| Mar 13 | Hitachi color-codes fallout gauge |
| Hitachi Ltd. will start selling a color-coded radiation measuring device at the end of this month. The device can incorporate results of gamma radiation measuring within 10 meters into a picture taken by a built-in camera. The image can be checked connecting the device to a computer, Hitach said Sunday. (Japan Times) |
| Mar 12 | Japan tsunami debris, degrading into tiny bits of plastic, could pose health risk |
 One year after a massive tsunami ravaged the east coast of Japan, much attention is focused on the bottles, refrigerators and other debris washed out to sea and its pending arrival on the U.S. West Coast -- endangering ships, seabirds and other wildlife along the way.
Some experts, however, are more concerned about the debris we may never see but that might still pose a threat to human health.
As sunlight and waves break down plastic materials into pieces the size of fish food, new research suggests that fish may mistakenly eat the so-called microplastics and subsequently absorb chemicals into their bodies. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins, among other toxins, could then travel up the food chain and onto our dinner plates. (huffingtonpost.com  ) |
| Mar 12 | Online road maps eyed for disasters |
| Three major automakers plan to join an initiative to create online road traffic maps in preparation for future disasters, according to a nonprofit organization. In the Great East Japan Earthquake last year, widespread confusion resulted after road networks were seriously disrupted. ITS Japan, an NPO that promotes research and development for road transportation systems, will create online road maps based on information collected from the carmakers' members-only services and other companies. The road maps would carry integrated data from different sources, it said. (Yomiuri) |
| Mar 11 | What Fukushima accident did to the ocean |
 One year ago, a series of events began with an earthquake off the cost of Japan that culminated in the largest accidental release of radioactivity into the ocean in history.
We have to be careful and say "accidental" because in the late 1950s and early 1960s, 50 to 100 times more radioactivity was released worldwide as fallout from the intentional testing of nuclear weapons. The word "ocean" is also important, since Chernobyl in 1986 was hundreds of miles inland, so it had a smaller impact on the concentrations of radionuclides in the sea than was measured directly off Japan in 2011.
One year later, we have to ask, what do we know about Fukushima's impact on the ocean and levels of radioactive contaminants in water and fish? (CNN) |
| Mar 11 | 869 Tohoku tsunami parallels stun |
| When the Great East Japan Earthquake hit Tohoku on March 11 last year, quake researcher Masanobu Shishikura grabbed a tablet computer and called up the website of the U.S. Geological Survey in Virgina to search for information. Seeing projections of a preliminary magnitude of 8.8 and its location off Miyagi Prefecture, he immediately realized that what his team had long dreaded had finally become reality: a recurrence of the 869 Tohoku megaquake. He also knew what was coming next - massive tsunami that would engulf coastal areas in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures in 30 to 60 minutes, just as the previous disaster did more than 1,100 years ago. (Japan Times) |
| Mar 10 | For Japanese farmers, lessons from Chernobyl |
| Scientists from the former Soviet Union have arrived in Japan's Fukushima prefecture to advise locals on farmland decontamination. One of Japan's most valued agricultural regions, the area was irradiated when three nuclear power plant reactors melted down in the wake of last year's earthquake and tsunami on the country's northeastern coast. According to Japanese officials, 81,000 hectares of farmland are contaminated at a level above 5,000 becquerels per kilogram, the limit at which rice, by government decrees, cannot be planted. (VOA News) |
| Mar 10 | Moderate earthquake hits northeastern Japan; no tsunami warning |
| A moderate quake with a magnitude of 5.4 has struck northeastern Japan near the zone devastated last year by the massive earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear crisis. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage in the quake Saturday. No tsunami warning was issued. The U.S. Geological Survey says the earthquake struck at 2:25 a.m. local time Saturday (1725 GMT) about 24 miles (40 kilometers) north of Mito, the capital of the Ibaraki Prefecture on the main island of Honshu. (Washington Post) |
| Mar 09 | Japan ends whale hunt with less than a third of its target catch |
 Japan's Fisheries Agency said the fleet was on its way home from the Antarctic "on schedule", but admitted the catch was way down on expectations.
