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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2014 at 10:21am

Part 7:

Home/office:

Water: Reverse osmosis water systems will remove contamination from water. Whole house units and under sink models are available. Water distillers will remove contamination. Distillers come in small countertop models or larger models that do many gallons at a time.  The tank residue should be treated as contaminated when cleaning a distiller. Zeolite shower and water filters can be found online. Zeolite is known to remove cesium. Water filters should be changed frequently. Filters are available as whole house, under counter and models that attach to a faucet or shower head.

Interior environment: Again, hygiene is key.  Minimize dirt into the home or office.  Take shoes off outside or in an isolated entryway. Coats and umbrellas should be similarly handled. Try to keep dust down, scuffing your feet or cleaning techniques that disturb dust should be avoided. Sweeping, brushing, compressed air or vacuum cleaners can throw dust into the air. Use wet mopping, wet rags or paper towels when cleaning.  Areas where dust and contamination can collect are door handles, sinks, phones, computer keyboards and fans.

If high levels of contamination are in the air close windows and doors and if necessary seal them off if high winds are predicted.  Many “Mitsubishi” style wall air conditioner units can be fitted with a HEPA filter as can most central forced air heating or cooling systems. Some window air conditioners can be fitted with a HEPA filter, check with the manufacturer.  Pollen and dust filters will not filter out radioactive contamination. Please treat items such as used HEPA filters, vacuum filters and dust or other filters as potentially radioactive waste. Wrap in a plastic bag or close able plastic bag and dispose of properly.

Low level decontamination can be done by simple measures. Clothing can be washed, assure the clothing gets clean in the wash cycle. Showering with soap and shampooing hair are usually sufficient to remove low levels of contaminated dust people may encounter.

Outside:

Stay out of the dirt and avoid places where rain and runoff accumulate.  Don’t go into street gutters or ditches and avoid areas of dense shrubs etc.. where fallout could be transferred. Avoid being in the rain or use an umbrella: rain will collect contamination out of thousands of feet of air as it falls to the ground.

Do not touch any exposed skin, such as your face. open cuts or abrasions.  Do not smoke, eat, drink, or chew while within areas of high contamination. Wash your hands after handling things outside.

If you must handle objects outside that accumulate dirt, disposable gloves, safety glasses, coveralls and respirator masks can reduce the possibility of ingestion or absorption of radioactive materials. The surgical masks used to avoid pollen do not filter out radioactive contamination.  If wet, they do remove a high percentage of the Cs-137, which is the most prevalent contaminant outside of Japan at the moment, so this might be an option for short stretches outdoors.

Do not allow children to play in the dirt, ask if your playground has been tested and what the level was. Local governments have been setting maximum levels for local playgrounds and schools. There are a number of parents groups working to protect children from radiation exposure. We have listed all we currently know of in our Japan Aid Resources list of link on our website. at www.fukuleaks.org/web

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2014 at 10:20am

Part 6:

Coping With Radioactive Contamination; How To Protect Yourself

Food/consumption:

Hygiene: Hygiene is important, keep food in sealed containers, indoors. Keep food preparation surfaces clean and free of dust or dirt. Clean produce well and peel any root vegetables. Do not keep or consume food in places where dirt and contamination could be blown onto the food. Avoid hand to mouth gestures when hands may be dirty or in an area more prone to contamination like outdoors. Washing hands before food preparation, eating or smoking can help.

Water: Only use water known to be safe or decontaminated, including for cooking water. See home section for details on making water safer.  Do not use collected rainwater for anything related to food unless it is decontaminated first.

Food: Know your food source as much as possible. Try to buy products where you know the original source and that they have not been heavily co-mingled with products from other areas. Check for product testing by the manufacturer or the area it came from. This web site provides some food testing results sorted by food type and location. http://yasaikensa.cloudapp.net/BrowseByProduct.aspx

Food harvested before March 2011 should be safer as long as it has been properly sealed and stored to prevent contamination. Previous seasons of foods like rice or wheat, as long as they have been stored properly would be safer and could be stockpiled.

