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Scandinavian Monitoring Stations Detect Unexplained Radiation Spike over Europe
- adamnemecek 6y agoYou already know its from Russia.
- _jal 6y agoMore specifically, we know: - other possible sources in the area have a history of cooperation, so process of elimination is rather suggestive. - Russia has leaked and not come clean before, so history is also rather suggestive. But who knows! It has already been a very weird year, anyone want to bet it can't get weirder?
- guerrilla 6y ago> Russia has leaked and not come clean before Russia or the USSR?
- me_me_me 6y agoSame leadership, different labels.
- corprew 6y agoRussia, in 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/world/europe/russia-nuclear-cloud.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/world/europe/russia-nucle...
- Symmetry 6y agoWhen that USSR anthrax factory started leaking at least it wasn't contagious.
- brutt 6y agoYou mean incident at level 4 biolab «Vector», in Novosibirsk, Russia? What can go wrong if some Russian soldiers will stole some equipment from level 4 biolab and then go to Military Games in Wuhan, China?
- bitcharmer 6y agoWell, there's very few places in the area where this could come from and Russia has a history of lying like a rug about pretty much everything. So there's that.
- Merrill 6y ago>The 9M730 Burevestnik (Russian: Буревестник; "Petrel", NATO reporting name: SSC-X-9 Skyfall) is a Russian experimental nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile under development for the Russian Armed Forces. The missile is claimed to have virtually unlimited range. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Central_Navy_Testing_Range https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Central_Navy_Testing_Ran...
- kjaftaedi 6y agoExactly the reason we don't have nuclear powered aircraft. Disasters would be magnified exponentially.
- tormeh 6y ago>Disasters would be magnified exponentially. Exponentially with what? The ability of the English language to mush up words is truly astounding. And this is not even my pet peeve.
- catalogia 6y agoI think they mean the severity of a nuclear plane crash is greater than the severity of a regular plane crash. Incidentally, some models of civil airplanes (some 747s for instance) contain depleted uranium trimming weights, which can be hazardous if burned in a plane wreck. This is far from a plane reactor accident though, and use of these weights has been discontinued for years (I'm unsure if any are still flying.)
- tormeh 6y ago> I think they mean the severity of a nuclear plane crash is greater than the severity of a regular plane crash. Yeah, I know, it's just... There are already existing words for that. Words that were in use before "exponentially" became the cool word of the week. I guess I should just accept it, that "exponentially" is going to mean the same thing as "truly", "very" and "really". At some point some newscaster is going to describe a patient's outlook as "it's not looking exponentially good". Although maybe the word has too many syllables. One can hope.
- fuckyah 6y agoFckin russins
- jononor 6y agoEarlier discussion on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23662241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23662241
- NicoJuicy 6y agoHow can a country be this stupid. Instead of entering modern world without war and trade instead. They consistently try to destroy everything possible. Last week a major oil spill, radiation leak now. Previous radiation leak was in 2017 and everyone remembers Tsjernobyl, I hope. Killing people abroad ( Germany, London) Invading Ukraine, for saving their naval army Threatening Europe with fly overs Meddling with elections and spreading misinformation. In the mean time, they think they found an ally in China. While Russia is getting pennies on the dollar, losing engineers to China and getting almost zero "promised investments" of China. Lol They already lost to democratic Europe during the USSR. I'm just waiting till history repeats again somehow
- liminal 6y agoMy (probably poorly informed) take is that they're compensating for a weak economy by basically waging asymmetric/guerrilla warfare. Using minimal cost techniques to sow the most chaos possible. They may not be able to be strong, but they can make others weaker.
- NicoJuicy 6y agoThey spend a large % of GDP on military, while their neighbour easily outspends them because of a way bigger economy. After all, Russia's GDP is similar to only 3 European countries ( I think France, Belgium and Netherlands together is bigger, you can check it in Wolfram Alpha ). They should just spend it on trade instead. So their population would get wealthier. Edit: over estimated Russia's GDP. It's even smaller then France alone. Also Germany and Italy are easily bigger
- koalaman 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... Last time I checked Russia had a smaller GDP than Italy. Hell of a geopolitical presence for such a small economy.
- 6y ago
- twopointsix 6y agoNot great, not terrible
- matthoiland 6y agoCompletely normal phenomenon
- dharma1 6y agoUpdate from the radiation authority in Finland - https://www.stuk.fi/-/stukin-helsingissa-ja-kotkassa-havaitsemilla-radioaktiivisilla-aineilla-ei-ole-vaikutusta-sateilytilanteeseen https://www.stuk.fi/-/stukin-helsingissa-ja-kotkassa-havaits... Translation - very low levels of airborne radioactive isotopes have been detected in the last couple of weeks (Co-60, Ru-103, Cs-134, Cs-137, Zr-95, Nb-95) but they are not high quantities enough to affect normal radiation levels. They do not originate from Finland. The isotopes are the same as used on nuclear power plants and small quantities can be from normal reactor use or maintenance. You can see realtime radiation levels here - https://www.stuk.fi/web/en/topics/environmental-radiation/radiation-today https://www.stuk.fi/web/en/topics/environmental-radiation/ra...
- dharma1 6y agoIf I had to have a wild guess (could be wrong) I would say it's from the Sosnovy Bor plant near St. Petersburg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leningrad_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leningrad_Nuclear_Power_Plant There is ongoing work to decommission the last Chernobyl style reactors by 2025. Hope it's all going safely!
- h0ek 6y agoSo, nothing changed since 1986. I feel like I have a déjà vu.
- ISL 6y agoHas anyone seen links to actual spectra from the monitoring organizations' counters? An example of the sort of thing I'm looking for: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1103.4853.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1103.4853.pdf (see Figure 1)
- lkrubner 6y agoI first learned of Fiona Hill when she testified at the impeachment hearings, and since she sounded very intelligent I went and got her book (which she wrote with Clifford Gabby) "Mr Putin" which, I've learned, is widely considered the best psychological portrait of Putin that exists. The authors are surprisingly respectful of Putin's methods, especially in the early days. And in the debate over "Is Putin or rational or not" they seem to clearly answer "Yes, he is rational." Especially regarding Crimea, they point out that Putin clearly explained that if the West interfered in the Ukraine, then Russia would have to consider that intervention an offensive action, and make a response, so when the West sided with "pro Western" forces in the Ukraine in 2013/2014, Putin felt that he had clearly warned the West that he was going to respond. It is useful and interesting to understand some of his motivation. Having said all that, there is a lot that is disappointing about his inability to pull modern Russia past any of the major failings of the USSR, in particular the lack of transparency. More than ever, Russia relies on oil exports, despite his stated intention to re-industrialize Russia, Putin has not managed to rebuild the economy to the Great Power status that the country held during the middle of the 20th Century. Instead of real progress, what we see is the irritation of a power that knows it has fallen down.
- 01100011 6y agoYes, probably state sponsored actors in Russia. Is constructing a device capable of sustaining a chain reaction all that difficult though? We did it in the 40's with a big pile of uranium and some graphite. Could an external thermal neutron source allow you to reduce the size even further? I don't think it will be long before some idiot on youtube creates one in his backyard. There are already communities of folks playing with fusors, which can produce neutrons capable of activating nearby materials. We've all heard of the radioactive boy scout, and he figured out what he did without youtube and ebay.