8.9 Earthquake (upgraded to 9.0) and Tsunami hits Japan
- axordil
- Pleasantly Twisted
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The one telling thing I recall from my lab days was that they wanted to use guinea pigs instead of rats, initially, but they couldn't figure out how to make guinea pigs diabetic. They tried the usual: Streptozotocin to kill off islet cells, but after a couple of weeks, their blood glucose was back to normal. Something else in their body started making insulin.
Obviously the most important thing they could do was find a different animal to give diabetes to.
To quote the X Files: "I know, I know, gold-plated wheelchair."
Obviously the most important thing they could do was find a different animal to give diabetes to.
To quote the X Files: "I know, I know, gold-plated wheelchair."
Sometimes people get a little too goal-driven. I can, however, assure you that guinea pigs do develop diabetes. My siblings and I have lost three in that fashion. All of them were around 4 years old when they got sick. First they got obese. Then they started drinking lots of water, turned into furry skeletons, and died. The progression took a little less than a year, start to finish. The first time it happened, we took the pig to the vet and she said there was nothing to be done.
When you can do nothing what can you do?
- Primula Baggins
- Living in hope
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Mr. Prim thought so. At least by comparison with what we used. Indium is a gamma emitter, but because of the short half-life it was even being injected into people for imaging studies at the time.River wrote:P32 is nasty?
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Well, yes, I am aware that P32 ends up in nucleic acids...that's where I was putting it. But it never struck me as more or less dangerous than some of the other crap I was working with. I knew better than to put myself at risk of ingesting it (in the words of my undergrad PI, nothing kills your experiment like swallowing it) and it wasn't an inhalation hazard so I just never worried about it.
The radiolabeled nucleotides we bought came in lead containers that we stored in plexiglass boxes. Radiation Safety issued us metal cans to put our solid waste in for disposal. We put plexiglass shields around those cans because we knew exactly how bad an idea it is to put a beta-emitter behind metal. That produces x-rays...though they're at pretty low energies. Even so, those cans were in line of sight of several desks and benches and we were one of those 24/7 types of labs so we didn't want to play around.
The radiolabeled nucleotides we bought came in lead containers that we stored in plexiglass boxes. Radiation Safety issued us metal cans to put our solid waste in for disposal. We put plexiglass shields around those cans because we knew exactly how bad an idea it is to put a beta-emitter behind metal. That produces x-rays...though they're at pretty low energies. Even so, those cans were in line of sight of several desks and benches and we were one of those 24/7 types of labs so we didn't want to play around.
When you can do nothing what can you do?
Power lines for the cooling systems are hooked up for all six reactors at the nuclear plant. Hopefully they'll have those systems up and running again soon.
This good news is tempered by the fact isotopes have been found in the food supply.
This good news is tempered by the fact isotopes have been found in the food supply.
When you can do nothing what can you do?
- Hachimitsu
- Formerly Wilma
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- Túrin Turambar
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- Location: Melbourne, Victoria
Naoto Kan has survived a no-confidence motion in his leadership bought about by the handlig of the disaster. Nonetheless, he has promised to stand down when the crisis is under control. Japan will have it's sixth prime minister in as many years.
Worth mentioning:
"It's been many years since seventy-two-year-old Yasuteru Yamada has been to work. But now, the retired Japanese engineer is asking his government to send him -- and hundreds other retirees -- back to the grindstone.
And what a grindstone.
Mr. Yamada has organized a group of pensioner volunteers who are willing to work in the country's damaged Fukushima nuclear plant. They want to help stabilize the plant -- which would mean working in highly dangerous situations in a highly radioactive environment.
But for these retirees, volunteering to replace the younger generation already working at the plant isn't a matter of bravery or duty. It's a matter of logic..."
http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/episode/2 ... ne-1-2011/
Socialism? Logic? Capitalism? Work ethic gone mad? Or is it just something we in the West would never expect to see in our own countries in our own life time?
"It's been many years since seventy-two-year-old Yasuteru Yamada has been to work. But now, the retired Japanese engineer is asking his government to send him -- and hundreds other retirees -- back to the grindstone.
And what a grindstone.
Mr. Yamada has organized a group of pensioner volunteers who are willing to work in the country's damaged Fukushima nuclear plant. They want to help stabilize the plant -- which would mean working in highly dangerous situations in a highly radioactive environment.
But for these retirees, volunteering to replace the younger generation already working at the plant isn't a matter of bravery or duty. It's a matter of logic..."
http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/episode/2 ... ne-1-2011/
Socialism? Logic? Capitalism? Work ethic gone mad? Or is it just something we in the West would never expect to see in our own countries in our own life time?
- Primula Baggins
- Living in hope
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I would too, I hope.
It is logical.
It is logical.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
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- This is Rome
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Kindness; humanity; "do unto others"; bravery; courage; decency; self-sacrifice; perhaps some manner of national identity; and yes, perhaps a pinch of logic stirred in -- but logic by itself wouldn't compel Yamada's decision. He, and his 200 colleagues, are exceptional people.SirDennis wrote:Socialism? Logic? Capitalism? Work ethic gone mad? Or is it just something we in the West would never expect to see in our own countries in our own life time?
As for Japan's on-going rapid-fire changes in governance, I have to be honest that I have whiplash at this point. It had seemed when the DPJ broke through the LDP's decades-long iron control of the government that there was some space for "hope and change," but that seems largely not to have been realized.