Whalers killed 266 minke whales and one fin whale, the agency said, well below the approximately 900 they had been aiming for when they left Japan in December.
"The catch was smaller than planned due to factors including weather conditions and sabotage acts by activists," an agency official said. "There were definitely sabotage campaigns behind the figure."
Militant environmentalist group Sea Shepherd had pursued the Japanese fleet for much of the season. (telegraph.co.uk ) |
| Mar 09 | Japan widens hunt for escaped penguin |
 Keepers looking for a runaway Japanese penguin widened their search Friday, asking birdwatchers on Tokyo's rivers for help in tracking down the escapee, five days after it broke out of an aquarium.
Staff at Tokyo Sea Life Park said they believed the penguin was alive and well and somewhere in the Japanese capital after receiving reports it had successfully fed itself.
"We haven't given up hope," Satoshi Toda of the park told AFP. (timeslive.co.za ) |
| Mar 09 | Miyagi city to build huge solar plant |
| The Iwanuma city government plans to build a mega solar power plant on farmland rendered useless by salt damage and subsidence as a result of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The plant, which would be one of the largest of its kind in Japan, would generate 15,000 kilowatts of electricity. A contractor will be selected later this month and work on the plant is expected to begin in July. Construction is expected to cost more than 5 billion yen and the city hopes to start operating the plant next year. (Yomiuri) |
| Mar 08 | Scientists survey seabed fractured by Japan quake |
Scientists on Thursday launched a mission to the seabed off Japan where a massive quake triggered last year's devastating tsunami, to get their first proper look at the buckled ocean floor.
Researchers from Germany and Japan are sending high-tech vehicles to probe the seabed up to 7,000 metres (23,000 feet) below the surface where the massive seismic shock hit last March.
"We want to deploy instruments on the sea floor and also map the area to see the large changes caused by the earthquake," said Gerold Wefer, who is leading the project.
His team said the data gathered from the month-long mission covering a rupture zone stretching hundreds of kilometres (miles) would help them understand the mechanism of huge quakes and the tsunamis they can spawn. (AFP) |
| Mar 08 | Big One 'likely to be shallower' |
 The focus of any major earthquake that strikes beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area is likely to be shallower than previously thought, a government project team said Wednesday.
The edge between the ground plate and the Philippine Sea plate underneath Tokyo is 5 or 10 km shallower than earlier projections, which could lead to Tokyo suffering a quake with an intensity of 7, greater than previously anticipated, the team said.
The team of scientists from the University of Tokyo and other organizations determined the correct depth of the tectonic plate junction by using a new quake-observing technique. (Japan Times ) |
| Mar 08 | Contaminated water may still be leaking into Pacific |
| A group of researchers has reported that radiation-contaminated water could still be leaking into the sea from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant. Data on radioactive cesium in the sea near the plant nearly a year after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered multiple meltdowns show a slower than expected decline in concentrations, according to the group, which includes Michio Aoyama of the Meteorological Research Institute. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it does not believe contaminated water is currently leaking into the sea. (Japan Times) |
| Mar 07 | Japan zoo tries to drum up alligators' interest in sex |
| A Japanese zoo has turned to rhythmical banging on traditional drums in a bid to encourage some enthusiasm for sex among lust-lacking alligators. Zookeepers said Wednesday they hoped the low booming sound produced by large Japanese "taiko" drums would spur lethargic Chinese alligators to begin mating because of its similarity to the animals' natural pre-coital cry. "After listening to the drum performance, the female alligator Susu cried a few times but the male, Yoyo, appeared not to be interested," said Hideaki Yamamoto from Sapporo's Maruyama Zoo. (AFP) |
| Mar 07 | Real-time online tsunami feed starts |
| Weathernews Inc. has started a new service that provides tsunami information online using radars that can detect the waves within 30 km of the coast and capture images of them as fast as 15 minutes before they reach shore. The radars are located at nine sites along the coastlines of Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures, which were devastated by last March's monster waves, Weathernews spokesman Hitoki Ito said Tuesday. The radars are able to detect tsumani that are at least 3 meters high and update their progress across the Pacific Ocean every two seconds, right up until the moment they smash into coastal areas, Ito said. (Japan Times) |
| Mar 07 | Tsuruga nuke plant sits atop major fault |
| An active fault running under reactors 1 and 2 at the Tsuruga nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture is much longer than previously thought and could trigger a 7.4-magnitude earthquake, larger than earlier projections, according to a team of government-affiliated researchers. "The worst-case scenario should be taken into consideration" as the Urasoko fault, now thought to extend at least 35 km, could activate faults on the south side of the Tsuruga plant, warned Yuichi Sugiyama, leader of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology's research team. (Japan Times) |
| Mar 06 | Spider silk spun into violin strings |
 A Japanese researcher has used thousands of strands of spider silk to spin a set of violin strings.
