Non-​​nuclear, hydro­gen gas explo­sion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant releases radioac­tiv­ity into the atmos­phere. Source: time​.com

Many peo­ple are con­cerned about pos­si­ble expo­sure to radi­a­tion as a result of a poten­tial melt­down in the Fukushima reactors.

I’ve only got time for a quick cut here, and will say more in the com­ments below if asked, but I wanted to point every­one to an excel­lent blog post by Gia Mili­novich which explains some of the sci­en­tific issues involved:

From her Twit­ter feed (@giagia):

By me. What is radi­a­tion: http://​bit​.ly/​d​Z​P​Y5v The phys­i­cal effects of radi­a­tion: http://​bit​.ly/​h​w​X​AH5 Max lev­els in Japan: 12 mil­lisiev­erts

I espe­cially like her “Kylie Minogue vs. Mike Tyson” analogy.

A more for­mal expla­na­tion spe­cific to the Fukushima acci­dent is found in this Nature arti­cle. (more…)