Archive for March, 2011

Americans Seek to Adopt Japanese Earthquake Orphans

Fox News reports on how some Americans are seeking to adopt Japanese children who were orphaned by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. It seems that their requests will be turned down:

“I have been receiving many strange emails, from mostly U.S., and was asked, ‘I want girl, less than 6 months old, healthy child,’ Tazuru Ogaway, director of the Japanese adoption agency Across Japan, told FoxNews.com. “I honestly tell you such a kind of emails makes Japanese people very uncomfortable, because for us, sound like someone who are looking for ‘what I want’ from our terrible disaster.”

In the wake of the massive January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, countries around the world almost immediately began fast-tracking adoptions from the troubled country. The United States alone took in 1,090 Haitian children as part of a Special Humanitarian Parole granted immediately following the disaster, according to the State Department’s 2010 Annual Report in Intercountry Adoptions.

But Martha Osborne, spokeswoman for the adoption advocacy website RainbowKids.com, said Japan and Haiti couldn’t be more different when it comes to adoption.

“You see that in developing nations, there’s no outlet for these children and the people left in the wake of the disaster are completely impoverished and unable to care for them, and in that case even extended relatives often say that the best case for the child is to be adopted because there are no resources,” Osborne told FoxNews.com. “But in Japan that’s just not the case, it’s a fully developed nation that’s capable of caring for its own children.”

However, that does not mean that Japan doesn’t have orphans who need a home. As the Tiger Mask gift-giving stories illustrated earlier this year, there are still thousands of children in Japan who live in orphanages and child welfare facilities. Not every child has extended family available and willing to provide care.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Charlie Brooker Comments on Sensationalist Media Coverage of Japan Quake/Nuclear Accident

Charlie Brooker blasts some of the the British media’s sensational coverage of Japan’s recent earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident:

And here he is making fun of Fox News’ “Shibuyaeggman” blunder:

[hat tip to Ponta]

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Idiotic CNN Host Argues With Meteorologist About Radiation

CNN’s Nancy Grace argues with a meteorologist about the supposed danger California is facing from radiation that has blown across the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident:

With channels like CNN giving air time to people who speak out in support of baseless fear-mongering, it’s no surprise that many people in the United States are fearful about Japanese radiation.

Related Story: Fear is gripping thousands of US military families in Japan, most of whom rely on the American media for their news about Japan. According to Stars & Stripes, nearly 8,000 families are hoping to flee the country on government-organized evacuation flights.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Drink 58,000 Glasses of Radioactive Japanese Milk = Increase Your Lifetime Risk of Cancer by 4 Percent

NPR has interviewed Peter Caracappa, a health physicist at Renssealaer Polytechnic Institute, about the dangers of the contaminated food found near Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Despite the fact that milk and spinach from the are are not being sold because their radiation levels are above Japan’s legal limit, Caracappa believes that the health risk is tiny.

First, some information about radioactive spinach:

Caracappa calculated for me the implications of eating the most radioactive sample of the vegetable reported so far – a bunch of spinach grown in the open air near Hitachi, a Japanese city about 70 miles south of the Fukushima power plant. Japanese authorities reported over the weekend that 2.2 pounds of this particular spinach sample contained 54,000 becquerels of radioactive iodine-131. (A becquerel is a measure of radioactivity.)

That spinach reading is by far the highest reported so far.

It takes a million becquerels to reach a nuclear plant worker’s annual limit of radioactivity – and remember, that’s not enough to do any measurable harm, in the short or long term.

Caracappa figures someone would need to eat 41 pounds of that Hitachi spinach to reach the nuclear power plant worker’s annual exposure limit. “That’s a significant amount of spinach,” he allows.

But what about cancer? That’s probably what most people worry about when they hear about radioactivity in food. Well, it takes 20 million becquerels to yield a Sievert’s worth of exposure; remember, that’s what it takes to increase a lifetime cancer risk by 4 percent.

That translates to 820 pounds of spinach – more than two pounds a day for a year.

And on to the milk:

To reach the radiation dose limit for a power plant worker, you’d need to drink 2,922 eight-ounce glasses of milk. To raise your lifetime cancer risk by 4 percent, you’d have to drain more than 58,000 glasses of milk. That would take you 160 years, if you drank one 8-ounce glass a day.

Even if what he says is true, consumers in Japan will not have to worry about drinking that radioactive milk. The government is restricting the shipment and sale of milk and spinach from those areas, and is conducting tests on other food products as well.

A few more interesting links about radioactivity and human health:

• The Yomiuri Shimbun has an article about how the Japanese government “jumped the gun” with its distribution of iodine pills: “Premature distribution risked ill effects on health, depleted emergency supplies”
• XKCD Radiation Dose Chart – Really helps one understand the comparative seriousness of the different radiation levels one hears about in media reports.
• The 420 Times reassures American potheads that California’s marijuana farms will probably not be contaminated by Japanese radiation.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Kiwi Ingenuity: Oven Mitt Provides Protection From Radiation

The Dominion Post has an article up about a “Kiwi’s nine long days trying to leave Japan.” It tells the story of Tim Johnson, a 24-year-old New Zealander who fled the country after hearing about the situation at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant:

“The [apartment] building we were in held up all right. It just rocked about a bit.”

But it was fears about radiation leaking from the Fukushima nuclear plant, 150 kilometres away, that prompted him to try to get home to New Zealand as soon as possible.

The article contains a photo caption in which Thompson says his use of an oven mitt to block radiation was “Kiwi ingenuity.”

Japanese authorities have indeed advised people within 30 kilometers of the nuclear plant to cover themselves with hats, masks, and gloves if they have to go outside, so Thompson’s mitt could serve as useful protection in such an instance. However, since he was 150 kilometers from the nuclear plant, he only had to face insignificantly small amounts of radiation that would have not been a threat to his health.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

New Yorker Cover: Nuclear Sakura

Here is the cover of the March 28th issue of the New Yorker, which features some very interesting looking cherry blossoms:

[hat tip to Gen Kanai]

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)