Eating foods known to be uncontaminated and lower on the food chain is a good general rule of thumb. Since there was considerable contamination dumped into the Pacific ocean look for seafood from further regions or that has been fully tested. Contamination can “bioaccumulate” as animals consume large amounts of contaminated plants or other animals that are contaminated.

Foods high in potassium, anti-oxidants and boron can be protective, but radioactive cesium reacts much like potassium, so many high potassium foods also tend to uptake too much Cs-137.  More research is needed, but it looks like legumes and field grains (millet, barley, wheat etc.) are high in potassium but less-inclined to absorb cesium. A good rule would be to try to find high potassium foods more likely to be not contaminated. See our list of beneficial  foods for more information.

Certain clays that are known to be edible as supplements are thought to absorb certain types of radiation and pull them out of the body. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) has also been used to protect kidneys from uranium damage. 1 teaspoon of baking soda powder every 4 hours for adults, up to 4 teaspoons per day. For children consult your doctor for safe amount based on age. Sodium bicarbonate changes the urine ph and protects the kidneys from uranium.

http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=1879

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2014 at 10:04am

Part 5:

More information

• Guide to radiation fallout
• Radioiodine protection from tincture of iodine
• North Pacific Jet Stream
• History of U.S. Nuclear Accidents
• Estimating your increased risk of thyroid cancer due to atmospheric...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2014 at 10:03am

Part 4-

Procedure

1. Preparation
   • Begin topical application of tincture of iodine, applying eight millilitres of 2% tincture to a patch of skin on your abdomen every 24 hours, or two hours before public warning of impending fallout.
   • Prepare the wash room for use as a cleanup area. Make sure the wash tub, washing machine, and shower are accessible.
   • Close the wash room internal door.
   • Locate and make available dust masks and outerwear.
   • Bring the Geiger-Müller counter to just outside the wash room for use in contamination detection.
   • Sequester all domestic animals. Goats will be locked into their shelter using cattle panels. Chickens will be locked inside their coop.
   • Close greenhouse ventilation.
   • Close all windows in the house.
   • Have 50 litres of water on-hand.
   • Have a week's food supply on-hand.
2. Routine
   • Wear a dust mask and cover as much exposed skin as possible whenever outside.
   • Enter and exit through the wash room only.
   • When outside, wear outer clothing that can be easily and quickly removed and "hosed down."
   • Animal feed and water is to be taken only from closed areas and closed containers.
   • Keep animal feed and water covered during transport.
   • Procedure on entry:
     1. To avoid contamination of the Geiger-Müller counter, have someone "clean" from inside the house go over you with the counter. Do not allow the counter to contact anything that may be contaminated.
     2. Any "hot" clothing (hat, gloves, mask) should be immediately put into the washer.
     3. If any "hot" clothing is detected, the person entering should immediately use the shower.
     4. After this decontamination procedure, re-check the person and the area for contamination. Spot-clean any local contamination with clean rags, which immediately go into the wash with the contaminated clothing. Do not re-use rags without laundering.
     5. Do not open the interior door until the wash room is "clean."
   • Do not harvest nor eat any plants that did not come from the sealed greenhouse or the grocery store.
   • If domestic animals have not been sequestered, do not eat any of their food products.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2014 at 10:03am

Part 3- http://www.ecoreality.org/wiki/Radiation_fallout_plan

here are four levels of radiological emergency defined:

1. Radiological watch: there has been an event somewhere on the planet that could credibly cause fallout of radioactive contaminants on Salt Spring Island. This includes nuclear power plant melt down, atmospheric nuclear testing, or nuclear war.
   • The protocol for a radiological watch is to begin monitoring ionizing events using a Geiger-Müller counter and to monitor public health authorities and international news.
2. Public warning could happen between our local readings.
3. Light fallout event is defined as when the outdoor ionizing event count exceeds two times the root-mean-square average of the readings from the past two days.
   • The protocol for a light fallout event is defined in this document.
4. Heavy fallout event is defined by any ionizing event count that corresponds to the level defined by Canadian health authorities as acutely dangerous.
   • The protocol for a heavy fallout event is to follow Canadian health authorities' recommendations for evacuation.