The strings are said to have a "soft and profound timbre" relative to traditional gut or steel strings.
That may arise from the way the strings are twisted, resulting in a "packing structure" that leaves practically no space between any of the strands. For each string, Dr Osaki twisted between 3,000 and 5,000 individual strands of silk in one direction to form a bundle. The strings were then prepared from three of these bundles twisted together in the opposite direction. (BBC) |
| Mar 06 | Miyagi city to build huge solar plant |
| The Iwanuma city government plans to build a mega solar power plant on farmland rendered useless by salt damage and subsidence as a result of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The plant, which would be one of the largest of its kind in Japan, would generate 15,000 kilowatts of electricity. A contractor will be selected later this month and work on the plant is expected to begin in July. Construction is expected to cost more than 5 billion yen and the city hopes to start operating the plant next year. (Yomiuri) |
| Mar 03 | Japan eyes new space mission to sample an asteroid |
Space engineers in Japan are scoping out an ambitious follow-up to the country's Hayabusa mission, which snagged samples from the asteroid Itokawa and returned them to Earth in 2010.
The successor spacecraft, known as Hayabusa 2, would carry out an aggressive study of another asteroid. The probe would drop off two landers, blast the asteroid with an impactor and send more samples back to Earth for close-up inspection.
Earlier this year, Tokyo-based NEC Corporation announced it had started designing the new asteroid explorer for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). (Space.com) |
| Mar 03 | German vessel sets out to explore quake-struck seafloor off Japan |
 One year after the devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Japanese oceanographers and geologists are teaming up with German scientists to uncover any traces that the the magnitude-9 quake might have left on the sea floor. The scientists will search for geomorphological evidence of what exactly happened on 11 March last year during the two-and-a-half-minute rupture that released massive amounts of seismic energy and triggered a deadly tsunami off the northeastern coast of Honshu. Scientists suspect that the extraordinary force of the tsunami, which killed some 20,000 people, may have been the combined result of the sea floor rising with a jolt by up to five metres and of quake-triggered slides of the Japanese continental shelf. (nature.com) |
| Mar 03 | Cancer, heart disease, stroke deaths plunge to 50-year low |
| Death rates from cancer, heart disease and cerebrovascular diseases that lead to strokes are at their lowest levels in more than half a century, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said earlier this week. The nationwide survey of the three main causes of death is conducted every five years. The rates are calculated per 100,000 people in different age groups living in each prefecture. Cancer was the No. 1 killer. Among men, the national rate was 182.4 out of 100,000 people, a 15.3 point drop compared with 2005. The rate among women was 92.2 out of 100,000, a 5.1 point drop. (Japan Times) |
| Mar 02 | Silence! Japanese researchers build speech-jamming gun |
 Meet the SpeechJammer, a disturbing piece of gadgetry that can remotely stop a person from talking.
A pair of Japanese researchers have create a solution to a problem we didn't even know existed: People talking too loudly, for too long, or out of turn. Their answer - a "gun" that silences the person speaking.
