month following favorable sampling results. Those plans have been scrapped after news of the latest tank leak.

"Nobody knows when this is going to end," said Masakazu Yabuki, a veteran fisherman in Iwaki, just south of the plant, where scientists say contaminants are carried by the current. "We've suspected (leaks into the ocean) from the beginning... TEPCO is making it very difficult for us to trust them."

To keep the melted nuclear fuel from overheating, TEPCO has rigged a makeshift system of pipes and hoses to funnel water into the broken reactors. The radioactive water is then treated and stored in the aboveground tanks that have now developed leaks. But far more leaks into the reactor basements during the cooling process — then through cracks into the surrounding earth and groundwater.

'"Nobody knows when this is going to end" —Masakazu Yabuki, veteran fisherman in Iwaki

About 1,000 tons of underground water from the mountains flows into the plant compound each day, of which 400 tons seep into the reactor and turbine basements and get contaminated. The remaining 600 avoids that area, but at least half of it is believed to eventually come in contact with contamination elsewhere before entering the sea, according to an estimate by Japan's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.

Scientists, pointing to stubbornly high radioactive cesium levels in bottom-dwelling fish since the disaster, had for some time suspected the plant was leaking radioactive water into the ocean. TEPCO repeatedly denied that until last month, when it acknowledged contaminated water has been leaking into the ocean from early in the crisis. Even so, the company insists the seepage is coming from part of a network of maintenance tunnels, called trenches, near the coast, rather than underground water coming out of the reactor and turbine area.

"So far, we don't have convincing data that confirm a leak from the turbine buildings. But we are open to consider any possible path of contamination," said TEPCO spokesman Yoshimi Hitosugi.

Water 'about to reach coast'

The turbine buildings at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant are about 150 meters from the ocean. According to a Japan Atomic Energy Agency document, the contaminated underground water is spreading toward the sea at a rate of about 4 meters a month.

At that rate, "the water from that area is just about to reach the coast," if it hasn't already, said Atsunao Marui, an underground water expert at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology who is on a government committee studying the contaminated water problem. "We must contain the problem as quickly as possible."

TEPCO, nationalized and burdened with the astronomical cleanup costs, has been criticized for repeatedly lagging in attempts to tackle leakage problems. As a precautionary step, it has created chemical blockades in the ground along the coast to stop any possible leaks, but experts question their effectiveness. After a nearly two-year delay, construction of an offshore steel wall designed to contain contaminated water has begun.

The utility has also proposed building frozen walls — upside down comb-shaped sticks that refrigerate surrounding soil — into the ground around the reactor areas, but that still has to be tested and won't be ready until 2015 if proved successful.

22.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Comet's solar 'death plunge' captured by NASA camera

A tiny comet sailed through space towards the sun on Tuesday, diving into it before vanishing. Moments later, the sun expelled a large solar belch.

The comet was captured on video by NASA and European Space Agency's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Scientists created video of the comet's dive toward the sun using the SOHO images.

Astronomers said the comet's dive, which some are calling the 'death plunge,' was a case of solar synchronicity: The comet was too small to cause such a big disturbance on the sun. They suggest that the crash of the comet and the timing of the solar flare were just a big cosmic coincidence.

According to observers from monitoring site SpaceWeather.com, the comet is a member of the Kreutz family. Kreutz comets are remains from a single giant comet that broke up many centuries ago. They get their name from 19th century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz.

22.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Ambitious space plan could put Canadian on the moon

Canada could be sending its first astronaut to the moon under an ambitious long-term plan being developed by a group of space agencies around the world.

A return to the moon within the next two decades is part of the recently updated Global Exploration Roadmap — a far-reaching plan developed by more than a dozen space agencies.

Canada is among the 14 space agencies participating in the International Space Exploration Coordination Group, which first started developing the strategy in 2007. The first roadmap was released in 2011 and the latest update was made public last week.

An early phase of the plan would put a new space station into orbit around the moon, and use it as a staging point to ferry astronauts back and forth.

It's part of a roadmap that lays out human and robotic missions in the solar system over the next 25 years, with the other components including a moon settlement and a proposal by NASA to capture a near-Earth asteroid.

Jean-Claude Piedboeuf, the director of space-exploration development at the Canadian Space Agency, says there's an agreement among space agencies that returning to the moon is a stepping stone to a more distant target: Mars.

There would be human missions in the lunar vicinity and on its surface until 2030, at which point sights would be set on the red planet.

"You need to master how to land on a planet — and the moon can be a test bed for that and how to live on the surface for a long time," said Piedboeuf, who noted that Canada is chairing the ISECG this year.

