Home/Posts Tagged ‘japan’
Posts Tagged ‘japan’
Natural disasters, Science & Technology, Jul 11th, 2012,
Humans have believed that animals can predict earthquakes for thousands of years. I mean the human belief that earthquakes can be predicted by animals has been held for thousands of years – just in case you thought I was saying that animals might be able to forecast seismic activity a thousand years into the future. I’m glad we got that straightened out. Anyway, despite observations of animals fleeing the scene prior to a destructive quake since the Ancient Greeks saw rats, snakes and weasels leave Helice before that place was flattened, no real evidence was found for this amazing animal…
Tags: 1989, California, earthquake, japan, prediction, Vladimir Keilis-Borok
Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Jun 12th, 2012,
Residents and visitors of a popular beach in the US State of Oregon were stunned when a massive rectangular dock float washed up on shore last week. The float turned out to be one of four from the fishing town of Misawa, Japan, which were pulled out to sea during last year’s tsunami. Another float washed up on a nearby island, while the other two have not been found. The dock was covered in hundreds of millions of flora and fauna, native to Japanese waters, but strangers to the Pacific Coast of the United States. The structure is home to…
Tags: debris, japan, Oregon, tsunami, US
Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Wildlife & Flora, May 29th, 2012,
Pacific bluefin tuna have been clocked swimming at speeds of 48km/h (30mph). This might help explain why bluefin carrying low levels of radiation believed to be from Fukushima were found off the coast of California so soon after the nuclear disaster in Japan. Though the reports are only surfacing now, 15 radioactive tuna were caught off of San Diego in August 2011, only around 4 months after the majority of radiation was released into the waters around Fukushima. The elevated levels of cesium-134 and cesium-137 found in the tuna are considered safe and are well below the Japanese and US…
Tags: bluefin, California, cesium, Fukushima, japan, radiation, radioactive, tuna
Climate Change, Politics, Pollution, May 23rd, 2012,
Since the earthquake and tsunami-induced meltdowns in Japan last year, nuclear power has experienced a significant dip in global popularity. In parts of the globe, anyway. Japan itself is currently nuclear-free in terms of energy production, with an ambitious plan to clean up its air and water as well as increase the development of renewable power sources. The East Asian economic powerhouse is home to 54 nuclear reactors, not one of which is online. Public outcry in Germany following the events at Fukushima immediately resulted in 8 plant closures, with all remaining nuclear facilities to be closed by 2022. This…
Tags: energy, Fukushima, Germany, japan, nuclear, power
Natural disasters, Pollution, May 2nd, 2012,
95% of debris from the 2011 tsunami that devastated parts of Japan will end up in that swirling vortex of plastic and other rubbish – the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but some will hit the shores of North America. Lighter debris has already reached places like Alaska, where a Japanese teenager’s football washed up on Middleton Island. The man who found the ball is married to Japanese woman, who was able to read the teenager’s name plus the name of his school. Amazingly, a moving crate containing a Harley Davidson motorcycle and a set of golf clubs was found on…
Tags: Alaska, America, British Columbia, debris, japan, tsunami
Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Apr 10th, 2012,
About a month after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, radioactive particles were detected in giant kelp samples off the California coast. The level 7 nuclear incident resulted from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the region around Fukushima, Japan in March of 2011. In a recent study California State University marine biologists tested giant kelp up and down the coastline of the state, from Laguna Beach to Santa Cruz, and found radioactive iodine, suggesting that radiation that leaked from the damaged Fukushima reactors had reached California. Levels 250 times higher than previous measurements were found in…
Tags: California, Fukushima, iodine, japan, kelp, radiation, radioactive
Pollution, Mar 27th, 2012,
Of Japan’s 54 nuclear power reactors, only one is currently operating, following the shutdown of a Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactor by Tokyo Electric Power Co. The remaining nuclear reactor still in operation is expected to be taken offline in early May. Japan’s about face turn from nuclear power of course follows the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011, which saw Level 7 Nuclear Events at three of its reactors. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami that caused the meltdowns at Fukushima are not the only earthquake-related nuclear power troubles that Japan has faced. The recently shut down plant…