Light fallout concerns

A light fallout event is not an acute radioactivity health concern; there will be no immediate danger of imminent sickness or death at this level. Rather, the concern is the inhalation or ingestion of radioactive dust, which can have long-term health impacts, including cancer.

The following procedure is designed to minimize long-term health impacts on humans and animals and their food supply.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2014 at 9:59am

Part - 2 - how to minimize nuclear radiation / contamination:

It's vital to understand the difference between nuclear radiation and nuclear contamination.

A burst of radiation accompanies the initial blast, but the radiation load from fallout is completely determined by weather. So it is important to understand the prevailing winds and weather patterns when considering whether to leave a poor shelter for a better shelter.

A much bigger concern is nuclear contamination. If you choose to leave a poor shelter for a better one, and your clothes (and lungs!) get "dusted" with fallout during your trip, you were probably better off in the poor shelter.

The sort of radiation is also important to understand. Even in a poor shelter, most of the beta radiation will be blocked by even a residential composition roof. True, gamma radiation will pass right through most roofs but be blocked by concrete, but it is generally much less damaging than beta radiation. Again, if you are in a poor shelter that protects you from beta radiation, you may be better off than travelling unprotected to a better shelter, which could even expose you to alpha radiation, the most damaging but the easiest to shield against.

Sooner or later, you'll need to drink water and eat food if you've lived that long. Understanding nuclear contamination is especially crucial at this point, because many of the common fission products (iodine, caesium, strontium) incorporate themselves into human tissue, given the chance, and will continuously irradiate nearby tissue, damaging DNA and causing cancer.

To summarize, I think understanding the local weather and striving to avoid personal contamination are the overriding factors, which probably biases toward a "stay put" survival strategy.
--
So one assumes that even something as simple as a large plastic garbage bag over most of your torso and head (so long as you see to navigate) would help mitigate dusting, is that correct? ... and this assumes you can dispose of it without difficulty or further contamination at your destination.

--

The hard part would be getting the bag off without spreading the contamination.

--

by Erika Engelhaupt

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2014 at 9:53am

How to minimize radiation exposure during a nuclear attack using math:
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/gory-details/nuclear-attack-there%...
Atmospheric scientist Michael Dillon of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has developed some helpful rules of thumb. He focused on minimizing total radiation exposure regardless of blast size, wind direction or many other factors that could affect radiation levels. In math terms, you’re minimizing the area under the curve of your radiation exposure over time: the integral, for those who took calculus.
One way to minimize that total exposure is to get to a location that blocks more radiation. The best shelter is belowground — say, in a basement. Hiding in the basement of a large apartment or office building can bring radiation levels down to one two-hundredth of the outdoor dose, a protection factor of 200. Being inside a one-story wooden house, on the other hand, may only cut your exposure in half, a protection factor of 2.
So what to do if you are caught in a poor shelter but think you can get to a better one? Here's where Dillon's math comes in. Essentially, you’re comparing the extra area added to your exposure curve while you’re outdoors with the area you’ll save by spending time in the better shelter later. Radiation levels will be tailing off over time; one rule of thumb is called the 7-10 rule: Seven hours after a blast, you’ll be getting one-tenth the dose received in the first hour.

The most important factors, Dillon found, are how long it has been since the detonation and how long it will take you to get to the better shelter. To minimize the area under your curve, you’re going to want to minimize the ratio of the time you spend in an initial poor-quality shelter to the time you spend outdoors getting to better shelter.
If you have access to only a poor-quality shelter initially (something like a wooden house with no basement) but can get to an adequate shelter (with a protection factor of 10 or more, like the basement of a wooden house) within five minutes, you should ditch the poor shelter immediately and go to the better shelter, Dillon reports January 14 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A. If it will take you 15 minutes to get to the adequate shelter, you can still reduce your total exposure as long as you make your move within 30 minutes of the detonation. After that, your savings decline along with the outdoor radiation levels.
If you are in or able to immediately enter adequate shelter right after a blast, guidelines say you shoud stay put. You should probably stay in an interior room near the center of the building unless you're confident you can get to that supersafe basement before highly radioactive fallout starts raining down. "if you are outside of the building-collapse area immediately surrounding the detonation, you should have several minutes before fallout arrives." After that, it's unlikely you're going to have enough information to calculate whether your total dosage would be reduced by moving from adequate to better shelter, even if you've memorized the equations.

