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Nuclear Waste, More Than a Backyard Issue
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Nuclear Waste, More Than a Backyard Issue
Japan obtains detailed aerial images of A-bombed Hiroshima
Lab Reports Misconduct in Claim of New Element
=====================================
Nuclear Waste, More Than a Backyard Issue
To the Editor:
Re "A Critical Vote on Nuclear Waste" (editorial, NY Times July 9):
July 14 (NY Times) To say of nuclear waste shipments that they have
gone on in the United States and Europe for three decades "without
incident" is ridiculous in the wake of the events that afflicted the
nation on Sept. 11; the rules of the game clearly have changed.
You say that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will examine the
scientific issues. Why should anyone trust the commission when the
past 20 years have revealed that the nuclear industry will do
whatever it must to get what it wants, and the current administration
clearly will do its bidding?
You seem to think that Nevadans are merely parochial about not
wanting nuclear waste in their backyard. In fact, we simply want to
hear the truth. And we are still waiting, as we have been already for
a very long time. MICHAEL GREEN Las Vegas, July 9, 2002 The writer
is a professor of history, Community College of Southern Nevada.
-----------------
Japan obtains detailed aerial images of A-bombed Hiroshima
TOKYO, July 15 (Kyodo) - The Japanese government's Geographical
Survey Institute has obtained 115 highly detailed aerial images of
the western Japan city of Hiroshima just days before and after it was
hit by a U.S. atomic bomb in 1945, institute officials said Monday.
Such images detailed enough to identify major architecture and
private homes of the city from the period are rare, according to
institute officials, and experts say these photos are valuable for
painting a clearer picture of the atomic bombing and the damage it
caused.
In March, the institute obtained the negatives from the U.S. National
Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland. The
photos were taken in 1945 on July 25, and Aug. 7, 8 and 11.
The negatives, focusing on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6,
1945, may have been shot at low altitude, the officials said.
Because the images are so accurate, they will play a key role in
calculating the amount of radiation inflicted in the city based on
distances from the blast center, said Norihiko Hayakawa, a professor
with Hiroshima University's Research Institute for Radiation Biology
and Medicine.
Based in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, the
institute is a national surveying and mapping organization of the
Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry.
-----------------
Japan obtains detailed aerial images of A-bombed Hiroshima
.c Kyodo News Service
TOKYO, July 15 (Kyodo) - The Japanese government's Geographical
Survey Institute has obtained 115 highly detailed aerial images of
the western Japan city of Hiroshima just days before and after it was
hit by a U.S. atomic bomb in 1945, institute officials said Monday.
Such images detailed enough to identify major architecture and
private homes of the city from the period are rare, according to
institute officials, and experts say these photos are valuable for
painting a clearer picture of the atomic bombing and the damage it
caused.
In March, the institute obtained the negatives from the U.S. National
Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland. The
photos were taken in 1945 on July 25, and Aug. 7, 8 and 11.
The negatives, focusing on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6,
1945, may have been shot at low altitude, the officials said.
Because the images are so accurate, they will play a key role in
calculating the amount of radiation inflicted in the city based on
distances from the blast center, said Norihiko Hayakawa, a professor
with Hiroshima University's Research Institute for Radiation Biology
and Medicine.
Based in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, the
institute is a national surveying and mapping organization of the
Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry.
-----------------
Lab Reports Misconduct in Claim of New Element
July 14 (NY Times) A year after an international team of scientists
at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California withdrew
the claim that it had discovered a new element — the heaviest so far
— officials at the laboratory have concluded that the flawed research
was the result of scientific misconduct, officials said on Friday.
The laboratory's director, Charles Shank, acknowledged at an
employees' meeting on June 25 that scientific misconduct had
occurred, said Ron Kolb, who is in charge of communications at
Lawrence Berkeley.
"The laboratory has taken appropriate corrective action to deal with
the individual involved in the fabrication," Mr. Kolb said in an e-
mail interview on Friday.
He said the researcher, whom he said he could not identify because of
personnel rules, was challenging the finding through the
laboratory.
Fifteen names appeared on the paper announcing the discovery, which
was published on Aug. 9, 1999, in Physical Review Letters.
Working with a cyclotron in a Berkeley laboratory, the team reported
that it had bombarded lead with krypton and yielded the new
substance. The team called it element 118 because of its logical
position in the periodic table. After several laboratories, including
Lawrence Berkeley, could not repeat the experiment, the original data
were reanalyzed.
"We discovered some data had been massaged," said Dr. Lee S.
Schroeder, director of the nuclear science division at the
laboratory. "Scientific integrity is the currency we deal in. We
absolutely have to maintain the highest level."
A formal retraction will appear in the July 15 issue of the journal.
-------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle
Director, Technical
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service
ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100 Extension 2306
Fax:(714) 668-3149
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/
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