First moon visit since 1972

The CSA official suggested astronauts could again be moon-bound in about 15 years. It would be the first human visit to the shining orb since 1972, when NASA astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt spent 75 hours there.

This time, there could well be Canadian visitors.

Their specialty: robotics.

"We're proposing a vision where Canada could have an astronaut, effectively a Canadian who will be in lunar space, either in orbit or on the moon and could operate a Canadian rover in the same way that Canadians operate a Canadarm on the space station," Piedboeuf said.

"We can foresee in the future doing the same type of thing on the moon, with the Canadian industry building a rover — and a Canadian astronaut could be the operator of this rover."

The first stop on the pathway to Mars — the International Space Station — will continue to be manned until at least 2020.

Canada is working to get one of its two active astronauts, David Saint-Jacques or Jeremy Hansen, to visit the space station between 2016 and 2019.

"For the next 10 years, we can expect that human space flight will still be in an Earth orbit," Piedboeuf told The Canadian Press.

"But then, starting maybe in 2025 — that's really a guess because there's a lot of work — then we can start thinking about human orbit around the moon and basically doing some activity there, then starting back on the surface of the moon."

The plan would see a small human settlement established on the moon. Astronauts could use it to mine lunar resources while also learning how to survive away from Earth.

The scenario proposes the use of a "Deep Space Habitat," which would serve as a staging post. The habitat, a sort of mini-space station, could be placed at a so-called Lagrange point near the moon.

Lagrange points are locations where gravity balances itself out and where a space station could theoretically be stationary.

"We think that around the beginning of the '20s," Piedboeuf said, "we will have the capacity to send humans into lunar space."

Piedboeuf pointed out that Canada has been working with NASA and other space agencies to develop the next generation of rovers, which would go to the moon and Mars.

"In terms of human exploration, we are building the building blocks, the capability that we need to support human exploration," he said.

22.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Comet's solar 'death plunge' captured by NASA camera

A tiny comet sailed through space towards the sun on Tuesday, diving into it before vanishing. Moments later, the sun expelled a large solar belch.

The comet was captured on video by NASA and European Space Agency's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Scientists created video of the comet's dive toward the sun using the SOHO images.

Astronomers said the comet's dive, which some are calling the 'death plunge,' was a case of solar synchronicity: The comet was too small to cause such a big disturbance on the sun. They suggest that the crash of the comet and the timing of the solar flare were just a big cosmic coincidence.

According to observers from monitoring site SpaceWeather.com, the comet is a member of the Kreutz family. Kreutz comets are remains from a single giant comet that broke up many centuries ago. They get their name from 19th century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Google Street View gets a case of 'pandamonium'

[View the story "Google Street View gets a case of 'pandamonium'" on Storify]

Storified by CBC News Community· Fri, Aug 23 2013 15:45:15

Cbc

Google Street View has expanded its growing collection of zoo images to include six more locations, with a focus on pandas. 

I swear i will be dreaming about #Pandas tonightilluminati™

Two things I'm obsessed with: #DoctorWho && #pandas.Renna

Giant panda cubMikko Brander

We couldn't agree more! RT @ZooWildMan Red pandas are incredible!! #animalsrock #redpanda instagram.com/p/dLBsIwC42z/Red Panda Network

However, Toronto's pandas -- Er Shun and Da Mao -- may have arrived a little too late to get in on the action.

They are nowhere to be found in a Street View search of the city's zoo because Google already went through there in the fall of 2012. The pandas arrived about six months later in March 2013.

The pair arrived to much fanfare as they were the first pandas in the city since the 1980s.

Giant pandas land in Toronto, get airport greeting from PM ... - CBCMar 25, 2013 ... Prime Minister Stephen Harper greeted a pair of giant pandas at Toronto's Pearson International Airport today, mar...

#omnomnom says #giantpanda #torontozoo #zoo #panda #eatallday #sleepallday #cute #animals @ Giant... instagram.com/p/dQCckAr6rz/Jenn Wu

Do you remember the pandas? The 1985 Toronto visitThey were cute, they were smelly and they were riding in the back of the passenger compartment of a CP Air flight. Their names were Qing ...

Far simpler technology can capture cute videos like this:

@missglamorazzi LOOK HOW CUTE #pandas vine.co/v/hOp1pgnzOhuMartha Douhne

Should Google Street View come back to the Toronto Zoo to capture pandas Er Shun and Da Mao? 

Where do you want to see Google Street View go next?

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Radioactive water at Fukushima creeps toward Pacific

Deep beneath Fukushima's crippled nuclear power station, a massive underground reservoir of contaminated water that began spilling from the plant's reactors after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been creeping slowly toward the Pacific.

