3 nuclear plants under threat in USA / 3 Kernkraftwerke in Gefahr in USA

"Video of the Ft. Calhoun Nuclear plant in distress due to the flooding"
"Video about the raging wildfires a mile from Los Alamos nuclear site (plus the other nuke sites)"

This video gives an impression on what this nuclear plant faces. Plenty of water, the switchyard only protected by a berm and water up to the buildings themselves. The switchyard is important for keeping powwer supply to the plant stable (and the cooling pumps running), several berms in the vicinity have been breached in the past days. It is claimed that if the water rises another 3', core melt will be inevitable. Oh and there are sandbags in front of the doors at the plant. Whats wrong with that picture?
Meanwhile fires lead to the evacuation of Los Alamos, a site with nuclear materials in the labs. Also, there is a nuclear waste storage facility there containing thousands of barrels of radiactive waste aboveground in tents (!). Good luck.

Dieses Video gibt mal einen guten Eindruck davon, das in Ft. Calhoun gerade so passiert. Das Wasser steht dem Atomkraftwerk schon bis zu den Wänden der Hauptgebäude, der Platz an dem die Hochspannung geschaltet wird (die man zum Betrieb der Kühlwasserpumpen benötigt) wird noch durch einen mickerig wirkenden Wall geschützt. Es wird berichtet daß noch etwa 90cm Spielraum sind bevor das Wasser die letzten Dämme durchbricht und eine Kernschmelze unaufhaltbar wird.Und in einem Bild sieht man schon Sandsäcke vor den Türen des Gebäudes. Das ist etwas das man eigentlich so nicht in einem Bild sehen möchte...
Währenddessen brennen in anderen Teilen des Landes Buschfeuer die nicht unter Kontrolle zu beringen sind und das Kernforschungszentrum in Los Alamos wurde bereits evakuiert - nebenan lagern aber wohl noch mehrere tausend Fässer mit radiaktivem Abfall in Zelten (!). Viel Glück, USA.

Cities make people crazy / Städte machen Menschen verrückt

"The brains of people living in cities operate differently from those in rural areas, according to a brain-scanning study. Scientists found that two regions, involved in the regulation of emotion and anxiety, become overactive in city-dwellers when they are stressed and argue that the differences could account for the increased rates of mental health problems seen in urban areas.
Previous research has shown that people living in cities have a 21% increased risk of anxiety disorders and a 39% increased risk of mood disorders. In addition, the incidence of schizophrenia is twice as high in those born and brought up in cities.
...
Another region called the cingulate cortex was overactive in participants who were born in cities. "We know [the cingulate cortex] is important for controlling emotion and dealing with environmental adversity."" (via Guardian)

It is not really surprising that if you put too many people in one place, they will suffer from some effects like anxiety - this now is another scientific hint towards that. Another is that cities lack green plants, vital for human health.

Es ist ja keine große Überraschung daß Menschen psychische Probleme bekommen wenn sie sich zu dicht auf der Pelle hocken, wie in Großstädten. Aber jetzt gibt es dazu noch eine weitere Studie. Frühere Studien zeigten daß es derartige Probleme gibt und andere zeigen daß das Fehlen von Grünpflanzen (oder Natur im Allgemeinen) auch psychische Probleme auslöst.

Agriculture was a bad idea / Ackerbau war eine schlechte idee

"When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: The height and health of the people declined [...]
"Many people have this image of the rise of agriculture and the dawn of modern civilization, and they just assume that a more stable food source makes you healthier," Mummert says. "But early agriculturalists experienced nutritional deficiencies and had a harder time adapting to stress, probably because they became dependent on particular food crops, rather than having a more significantly diverse diet."[...]
"I think it's important to consider what exactly 'good health' means," Mummert says. "The modernization and commercialization of food may be helping us by providing more calories, but those calories may not be good for us. You need calories to grow bones long, but you need rich nutrients to grow bones strong."" (via ScienceDaily)

In this recent review of old and new data, the theory that with the "invention" of agriculture, human health declined and has not returned to its previous state until now (and even then only in parts) is backed up once again. Numerous books and articles have been written on this, one of the most famous ones is Jared Diamonds "The worst mistake in the history of the human race". These were heavily criticized, but recent studies like this one show mounding evidence of this version of the history of agriculture.