Tags: earthquake, Fukushima, japan, nuclear power, reactor, tsunami
Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Feb 28th, 2012,
The Japanese construction company, Obayashi Corporation, has stated that they will design and construct a space elevator by the year 2050. Initial plans have already been developed and they are currently working on its appearance and technical operation. The construction of the elevator will be possible thanks to small cylindrical structures called carbon nanotubes. “In Obayashi’s vision, a cable would be stretched from a spaceport on Earth’s surface up to an altitude of 96,000 km (60,000 miles), or about one-quarter of the distance between our planet and the moon. A counterweight at its end would help “anchor” the cable in…
Tags: japan, nanotubes, Obayashi, space elevator
Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Jan 4th, 2012,
The Green Slime are coming! It sounds like a bad Cold War science fiction movie, but slime is smarter and more cunning than you think. Scientists in Japan are researching how slime molds navigate in search of food. Though slime mold has no brain, it shows signs of intelligence and can even navigate itself through a maze by organizing its cells and finding the most direct route to a food source. From the Telegraph: Humans are not the only living things with information-processing abilities. Simple creatures can solve certain kinds of difficult puzzles. If you want to spotlight the essence…
Tags: intelligence, japan, mould, scientists, slime
Conservation, Dec 9th, 2011,
2.3bn yen ($29 million/ €22 million) in victims’ aid for the March 11 tsunami, which devastated communities on the northeastern coast of Japan, has been diverted to the country’s whaling industry. This discovery has sparked outrage from environmentalist groups like Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd and could further damage Japan’s international reputation. Junichi Sato, executive director for Greenpeace Japan, is quoted in the Independent: Not only is the whaling industry unable to survive without large increases in government handouts, now it’s siphoning money away from the victims of the 11 March triple disaster, at a time when they need it most….
Tags: Greenpeace, japan, minke, Sea Shepherd, tsunami, whale
Climate Change, Politics, Nov 30th, 2011,
COP 17 updates, anyone? Anyone care about the future of the climate, planet Earth or its human and non-human inhabitants? No? Well neither do your leaders, apparently. Wo what are they doing there, anyway? One aspect of the climate summit in Durban, South Africa seems to be various large polluting countries balking at committing to reduce emissions unless every other country does. This effectively means that none of them really want to. Not enough to take a stand. Make no mistake: the rule of the day is economic self-interest. Brazil, China, India are not considered industrialized nations and want exemption…
Tags: China, climate, cop 17, Durban, emissions, EU, global, japan, kyoto, REDD, Russia, treaty
Politics, Pollution, Oct 26th, 2011,
Last week representatives from over 170 countries met at a UN environmental conference in Colombia to work towards a ban on the exportation of hazardous waste from rich countries to the developing world. The measure is to ratify an amendment to the Basel Convention, a treaty forged in 1989 with the aim of ensuring that individual states take care of their own waste instead of dumping it in poor countries. The US, which is the top exporter of e-waste, still hasn’t signed on. The US has no rules for exporting its e-waste, most of which ends up in China as…
Tags: China, e-waste, export, japan, Philippines, toxic waste, US
Nature, Sep 21st, 2011,
As powerful Typhoon Roke approaches Japan’s mainland authorities are appealing to 1,3 million residents to evacuate their homes and move to higher ground. 5 people are already believed to be dead from heavy rains, flooding and strong winds, which are set to increase as the typhoon makes landfall in central Japan. From AFP: In Nagoya, in central Japan’s Aichi prefecture, officials have advised about one million residents to leave their homes because of fears that rivers might burst their banks. The storm is expected to move northwards up the coast to Tokyo. So far over 200 domestic flights have been…
Tags: dead, flooding, japan, Nagoya, Typhoon Roke
Green living, Aug 23rd, 2011,
