radioactivity

Anxiety over Japan's damaged nuclear plant increased today as the United States' top nuclear regulator told Congress the situation was worse than reported by the Japanese government and that "extremely high" radiation levels could hamper containment efforts.

The American Embassy in Tokyo, meanwhile, recommended evacuation to U.S. citizens within 50 miles of the plant--an area much larger than the approximately 12-mile radius established by the Japanese. Still, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission maintained that there was little cause for worry about radioactive drift on the part of residents of Hawaii or the West Coast of … Read more

Researchers at Northwestern University are developing a new method for removing radioactive materials from liquid nuclear waste.

The group of scientists led by Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, a Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University, announced their breakthrough on Tuesday. The group's paper described the process metaphorically to how a Venus flytrap closes after absorbing a fly in its grip, while letting other objects pass by.

At the molecular level the radioactive ion cesium found in liquid nuclear waste passes through "holes" in a porous metal-sulfide material via an ion-exchange process. Meanwhile, harmless … Read more

MConvert quickly calculates complex mathematic formulas. By performing this difficult task users can ensure accuracy and save time.

We instantly started converting our facts and figures thanks to the program's intuitive layout and its well-marked command buttons. We imagined all the practical home and school possibilities while choosing between dozens of everyday and scientific conversions ranging from temperature conversion, distance, volume, mass, time, currency, area, and more. We were relieved to find all the guesswork taken out of conversion, since the program lists all possible alternatives (for example, the currency converter lists dozens of monetary units, while temperature lists … Read more

It's 404 time! Wilson, MTI and the Mantern hijack the show while Jeff tours Canada and Justin suffers from radiation poisoning. With Wilson at the helm, the show starts to sound like NPR, but a few below-the-belt comments from the Mantern get things back on track. We talk golden earbuds (not showers), unarmed German thieves, astronaut fitness and Chinese spies. For the show's second half we gear up for the new Xbox Live Experience that launches tomorrow.

Dan the Mantern here. I must say, I'm pretty excited about the launch of the new Xbox Live Experience. Having canceled my cable subscription because I can't afford an additional gajillion dollars every month to surf 700 channels of crap, I'm hungry for a new way to entertain myself. I can't wait to start streaming to my big screen in full HD. As for the new "avatar" features, I'm petrified. Almost nothing is worse than getting pwned by an 8-year-old in Call of Duty 4 and having to listen to him trash talk. Getting pwned by a cutesy cartoon avatar of an 8-year-old who has a mouth like a sailor? Completely humiliating. Here's to the last hours of a Mii-free Xbox Live.

We may rail against watches that try to reinvent the way we tell time, but we'd never criticize one that provided important safety information. And what could be more important than radiation levels?

But the "Radio Active" stainless steel LED watch doesn't really measure radioactivity, though it does use some '50s-era atomic warning symbols to tell time. As much as we appreciate the effort, we're still not sure if this something we could use. "The design has nothing but signs and words," according to the description on AudioCubes. "However, it won't … Read more