Now, more than two years later, experts fear it is about to reach the ocean and greatly worsen what is fast becoming a new crisis at Fukushima: the inability to contain vast quantities of radioactive water.

The looming crisis is potentially far greater than the discovery earlier this week of a leak from a tank that stores contaminated water used to cool the reactor cores. That 300-ton leak is the fifth and most serious from a tank since the March 2011 disaster, when three of the plant's reactors melted down after a huge earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant's power and cooling functions.

But experts believe the underground seepage from the reactor and turbine building area is much bigger and possibly more radioactive, confronting the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., with an invisible, chronic problem and few viable solutions. Many also believe it is another example of how TEPCO has repeatedly failed to acknowledge problems that it could almost certainly have foreseen — and taken action to mitigate before they got out of control.

Fishing ban continues

It remains unclear what the impact of the contamination on the environment will be because the radioactivity will be diluted as it spreads farther into the sea. Most fishing in the area is already banned, but fishermen in nearby Iwaki City had been hoping to resume test catches next month following favorable sampling results. Those plans have been scrapped after news of the latest tank leak.

"Nobody knows when this is going to end," said Masakazu Yabuki, a veteran fisherman in Iwaki, just south of the plant, where scientists say contaminants are carried by the current. "We've suspected (leaks into the ocean) from the beginning... TEPCO is making it very difficult for us to trust them."

To keep the melted nuclear fuel from overheating, TEPCO has rigged a makeshift system of pipes and hoses to funnel water into the broken reactors. The radioactive water is then treated and stored in the aboveground tanks that have now developed leaks. But far more leaks into the reactor basements during the cooling process — then through cracks into the surrounding earth and groundwater.

'"Nobody knows when this is going to end" —Masakazu Yabuki, veteran fisherman in Iwaki

About 1,000 tons of underground water from the mountains flows into the plant compound each day, of which 400 tons seep into the reactor and turbine basements and get contaminated. The remaining 600 avoids that area, but at least half of it is believed to eventually come in contact with contamination elsewhere before entering the sea, according to an estimate by Japan's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.

Scientists, pointing to stubbornly high radioactive cesium levels in bottom-dwelling fish since the disaster, had for some time suspected the plant was leaking radioactive water into the ocean. TEPCO repeatedly denied that until last month, when it acknowledged contaminated water has been leaking into the ocean from early in the crisis. Even so, the company insists the seepage is coming from part of a network of maintenance tunnels, called trenches, near the coast, rather than underground water coming out of the reactor and turbine area.

"So far, we don't have convincing data that confirm a leak from the turbine buildings. But we are open to consider any possible path of contamination," said TEPCO spokesman Yoshimi Hitosugi.

Water 'about to reach coast'

The turbine buildings at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant are about 150 meters from the ocean. According to a Japan Atomic Energy Agency document, the contaminated underground water is spreading toward the sea at a rate of about 4 meters a month.

At that rate, "the water from that area is just about to reach the coast," if it hasn't already, said Atsunao Marui, an underground water expert at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology who is on a government committee studying the contaminated water problem. "We must contain the problem as quickly as possible."

TEPCO, nationalized and burdened with the astronomical cleanup costs, has been criticized for repeatedly lagging in attempts to tackle leakage problems. As a precautionary step, it has created chemical blockades in the ground along the coast to stop any possible leaks, but experts question their effectiveness. After a nearly two-year delay, construction of an offshore steel wall designed to contain contaminated water has begun.

The utility has also proposed building frozen walls — upside down comb-shaped sticks that refrigerate surrounding soil — into the ground around the reactor areas, but that still has to be tested and won't be ready until 2015 if proved successful.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Megaquake aftershocks pose lasting danger

Scientists are warning residents of Vancouver and other cities in earthquake zones to take heed of new evidence that megaquake aftershocks can pose a great danger for years, even hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre of the original earthquake.

Even though Greater Tokyo is located 400 kilometres from the epicentre of the devastating magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan's east coast in March 2011, the incidence of smaller earthquakes in the city of 36 million people jumped 10-fold after the megaquake, say U.S. and Japanese seismologists in an article in the journal Science Thursday.

Today, two years later, the rate of earthquakes in Tokyo is three times higher than it was before the megaquake, likely because of the stress caused by the relatively distant quakes on the fault located beneath Tokyo.

Santiago, Chile, saw a similar increase in earthquakes after the February 2010 magnitude 8.8 megaquake, which was also 400 kilometres away.

"Aftershocks just one magnitude smaller than their main shock are common, and there is a small probability that an aftershock will be larger than its main shock," wrote Ross S. Stein of the U.S. Geological Survey and Shinji Toda of Tohoku University. "Thus, they cannot be dismissed as harmless."