Dubbed the "SpeechJammer," this unique device, created by Kazutaka Kurihara of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Koji Tsukada of Ochanomizu University, uses a directional microphone to record the person speaking. (digitaltrends.com) |
| Mar 01 | Giant airbags could protect Japanese houses from earthquakes |
| As Japan continues to rebuild after last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami, one company has developed an ingenious new method to protect homes from the shaking-let them ride it out on a cushion of air. The method, developed by Air Danshin Systems Inc., the method is radically different than conventionally employed dampers and band isolation systems. When the quake strikes, it activates a sensor on the property. This sensor then activates a large air compressor that forces air into a bag situated in the home's foundation. (gizmodo.com) |
| Feb 29 | Japan struggles with tainted reactor water |
 Nearly a year after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami sparked triple meltdowns at reactors here, the taming of Fukushima Daiichi has become in large part a quest to control water. Foreign journalists on a tour of the Fukushima Daiichi compound Tuesday saw fields of squat, gray water-storage tanks; miles of orange, black and gray hoses; an AstroTurf-covered barge full of contaminated water; and white-suited workers huddled in a field preparing space for a new water container.
Water is crucial to the continued safety and stability of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, even after reactor temperatures fell at the end of last year to a level at which little radioactivity is being emitted. (Wall Street Journal |
| Feb 29 | Scientists to discuss latest Japan tsunami debris forecast |
 Tsunamis generated by the magnitude-9 earthquake in Japan last March dragged 3 million to 4 million tons of debris into the ocean after tearing up Japanese harbors and homes.
Scientists believe ocean currents are carrying some of the lumber, refrigerators, fishing boats and other objects across the Pacific toward the United States.
One to 5 percent of the 1 million to 2 million tons of debris still in the ocean may reach Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon and Washington and British Columbia, said University of Hawaii senior researcher and ocean current expert Nikolai Maximenko.
That's only a portion of the 20 million to 25 million tons of debris the tsunamis generated altogether, including what was left on land. (Fox News |
| Feb 28 | Asteroids face constant barrage of high-speed impacts |
 The first dust grains ever retrieved from the surface of an asteroid now confirm that these minor planets are constantly shaped by a continuous barrage of high-speed microscopic impacts, scientists find.
The Japanese asteroid probe Hayabusa succeeded in returning more than 1,500 grains of dust from the asteroid 25143 Itokawa when it parachuted into the Australian outback in June 2010.
Already, the samples from this 550 meter rubble pile have helped solve the longstanding mystery of where most meteorites striking our planet come from.
To uncover still more details about asteroids, scientists analyzed the size, mineralogy, shape and geochemistry of five dust grains recovered by Hayabusa. (MSNBC |
| Feb 28 | Dogs' feet give Japan scientists paws for thought |
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| Feb 27 | Smoke hits idle reactor in Niigata |
| Smoke was detected in a building full of heat-exchange equipment at an idled reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant but no fire was found, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday. There were no reports of radiation leaks at the No. 5 reactor when the smoke was detected late Saturday. The reactor contains no fuel, the utility said. (Japan Times) |
| Feb 26 | Skepticism grows over scientists quake forecasts |
| When two University of Tokyo seismologists recently released a study forecasting that a major earthquake would strike the capital and its 13 million inhabitants sometime in the next four years, they made front-page headlines. But their forecast also came with a backlash, as other researchers studying earthquakes bristled at the forecast, saying such predictions shouldn't be attempted in the first place because they're more likely wrong than right, at least based on Japan's history. Within days of the attention-grabbing headlines, the University of Tokyo's Earthquake Research Institute - where they both work - placed a lengthy disclaimer on its website. (Japan Times) |
| Feb 25 | Beyond Fukushima Japan faces deeper nuclear concerns |
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| Feb 25 | Why Japan probably won't have a space elevator by 2050 |
| Japanese construction company Obayashi wants to build an elevator to space - and they want to use carbon nanotubes to get there. The Tokyo-based company plans to use 60,000-miles of the cylindrical carbon structures, anchored to Earth's surface, to shuttle an elevator to and from a distance about a tenth of the Moon's distance from the Earth. Here's why that probably won't happen. Based solely on the company's meager description - published two days ago in the Daily Yomiuri - it sounds as though Obayashi is flirting with the idea of using the carbon nanotubes in a "ribbon" setup - a popular concept among those familiar with space elevators. The basic idea is to use strong, light, and almost inconceivably flat sheets of carbon nanotube ribbon (think several meters wide, and thin enough to make paper seem bulky) as a rail system that runs perpendicular to Earth and keeps hold of robotic cars that glide along the ribbon to and from the planet. (io9.com) |
| Feb 25 | Fast-breeder said realistic no more |
 A panel of experts reviewing the nuclear fuel cycle policy in light of the Fukushima crisis has agreed that while a fast-breeder reactor has advantages, from a technology viewpoint it can't be considered a realistic option for the next 20 to 30 years.
