Posts Tagged russia

In Germany: Living Ghosts of Chernobyl, Radioactive Boar on the Rise

Warmer winters have contributed to a rise in wild boar in Germany. They’re frightening residents and attacking people in parks. Well, it was one person but he was in a wheelchair.

But that’s not the only problem. A quarter of a century after Chernobyl, wild boar have become radioactive from eating mushrooms and truffles. Their delicacies are particularly efficient at absorbing radiation, it seems.

Even worse, though, almost a quarter century after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in Ukraine, a good chunk of Germany’s wild boar population remains slightly radioactive — and the phenomenon has been costing the German government an increasing amount of money in recent years.

According to the Environment Ministry in Berlin, almost €425,000 ($555,000) was paid out to hunters in 2009 in compensation for wild boar meat that was too contaminated by radiation to be sold for consumption. That total is more than four times higher than compensation payments made in 2007.

[…]

Many of the boar that are killed land on the plates of diners across Germany, but it is forbidden to sell meat containing high levels of radioactive caesium-137 — any animals showing contamination levels higher than 600 becquerel per kilogram must be disposed of. But in some areas of Germany, particularly in the south, wild boar routinely show much higher levels of contamination. According to the Environment Ministry, the average contamination for boar shot in Bayerischer Wald, a forested region on the Bavarian border with the Czech Republic, was 7,000 becquerel per kilogram. Other regions in southern Germany aren’t much better.

via spiegel online

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Russia Remains on Fire, Radioactive. The Nothing Attacks Hietaniemi Beach Helsinki

Nature. Once her wrath gets going, it’s tough to calm her down.

That Fire in Russia
By now you are aware that Russia is being consumed by conflagration. The Foreign Policy website has photos on this matter.

Did you also know that the fires are raising fears of radioactivity?

The danger comes from radioactive residue still coating large areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, years after the explosion of Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986, in what was then the Soviet republic of Ukraine.

“The Chernobyl catastrophe occurred and these areas were littered with radioactive fallout,” said Aleksandr Nikitin, director of the St. Petersburg office of Bellona, an international environmental group.

“This contaminated the trees and the grass.” he said.

“Now, when there is a fire and when all of this burns, all of this radioactivity, together with smoke, comes out and spreads to other territories, including populated areas where people breathe it in as smog.”

In Hietaniemi beach Helsinki

via you tube

Higher res version here.

As a Freakangel on Whitechapel noted, “it’s the goddamned Nothing!

Reference for those who forgot The Nothing under the cut.
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Nuclear Detonation Timeline 1945-1998. That’s 2053 Nuclear Tests All Over the World

Here you have your basic Nuclear Detonation timeline from recognized “Nuclear Weapon States.”

As the video starts out detonations are few and far between. The first three detonations represent the Manhattan Project and the two bombs that ended World War II. After a few representative minutes the USSR and Britain enter the nuclear club and the testing really starts to heat up.

Even though the video does not differentiate between sub-critical “safety” tests and full detonations, you get a good idea of the fever of the nuclear arms race.

Sleep well.

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Watch: THE BLACK LIGHTING. Russia has Flying Cars! Who Knew!?

Official Synopsis

Bekmambetov described “Black Lightning” as a Slavic “Transformers” meets “Batman,” about a car-mad student who supertunes an old Soviet sedan and runs up against the criminal underground.

What We Learned:
Russia has flying-car technology?

Why the hell are they spying on US?!

Why We’re Gonna Watch:
Our favorite Russian director Timur Bekmambetov (NIGHT WATCH, DAY WATCH, WANTED) wants to remake THE BLACK LIGHTNING for American eyes. Flying cars. Fighting crime. Getting the girl. Hell, we’re all over this.

But why does it have to be Americanized? The movie’s made and done. Subtitle that sucker and release it wide.

Stop being so damn xenophobic, AmericaHollywood.

When’s it coming?
It released in Russia December 2009. Bekmambetov is only now talking about remaking the thing. So the updated Hollywoodized release date in the USA is pending.

Official site:
http://31-12-2009.ru/

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Mashup Monday: Peacetime/Wartime Perspectives

This is how we imagine a “time viewer,” when invented, will work.

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What Sergei Larenkov has done is he reshot WWII-era photographs in the now from their original perspectives. Then he blended them into marvelous mashups
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It Seems Like Someone Should Have Known

There’s a hole in the world. It is man-made (a diamond mine in Eastern Siberia, Russia) and it is horrifyingly gorgeous.

Other holes on planetary surfaces: Mars

(via sreedhara, Mark Trapp)

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A ride through the “Dead Zone”

Elena is taken with riding through the Chernobyl “dead zone” on her motorbike.

Actually, some people coming back to their homes and settle down, those mostly old people who do not care if they die today or tomorrow. important is to die at home.

marauders in radiation poluted area are not just a regular marauders, they don’t steal stuff for themselves. There were cases of radiactive tv sets and other stuff being sold on city second hand markets and then police shot 7 or 8 of them and it helped

Houses open and everything as people left it 18 years ago.

Usually a police officer who call himself a town guard was telling me that I was in town alone. then I could hit roads with no worry that I will run accross some car. This town might be an attractive place for tourists. Some tourists companies have been trying to arrange extrim tours in this town, but people- their customers scared and have been complaining about silence which is hard to stand in empty town. They charged 210 us dollars for 2 hours excursion and town guard say, they all were leaving in some 15 mins, complaining that silense is tremendous as if one got deaf.

A truly fascinating tour. Links found on DPH(Who knows where they are since DPH died.)

update: it would seem the combination of boingboing, slashdot and diepunyhumans did a one two punch on Elena’s site. Thankfully she has a new home here. But don’t tell the big blogging guys.

DPH gives up this necessary update.

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