Once you’re hunkered down, you can generally expect to stay put for at least a couple hours in a minimally adequate shelter before trying to evacuate the area, and 24 hours or more if you're in a good shelter with a protection factor over 100 (again, minimizing your total exposure as outdoor levels fall). That decision can involve a different set of equations, based on wind speed and direction plus a whole host of other variables.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2014 at 8:39am

Psychotic traits in comedians

Psychologists gave more than 500 funnymen a personality test that assesses traits associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. And they found that the comics score higher than uncreative types, and even higher than actors, on a range of psychotic traits, including fear of intimacy, impulsive behavior, difficulty focusing and a belief in the paranormal.
Results: Comedians scored significantly above O-LIFE norms on all four scales. Actors also differed from the norms but on only three of the scales. Most striking was the comedians' high score on both introverted anhedonia and extraverted impulsiveness.

Conclusions: This unusual personality structure may help to explain the facility for comedic performance.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/early/2014/01/02/bjp.bp.113.134569.a...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2014 at 8:37am

Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7485/full/nature12954.html

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2014 at 8:29am

Acid bath offers easy path to stem cells

Just squeezing or bathing cells in acidic conditions can readily reprogram them into an embryonic state.
In 2006, Japanese researchers reported a technique for creating cells that have the embryonic ability to turn into almost any cell type in the mammalian body — the now-famous induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. In papers published this week in Nature, another Japanese team says that it has come up with a surprisingly simple method — exposure to stress, including a low pH — that can make cells that are even more malleable than iPS cells, and do it faster and more efficiently.
Yoshiki Sasai, a stem-cell researcher at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, and a co-author of the latest studies. It took Haruko Obokata, a young stem-cell biologist at the same centre, five years to develop the method and persuade Sasai and others that it works.

Obokata says that the idea that stressing cells might make them pluripotent came to her when she was culturing cells and noticed that some, after being squeezed through a capillary tube, would shrink to a size similar to that of stem cells. She decided to try applying different kinds of stress, including heat, starvation and a high-calcium environment. Three stressors — a bacterial toxin that perforates the cell membrane, exposure to low pH and physical squeezing — were each able to coax the cells to show markers of pluripotency.

But to earn the name pluripotent, the cells had to show that they could turn into all cell types — demonstrated by injecting fluorescently tagged cells into a mouse embryo. If the introduced cells are pluripotent, the glowing cells show up in every tissue of the resultant mouse. This test proved tricky and required a change in strategy. Hundreds of mice made with help from mouse-cloning pioneer Teruhiko Wakayama at the University of Yamanashi, Japan, were only faintly fluorescent. Wakayama, who had initially thought that the project would probably be a “huge effort in vain”, suggested stressing fully differentiated cells from newborn mice instead of those from adult mice. This worked to produce a fully green mouse embryo.

Still, the whole idea was radical, and Obokata’s hope that glowing mice would be enough to win acceptance was optimistic. Her manuscript was rejected multiple times, she says.

To convince sceptics, Obokata had to prove that the pluripotent cells were converted mature cells and not pre-existing pluripotent cells. So she made pluripotent cells by stressing T cells, a type of white blood cell whose maturity is clear from a rearrangement that its genes undergo during development. She also caught the conversion of T cells to pluripotent cells on video. Obokata called the phenomenon stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP).

Her results suggested a different explanation: that pluripotent cells are created when the body’s cells endure physical stress. “The generation of these cells is essentially Mother Nature’s way of responding to injury,” says Vacanti, a co-author of the latest papers.

http://www.nature.com/news/acid-bath-offers-easy-path-to-stem-cells...

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