The nuclear fuel policy involves reprocessing spent fuel to produce plutonium that can be reused to produce electricity.
The subcommittee of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission said in a draft document summarizing its discussions that two viable options during the next few decades would be to not reprocess spent nuclear fuel, and to recycle plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel, or MOX fuel. (Japan Times) |
| Feb 24 | Researchers locate birthplace of eels |
Japanese researchers said Thursday they have located an area where "ma-anago" (real Japanese conger) lay their eggs, retrieving young fish 380 km south of Okinotorishima Island in the Pacific Ocean.
The egg-laying site should be along a ridge at the bottom of the ocean about 100 km south of where the fish were found, based on the direction of the currents, according to the joint team of researchers from the Fisheries Research Agency in Yokohama, the University of Tokyo and Kyushu University.
The research team estimated the 5.8-mm fish are just 3 to 4 days old, based on an examination of their teeth and jaws. (Japan Times) |
| Feb 24 | Japan merges science centres to cut costs |
| The Japanese government is consolidating five of its most prestigious scientific agencies - the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Riken, the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) - into one organisation under the control of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The cost cutting measures will also see the number of independent administrative corporations (IACs) -former national research institutes and governmental agencies - cut from 102 to 65 by merging those under the same ministry. (rsc.org) |
| Feb 23 | Japan will have a space elevator by 2050 |
 It might the stuff of science fiction dreams, but a Japanese construction company has announced that it will have built a working space elevator by 2050.
According to the The Daily Yomiuri, construction company Obayashi Corp has announced it will have built a space elevator capable of shuttling passengers 36,000 kilometers above the Earth by 2050.
The company plans to use carbon nanontubes, which are 20 times stronger than steel, to produce the cables required for the elevator. Those cables will be stretched to a counterweight 96,000 kilometers above our planet, about one-fourth of the distance between the Earth and the moon. The terminal station, 36,000 kilometers above Earth, will be reached by cars that can carry 30 people and travel at 200 kilometers per hour. (gizmodo.com ) |
| Feb 23 | Japan to develop 'Tsunami-proof lifeboat' |
| Local authorities in western Japan will start a new project to develop a lifeboat which is able to float on rising "tsunami" waves as one of the evacuation measures, local press reported. The project is initiated by Shikoku Region Transport Bureau, the regional subordinate organization of Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. The south coast line Shikoku Island is directly facing the Pacific Ocean. The planned lifeboat will be about 5 meters long and would be made of glass-fiber reinforced plastic. It will be set at public buildings in the coastal areas, such as schools, hospitals or local community houses and accommodate 20 to 50 people in case of tsunami, the report said. (China Daily) |
| Feb 23 | Seabed near nuke plant to be paved |
| Tokyo Electric Power Co. has announced a plan to cover the seabed adjacent to the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant with a coating material composed of clay and cement as a new measure to prevent the spread of soil contaminated with radioactive substances. According to TEPCO's announcement on Tuesday, the coating material will be placed in areas surrounded by breakwaters and silt fences that had already been installed. The work of laying the coating material on the seabed is set to be started later this month and completed in three to four months. The coating material, which will be about 60 centimeters thick, will cover areas stretching along a total of 900 meters of shoreline to a distance of 80 meters out. The 72,000-square-meter area is equivalent to 5.5 times the field area of Tokyo Dome. (Yomiuri) |
| Feb 22 | North Tokyo Bay Big One could top the scale: study |
 A future earthquake in the northern part of Tokyo Bay could register the maximum of 7 on the Japanese intensity scale in the capital, stronger than the previously assumed upper 6, according to a study by a government project team released Tuesday.
