habitat for humanity: November 2021

radiation causes cancer

radiation destroyed cancer

• atomic radiation, radiation exposure, the cancer bugbear, a million way to die in the west

•

• why is the nuclear industry so heavily regulated?

•

• http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-radiation-to-blame-for-st-louis-county-cancer-cases/

•

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihama_Nuclear_Power_Plant

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster

•

• The Conqueror, atomic testing, cancer

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conqueror_%28film%29#Cancer_controversy

• http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/374/did-john-wayne-die-of-cancer-caused-by-a-radioactive-movie-set

• In 1953, the military had tested 11 atomic bombs at Yucca Flats, Nevada, which resulted in immense clouds of fallout floating downwind. Much of the deadly dust funneled into Snow Canyon, Utah, where a lot of The Conqueror was shot. The actors and crew were exposed to the stuff for 13 weeks, no doubt inhaling a fair amount of it in the process, and Hughes later shipped 60 tons of hot dirt back to Hollywood to use on a set for retakes, thus making things even worse.

• Many people involved in the production knew about the radiation (there's a picture of Wayne himself operating a Geiger counter during the filming), but no one took the threat seriously at the time.

• Thirty years later, however, half the residents of St. George had contracted cancer, and veterans of the production began to realize they were in trouble.

• Actor Pedro Armendariz developed cancer of the kidney only four years after the movie was completed, and later shot himself when he learned his condition was terminal.

• why is the

• http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542411/advanced-nuclear-industry-to-regulators-give-us-a-chance/

____________________________________

chemical causes cancer

chemical destroyed cancer

____________________________________

virus causes cancer

virus can destroyed cancer (no one was doing this)

____________________________________

medicine can be used to heal and even cure disease and sickness

however that is only one side of the coin

the very same medical knowledge can also be used to cause illness and make people sick

food can heal and maintain your health

food can also make you sick and cause your health to degenerate

medicine that cure

medicine that cause you to get sick and die is called poison

____________________________________

Atomic bomb, or A-bomb, was first used in a military operation near the end of 2nd World War.

Little boy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy ) atomic bomb was drop on Hiroshima.

Fat Man ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man ) atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

'Little boy' and 'Fat man' were end-products from Manhattan research and development project ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project ), used to employ a great number of people, to produce components and material that is needed to make the bombs, and to produce atomic bombs, under the offical codename, Development of Substitute Materials, in the United States, and British counter-part, Tube Alloys. For example, the styrofoam cups and containers came from the development of the atomic bomb. They needed a lightweight hard material to encase and separate different parts of the bomb. They came up with the styrofoam.

Little boy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy )

Two Fat Man ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man )

link trace:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Caldicott

http://www.helencaldicott.com/

http://www.helencaldicott.com/activist-dont-believe-anything-the-nuclear-industry-says/

google, “Don’t believe anything the nuclear industry says, because they lie.”

____________________________________

Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: a history of the world in our time, publication date 1966, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_and_Hope

Some people, like General Groves, wanted it to be used to justify the $2 billion they had spent. A large group sided with him because the Democratic leaders in the Congress had authorized these expenditures outside proper congressional procedures and had cooperated in keeping them from almost all members of both houses by concealing them under misleading appropriation headings.

Majority Leader John W. McCormack (later Speaker) once told me, half joking, that if the bomb had not worked he expected to face penal charges. Some Republicans, notably Congressman Albert J. Engel of Michigan, had already shown signs of a desire to use congressional investigations and newspaper publicity to raise questions about misuse of public funds.

During one War Department discussion of this problem, a skilled engineer, Jack Madigan, said:

"If the project succeeds, there won't be any investigation. If it doesn't, they won't investigate anything else."

More over, some air force officers were eager to protect the relative position of their service in the post war demobilization and drastic reduction of the financial appropriations by using a successful A-bomb (Atomic) drop as an argument that Japan had been defeated by air power rather than by naval or ground forces.

After it was all over, Director of Military Intelligence for the Pacific Theater of War Alfred McCormack, who was probably in as good position as anyone to judging the situation, felt that the Japanese surrender could have been obtained in a few weeks by blockade alone: "The Japanese had no longer enough food in stock, and their fuel reserves were practically exhausted. We had begun a secret process of mining all their harbors. which was steadily isolating them from the rest of the world. If we had brought this operation to its logical conclusion, the destruction of Japan's cities with incendiary and other bombs would have been quite unnecessary. But General Norstad declared at Washington that this blockading action was a cowardly proceeding unworthy of the Air Force. It was therefore discountinued. "

(Tragedy and Hope, by Carroll Quigley)

____________________________________

Joseph Panno, Cancer : the role of genes, lifestyle, and environment, 2005 [ ]

p.41

Lung cancer alone is so prevalent that it has obscured the incidence of all other cancers. Many people have the impression that the incidence of cancer cases has been increasing over the years, and if all cancers are simply grouped together and plotted against time, this does appear to be the case. Many believe the increased prevalence of cancer is due to pollution of our environment, the air we breathe, and the food we eat. Yet if lung cancer is subtracted from the data, we find that the incidence of other major cancers (plotted as deaths per 100,000 people), including colon, breast, and prostate cancer, has not changed since 1930. ([ why the 1930s; when we started recorded statistical data? ])

([ statistical data and rate of lung cancer in Great Britian & European landmass ])

[in August 1945, the history of the world was altered abruptly. The first atomic bomb hit Hiroshima on 6 August. The second hit Nagasaki on the 9th., source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSS_Deer_Team]

(Cancer : the role of genes, lifestyle, and environment / Joseph Panno.