The authors noted that Tokyo and Santiago have each been nearly destroyed twice by earthquakes since being founded around 1600.

They also warned that other cities within reach of earthquakes — such as Vancouver, Taipei, Manila, Lima and Jakarta — could suffer a similar fate.

"Mine is a humbling science. We cannot predict earthquakes and we cannot tell the public what they really deserve to know — which is how big, when and where," Stein told CBC News.

'This is particularly true for the West Coast of Canada...so be prepared'

—Ross S. Stein, U.S Geological Survey

"This is particularly true for the West Coast of Canada with the great subduction earthquake off somewhere in its future, something along the same scale as what Chile and Tokyo have just experienced. And so the best we can do is say there is a modest probability, over let's say the life of your home mortgage, of experiencing that earthquake, so be prepared."

Megaquakes assumed to reduce subsequent risk

The recent findings about aftershocks haven't yet been incorporated into national assessments of earthquake risk, Stein and Toda note.

In fact, models used to assess earthquake risk usually assume that a megaquake reduces the risk of subsequent earthquakes by relieving accumulated stress on the fault at the epicentre, they said.

They hope that will change with the launch in 2014 of an open model of earthquake risks and consequences called the Global Earthquake Model.

The researchers suggested that better post-earthquake monitoring and modelling based on the results is needed around the world in order to help scientists understand whether the increased rate of earthquakes in cities like Tokyo after a megaquake some distance away means that a large quake is more likely to hit the city itself.

"Although we cannot predict earthquakes, we are better at predicting aftershocks and earthquake sequences and that information allows us to take hazards more seriously," Stein told CBC News.

Without this knowledge, Stein said, governments will be reluctant to act.

Carlos Ventura, a professor of civil engineering at the University of British Columbia, said if a megaquake were to strike California, its aftershocks could be felt in Vancouver years later.

"They're going to last longer and there's going to be more of those," Ventura said, adding that while B.C.'s monitoring system is a good start, officials should modernize building codes to account for aftershocks.

Ventura also said international data is difficult to import because monitoring models around the world are not standardized.

"We say earthquakes do not recognize borders, but our models do," he said.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Astronaut feared drowning on spacewalk

As his helmet filled with water, blurring his vision and cutting off radio communications, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano says his thoughts quickly turned to the possibility of drowning during a recent spacewalk outside the International Space Station.

Parmitano gave a blow-by-blow account of the terrifying incident, which occurred on July 16, in a blog published this week.

"I can't even be sure that the next time I breathe I will fill my lungs with air and not liquid," Parmitano wrote on the European Space Agency's website.

"It's vital that I get inside as quickly as possible ... but how much time do I have? It's impossible to know," he wrote.

NASA, which oversaw the spacewalk, is investigating the cause of Parmitano's helmet malfunction. Pieces of the failed spacesuit are due to be returned to Earth for analysis aboard an upcoming SpaceX Dragon cargo ship or Russian Soyuz capsule, NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said.

Parmitano was setting up an internet cable between the space station's Unity connecting node and the Russian Zarya module when he noticed liquid collecting inside his helmet.

"The unexpected sensation of water at the back of my neck surprises me - and I'm in a place where I'd rather not be surprised," Parmitano wrote.

NASA says the water did not come from a drink bag in the space suit. Engineers are focusing on the suit's backpack, which holds a water storage tank for a liquid-cooled undergarment.

A week before the incident, Parmitano had become the first Italian astronaut to walk in space.

Maintenance work

In a far more routine spacewalk on Thursday, two Russian cosmonauts floated outside the $100 billion research complex, which flies about 400 kilometres above Earth, to do some maintenance work.

Flight engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin left the Russian Pirs airlock at 7:34 a.m. ET for their second spacewalk in less than a week.

Their main goal was to remove a laser communications system from outside the Zvezda module, the crew's main living compartment, and install a swiveling platform for a future telescope.

Yurchikhin and Misurkin removed the laser system, which had been used since 2011 for high-speed data transmissions from Russian science experiments to ground stations. But they ran into a problem as they prepared to install a base for a pair of cameras that comprise the new telescope.

The cosmonauts realized that if the base was attached as planned, the camera's steerable platform would have been misaligned, said a translator monitoring communications between the spacewalkers and Russian flight controllers.

Flight controllers told the spacewalkers to skip that work and bring the equipment into the airlock. They moved on to their next task — inspecting covers on antennas used to dock Europe's unmanned cargo ships after one cover was seen floating away from the station on Monday.