Dies ist eine weitere Studie zum Thema Ackerbau und Gesundheit und wie zahlreiche Studien zuvor ist das Ergebnis eindeutig: Mit der "Erfindung" des Ackerbaus litt die Gesundheit der Bauern gravierend. Erst im 20. Jhd wurde zumindest einigen der Mängel entgegengewirkt. In den letzten 20-30 Jahren erschienen zahlreiche Bücher und Artikel zu dem Thema, die allesamt stark kritisiert wurden (z.B. Jared Diamonds "The worst mistake in the history of the human race") , doch in letzter Zeit häufen sich Studien die diese Version der Geschichte des Ackerbaus festigen.

Recriticality in Fukushima? / Immer noch Kernreaktion in Fukushima

"Gundersen suspects an on-and-off recriticality in the Reactor 3 (or any of the Spent Fuel Pools).
[...]
Below is the chart of iodine-131 detection at the Federal Office of Radiation Protection in Germany, [...] I always thought it was rather peculiar that there seemed to be periodic spikes in the amount of iodine-131 [...]
Could these spikes indicate what Gundersen is talking about? On-and-off recriticality?" (via Ex-SFK)

Sounds like its not over till its over in Fukushima and the things are still literally cooking. I made an interesting overlay of three graphs from Fukushima, the fluctuating temperature of block 3, the measured radiation of block 1 and the measured iodine 131 near the plant, the red bars point to possible correlations. Iodine 131 only is generated while the chain reaction is going on and has a half life of only 8 days. (Caution, the radiation dose measurement of Block 1 is officially not accurate)

Klingt ganz so als ob die Reaktoren in Fukushima noch lang nicht komplett heruntergefahren sind. Hier ist noch lange nicht alles in Ordnung. Ich habe mal drei interessante Grafiken übereinandergelegt, die fluktuierende Temperatur in Block 3, die gemessene Strahlungsdosis in Block 1 und die gemessene Iod 131 Konzentration in Japan. Die roten Balken zeigen mögliche Übereinstimmungen. Iod 131 entsteht bei einer aktiven Kernreaktion und hat eine Halbwertsziet von nur 8 Tagen. (Achtung, die Strahlungsdosismessung in Block 1 ist offiziell fehlerbehaftet)

400 people = 1 dam / 400 Menschen = 1 Damm

"Based on this figure, the authors estimate that about 16.7 million reservoirs larger than 0.01ha may exist worldwide. The team also found that nearly 50 per cent of large rivers -- that is, those with an average flow of more than 1000m3 per second -- are affected by large dams and reservoirs worldwide" (via ScienceDaily)

Wow, 17 million dams for 7 billion people, that makes one dam for about 400 people each. That is a lot of rivers and creeks not flowing free anymore.

Wow, 17 millionen Dämme für 7 Milliarden Menschen, da kommen auf einen Damm gerade mal 400 Menschen. Das sind verdammt viele Flüsse und Bäche die nicht mehr frei fliessen können.

turbocharged global warming / Klimaerwärmung mit Turbo

"The rate of release of carbon into the atmosphere today is nearly 10 times as fast as during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 55.9 million years ago, the best analog we have for current global warming, according to an international team of geologists. Rate matters and this current rapid change may not allow sufficient time for the biological environment to adjust." (via ScienceDaily)

Quite a few times, global warming critics have downplayed the climate catastrophe as being not worse than what has happened in Earths past and life survived that, so it will not be so bad this time either. This study shows, that the speed of it is 10x that of the last big warming event, that probably turned the oceans anoxic in large parts. The ecosystems of the world can only adapt so fast - in this case, it might just be too rapid. Man made CO2 emissions are not comparable to volcanic eruptions in Earths history when it comes to the timeframe, they are more like a meteor strike causing the sixth mass extinction.

Es wurde immer mal wieder behauptet, daß die Klimaerwärmung zwar ungut ist aber daß es so schlimm auch wieder nicht ist und das Leben auf der Erde schon weitergeht. Dafür nimmt man gerne mal vergangene Warmzeiten in der Erdgeschichte als Vergleich, in denen Vulkane CO2 ausgasten und das Klima erwärmten. Aber diesmal ist alles anders - das Verbrennen fossiler Rohstoffe erhöht den CO2 Gehalt der Atmosphäre 10x so schnell. Die menschengemachte Klimakatatrophe ist nicht wie ein gigantischer Vulkanausbruch sondern eher wie ein Asteroideneinschlag wenn man es in geologischen Zeitvorstellungen betrachtet.