Power failures caused by the incident at Fukushima nuclear plant following the earthquake and tsunami last March have sparked a new energy saving trend in Japan. Setsuden or ‘power saving’ is catching on in Japan in a big way. As far as public opinion goes, clean energy is in, nuclear and fossil fuels are out. From the Guardian: Tokyo, a bustling capital famous for its neon lights, has now turned into a city of darkened buildings and slower running trains. Billboards at major crossings flash daily rates of power consumption that tell whether the city has conserved sufficient energy to…
Tags: CFL, energy, japan, LED, light bulbs, nuclear, power, saving, setsuden
Green living, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Aug 19th, 2011,
Since the tsunami and resultant meltdowns at Fukushima nuclear plant, views in Japan towards nuclear power are changing. In a country with a history of earthquakes, which has suffered so much from a recent natural disaster, unease regarding nuclear power is understandable. While the true consequences wrought by the nuclear meltdowns remain unknown; caution and even fear influence public opinion in Japan regarding atomic power, and to a lesser extent, government policy. Aside from countries like Germany, which announced a shut down of all nuclear reactors by 2022, nuclear power is growing on a global scale, as can be seen…
Tags: atomic power, japan, nuclear power, plant
Conservation, Politics, Jul 12th, 2011,
The International Whaling Commission is currently holding talks on the British island of Jersey. Issues being dealt with at the IWC talks include the effects of oil and gas exploration on gray whales in Russia’s far eastern waters. Western gray whales are an endangered species and number only 130. Seismic guns, used to find underwater oil and gas deposits off the coast of the Russian island of Sakhalin, have been shown to disturb the whales. The gray whales’ only summer feeding ground is located in a small area off of Sakhalin. Read more on that story in this BBC News…
Tags: gas, gray, hunt, Iceland, IWC, japan, oil, whale meat, whales
Politics, Pollution, May 24th, 2011,
Four major power companies warned that the post-Fukujima backlash against nuclear power in Germany country could result in future winter blackouts. These blackouts would ostensibly occur if Germany decides to decommission all its nuclear power stations. The companies claim that solar and wind power could not meet demand in the case of insufficiently windy or sunny weather. Chancellor Angela Merkel recently signaled she would support closing all of Germany’s 17 nuclear power stations by 2022. Seven nuclear power stations have been off-grid ever since Merkel announced in the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima disaster a “three-month moratorium” on her controversial…
Tags: blackouts, earthquake, Fukushima, Germany, Green Party, japan, Merkel, nuclear, plants, power, reactors, tsunami
Nature, Videos & Documentaries, Apr 7th, 2011,
Japan’s meteorological institute issued a tsunami alert after a quake measured at 7.1 struck the country’s northeast Thursday night – the same part of the country which suffered from the massive 9.0 quake and resultant tsunami in March. The earthquake was first believed to be 7.4, but was later downgraded to 7.1 by the U.S. Geological Survey, and the tsunami warning has since been lifted. Nonetheless, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center cautioned: Earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within 100km of the earthquake epicenter. 28,000 people are dead or still missing…
Tags: earthquake, japan, tsunami, warning
Animals, Natural disasters, Videos & Documentaries, Mar 31st, 2011,
There have been many victims of this month’s earthquake and resultant tsunami disaster in northern Japan. The loss of human life, livelihood and property is immense and the suffering continues. Less attention has been given to the countless animals – wild, domestic and livestock – who have also suffered and are still in dire need of help. The title of this post has two meanings because there are two categories of help. There are still many animals stranded in or facing terrible and dangerous conditions in the areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami. There are also many who have…
Tags: animals, disaster, dogs, earthquake, japan, rescue, tsunami
Politics, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Mar 19th, 2011,
The debate over nuclear energy has heated up in Europe. Though always controversial, the events post earthquake and tsunami in Japan have brought the issue to the forefront in the media and political arenas in some European countries. In May a government safety review of nuclear plants in the UK will be released, taking account of the events at Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. For more on this story see this article from BBC News. In Germany, where nuclear power is always especially controversial, the issue has sparked political action of late. From Deutsche Welle: The governing CDU/FDP coalition…
Tags: debate, earthquake nuclear, Europe, Germany, japan, plant, power, tsunami, UK