Halfway through their work tightening screws to keep the remaining covers in place, Russian flight controllers changed their minds and told the cosmonauts to retrieve the telescope platform from the airlock and go ahead with the installation.

"They realized the camera platform would only be out of alignment in the yaw axis, not in the roll or pitch axes," NASA mission commentator Pat Ryan, referring to the three directions of motion, said during a TV broadcast of the spacewalk by the U.S. space agency.

"They determined it would be possible to correct for that misalignment ... by using the pointing platform," he said.

Thursday's six-hour spacewalk came six days after a 7½ hour outing by Yurchikhin and Misurkin, which set a Russian record. That spacewalk, as well as one that the cosmonauts made on June 24, were primarily to prepare the station for a new multipurpose Russian module that is scheduled for launch in December.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within a year

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who took over the helm of the world's largest software company from founder Bill Gates, will retire within the next 12 months.

Microsoft Corp. did not name a successor. The company said it is forming a search committee, which will include Gates, and Ballmer will stay on until a replacement is found.

"There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time," Ballmer said in a statement released by the Redmond, Wash., company.

Microsoft shares shot up eight per cent in morning trading following the news.

It's been less than two months since Microsoft announced a sweeping reorganization of its business in an attempt to reignite competition with faster-moving rivals such as Apple and Google.

Scrambling to transform business

Response to the newest version of Microsoft's flagship Windows operating system has been lukewarm. And Microsoft, along with other companies that thrived in the era of personal computers, are scrambling to transform their businesses as people come to rely more and more on smartphones and tablets.

In his statement, Ballmer noted that the company is moving in a new direction and needs a CEO that will be there for the longer term.

Microsoft, he added, "has all its best days ahead."

Ballmer, 57, met Microsoft founder Bill Gates in 1973 while they were living down a dormitory hall from each other at Harvard University. He joined Microsoft in 1980 to bring some business discipline and salesmanship to a company that had just landed a contract to supply an operating system for a personal computer that IBM would release in 1981.

Ballmer worked at Microsoft for 33 years

Ballmer, a zealous executive prone to arm-waving and hollering, did the job so well that he would become Gates' sounding board and succeed him as CEO in 2000. He has worked at Microsoft for 33 years, matching the tenure of Gates, who left the company in 2008.

"It's a tad surprising, but every other business head has been rotated out," said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. "They swapped out all their segment heads over the past few years. The only one they haven't changed is the CEO."

Though investors cheered the news on Friday, Gillis cautioned that it could be a "tough 12 months" for the company.

The obvious successor — former Windows head Steven Sinofsky — got booted by Ballmer, he said.

Sinofsky left the company shortly after the launch of Windows 8 last year.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Canadian Netflix users get access to 'My List' feature

Canadian Netflix users are finally getting access to a feature many have been requesting since the video streaming service first launched here in 2010: the ability to build a list of movies and TV shows to watch later.

Now the question is, will they use it?

On Wednesday, Netflix began rolling out My List, which replaces a similar feature called Instant Queue that was previously available in the U.S.

A select number of users in Canada, the U.S. and Netflix's other markets had been testing My List for nearly two years. The long testing period was meant to refine My List as much as possible, given that users liked the idea of Instant Queue but didn't really use it very much, according to Netflix's director of product innovation Michael Spiegelman.

Users would populate their queues with tons of titles but didn't get around to watching most of them.

"What happened is a lot of the titles on the list would become quite stale and you'd end up looking at the same things again and again at the front of the list and as a result, it wasn't that useful to people and they'd tend to automatically scan by and start looking for other things," Spiegelman said.

"They wouldn't go to it first as a place to play titles, they wouldn't think of it as kind of their go-to location to find something to watch."

So Netflix took its time to ensure that My List was actually being used by the testers before releasing it widely. Spiegelman said they wanted to see how features are used over the long term.

"We would launch it, test it, see what happens, be able to make adjustments, retest those, see what happens, and then we're testing and refining things on the algorithm level — which feeds the personalization — as well as the interface level," he said.

Netflix thinks My List — which can store up to 500 films and TV titles for later viewing — will be more popular than Instant Queue because it now sorts and highlights bookmarked titles based on a user's viewing history and the service's recommendation engine.

"We sort the list using that personalization technology and promote the titles to the top of the list that we think will be most relevant to you," Spiegelman said.

"That kind of adds a lot more dynamism and freshness and personalization to the list than we had before."

On Netflix.com, My List will also highlight titles that are set to expire soon from the streaming service (that feature may be available on Netflix's other platforms eventually).

While My List is now available for some users, Netflix says it may take a couple of weeks until the feature is fully rolled out.

22.12 | 0 komentar | Read More