The larger intensity estimate for the envisaged quake of magnitude-7.3 comes from a finding that its epicenter could be shallower than previously thought, according to the study.
When a quake with an intensity of an upper 6 or 7 strikes, people have difficulty standing, most unsecured furniture moves, and wall tiles and windows are likely to break and fall out.
For an intensity level of 7, furniture can actually become airborne while reinforced concrete block walls can collapse, according to the Meteorological Agency. (Japan Times ) |
| Feb 22 | Japan clears up only 5% of tsunami rubble |
 Japan has cleared up just five percent of the rubble left by last year's earthquake and tsunami, the government said Tuesday, amid fears it has been contaminated following the Fukushima nuclear accident.
The twin disasters, which devastated the northeastern coastal communities last year, left almost 23 million tonnes of rubble in the hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima alone.
Getting rid of the giant piles of debris is essential for communities in the disaster zone to be rebuilt.
But despite calls for national solidarity contamination fears have led local authorities around the country to refuse to allow the debris to be disposed of near them. (AFP ) |
| Feb 22 | Radiation detected 400 miles off Japanese coast |
 Radioactive contamination from the Fukushima power plant disaster has been detected as far as almost 400 miles off Japan in the Pacific Ocean, with water showing readings of up to 1,000 times more than prior levels, scientists reported Tuesday.
But those results for the substance cesium-137 are far below the levels that are generally considered harmful, either to marine animals or people who eat seafood, said Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
He spoke Tuesday in Salt Lake City at the annual Ocean Sciences Meeting, attended by more than 4,000 researchers this week.
The results are for water samples taken in June, about three months after the power plant disaster, Buesseler said. (boston.com) |
| Feb 21 | Residents of three towns received as much as 23 millisieverts of radiation |
| The Fukushima Prefectural Government said Monday that residents in three municipalities near its crippled nuclear plant were exposed to as much as 23 millisieverts of radiation in the four months after the meltdowns triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The limit for the general public is 1 millisievert a year. "As annual radiation exposure of up to 100 millisieverts poses no specific cancer risks, the estimated radiation is unlikely to cause any adverse health effect," Fukushima Medical University Vice President Shunichi Yamashita said at the press conference held to announce the figure. "It is important to reduce future radiation exposure as much as possible." The International Commission on Radiological Protection has urged that an emergency limit of 20 to 100 millisieverts per year be adopted for the crisis. (Japan Times) |
| Feb 20 | Japan shuts down nuclear reactor |
 Japan on Monday began a process that will see another one of the country's nuclear reactors go offline, leaving just two of 54 in operation.
Kansai Electric Power Co (KEPCO), the largest utility firm after Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), began lowering power generation in unit three at the Takahama nuclear plant in Fukui prefecture, a KEPCO spokeswoman said.
The reactor is expected to be shut down completely by midnight, leaving all 11 reactors around the country owned by KEPCO idle, she said. (AFP ) |
| Feb 20 | Japanese scientists found protein helps body burn fat |
| A team of researchers of Japan's Kyoto University has found a protein that helps the body burn fat following an intake of fatty meals, according to China's Xinhua news agency citing Japanese public broadcaster NHK on Monday. The researchers at the Kyoto University's Institute of Chemical Research compared mice with protein called GPR120 with those that do not have the protein, and provided them with high-fat feeds, the report said. They confirmed that the mice without the protein were heavier than those who had it by an average of 15 percent, and accumulated twice as much fat in their bodies, it said. (Bernama) |
| Feb 20 | Shore shapes made tsunami deadlier: study |
| The shape of the coastlines along Kamaishi Bay, Ishinomaki Bay and four other areas in Tohoku may have amplified the power of the tsunami that struck there last March, a study by tsunami researchers said Saturday. A simulation by a group of researchers led by Fumihiko Imamura, professor of tsunami studies at Tohoku University, found that a "resonance phenomenon" may have increased tsunami heights at six places in Iwate, Miyagi, Aomori and Fukushima prefectures. Tsunami in those areas may have been as much as three times higher than those that ravaged other areas on the Pacific coast. Tsunami can be amplified when their frequencies match certain features of the coast, such as shape and depth - especially where coastlines are deeply indented. (Japan Times) |
| Feb 20 | U.S. nuclear plants similar to Fukushima spark concerns |
 As the United States prepares to build its first new nuclear power reactors in three decades, concerns about an early generation of plants have resurfaced since last year's disaster in Japan.
The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant -- the subject of a battle between state authorities and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over its continued operation -- uses one of 23 U.S. reactors built with a General Electric-designed containment housing known as the Mark I.
It's the same design that was used at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where three reactors melted down after the station was struck by the tsunami that followed Japan's historic earthquake in March 2011. The disaster resulted in the widespread release of radioactive contamination that forced more than 100,000 people from their homes. (CNN ) |
| Feb 19 | 'Hayabusa 2′ readies for blast off |
 Hayabusa 2 is being ready to fly, and if everything goes right, it will blast off in 2014 to collect cosmic material from asteroid 1999 JU3.
The original Hayabusa garnered worldwide attention after the near-miraculous completion of its mission. Following a mishap-laden encounter with its intended goal, the asteroid Itokawa, and the failure not only of its main propulsion systems but also of all but one of its ion guidance propulsion systems, it was initially thought lost in space.
Despite this, in a brilliant display of grit, skill, and improvisation, Japanese mission control successfully guided Hayabusa back to an earth flyby, and dropped a capsule containing material from Itokawa in the Australian desert. (majiroxnews.com) |
| Feb 19 | Japanese nuclear experts sought by Korea |
| South Korean government officials have been targeting TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) officials, in an attempt to persuade them to move to South Korea. Two executive engineers were approached late last year, but turned down the offer to work in a South Korean government-owned company, according to the Mainichi Shimbun. One of them claims that he was asked over dinner about the recent cuts in his salary, whether he was happy to continue working at TEPCO, and a request was made for him to join the nuclear power company in South Korea. The country currently obtains some 30% of its power from nuclear sources, with an expressed policy of expansion, and intends exporting its expertise to other countries, such as Turkey (a market where Japan is also a bidder). (majiroxnews.com) |
| Feb 19 | Scientists find no radiation in sick ringed seals |
 Lesions and other symptoms associated with sickened or dead ringed seals along Alaska's northern coast last year were probably not caused by radiation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday.
Preliminary screening of tissue samples from both healthy and sick ice seals and walruses showed no radiation levels that would have directly caused the symptoms, the agency posted on its Alaska region website.
Radiation was considered because of the timing and size of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident that followed a tsunami in March 11 in Japan. According to the NOAA announcement, marine animals and fish near the accident site in Japan were affected by radiation but there is no evidence to support any effects on animals in Alaska. (MSNBC ) |
| Feb 17 | Japan's megaquake disturbed creatures beneath the sea |
| Japan's magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered the release of a methane plume from the ocean crust to the east of Japan - carrying microbes that live in the crust along with it. When the earthquake struck the Pacific coast of Tohoku on 11 March 2011 it shifted the seafloor 7 metres vertically and 50 metres horizontally. Thirty six days after the quake, Shinsuke Kawagucci and colleagues at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology took water samples from depths of up to 5.7 kilometres at four spots along the Japanese trench, near the earthquake's epicentre. They detected a large plume of cloudy sea water - some 500 km long, 400 km wide and 1.5 km tall - as measured from the lowest point of the trench. (newscientist.com) |
| Feb 17 | Panel OKs lower cesium limit for food |
 A government panel approved Thursday a proposal for far stricter limits on radioactive cesium found in food, paving the way for the health ministry to enforce the new limits in April.
The Radiation Council under the science ministry said that to provide a generous safety margin, the new limits are based on the false assumption that most food products are contaminated with cesium following the explosions last March at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The panel also said food with cesium levels slightly above the new limits would have little effect on human health. (Japan Times ) |