1. cancer──social aspects., 2. cancer──environmental aspects., 3. cancer──genetic aspects., RC262.P35 2004, 616.99'4071──dc22, 2005, )

____________________________________

Charles Perrow, Normal accidents : living with high-risk technologies, 1999 [ ]

p.260

The third was in a navigational satellite sent up in 1964 that failed to achieve orbit when its rocket engine failed. It reentered the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and distributed 1 kilogram of plutonium-238 about the earth. By 1970 it was estimated that about 95 percent of it had settled on the ground or the earth's waters. The accident was estimated to produce a three-fold increase over the amount of plutonium contamination produced by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing.5 This received almost no publicity, in contrast to the breakup of a Soviet nuclear-powered satellite in 1978 and another one in 1983. The first public mention of it may have been in a 1967 item in the journal Science.6

( Normal accidents : living with high-risk technologies / Charles Perrow, 1. industrial accidents., 2. technology--risk assessment., 3. accident., HD7262 P55 1999, 363.1--dc21, 1999, )

____________________________________

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster

p.xi

Finally, take the silence of the Soviet Union after the enormous explosion that shook the Ural Mountains, at a nuclear dump site near the city of Kasli, in 1957. Although the CIA and, presumably, the governments of other Western countries were aware of the explosion, no news of it leaked out until a Soviet scientist, Dr. Zhores Medvedev, emigratred to the West and published a reference to it in a scientific journal. And even then, heads of atomic energy commissions worldwide scoffed at the news. If it had not been for the determination of Medvedev to assert his newfound freedom of expression, this catastrophe might well have remained buried under an international mountain range of official denials.

____________________________________

atomic-powered sensor

atomic-powered battery

atomic-powered satellite (space craft)

the insidiousness of uranium mining, extraction, processing, production, atomic product and its development are the radio active material; the man-made radio-active materials present an enduring contamination and pollution, a multi-generational contamination problem, when they are released into the environment ─ toxic, hazardous, poisonous; the radio active substances - either in solid form or dust form or gasous - has no taste, has no smell, and has no immediate physical feedback to the human touch; yet a prolonged exposure to these radioactive substances ...

____________________________________

West, Nigel.

Games of intelligence: the classified conflict of international espionage / Nigel West.

1. intelligence service.

2. secret service.

3. espionage.

JF1525.I6W47 1990

327.1'2――dc20

pp.50―51

The first cryptonym [PYRAMIDER] referred to a highly secret communications satellite, which enabled the CIA to receive and transmit signals direct to their agents without risk of hostile interception.

The objective was to produce a global, push-button system that would put case officers in Langley in direct contact with their assets, whatever their location, with only minimal field equipment and ground stations. In theory, PYRAMIDER would allow a spy in the Laotian jungle, or a suburb of Leningrad, to signal the CIA with a piece of kit the size of ... . It would also operate a sophisticated sensors, planted in strategic positions, to be activated by remote control.29

Contact had to be instantaneous and undetectable, with a less than 1 per cent chance of interception, utilizing the very latest technique of burst transmission, encryption and frequency jumping.

29 The alleged loss of an atomic-powered remote sensor, placed on Nanda Devi and Monda Kot in the Himalayas close to the Indian frontier to monitor Chinese nuclear tests in Sinkiang in 1964 and 1967, was exploited in hostile propaganda alleging that the device's atomic fuel had contaminated the source of the Ganges. See 'Fiasco of the sacred river and the spies': The Sunday Times, 16 April 1978.

30 There is a curious contradiction between the French language edition of DCI William Colby's memoirs Honorable Men (Press de la Renaissance, Paris, 1978) and the Agency-cleared version published in the US (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1978) regarding AZORIAN's success.

____________________________________

• In theory, PYRAMIDER would allow a spy in the Laotian jungle, or a suburb of Leningrad, to signal the CIA with a piece of kit the size of ... . It would also operate a sophisticated sensors, planted in strategic positions, to be activated by remote control.29

Sharon Weinberger, The imagineers of war : the untold history of DARPA, the pentagon agency that changed the world, 2017

p.212

Most advances look obvious in hindsight, but it can often take many frustrating years to understand what new technology can do. When the inventor Nikola Tesla publicly demonstrated remote control in 1898, operating a small boat using radio signals, it caught people's attention, but it did not instantly spark a revolution. Whether it is trying to make people see how you could use networked computers or getting the military to understand why it might want bombs that can be guided to a specific location, one often needs to make dramatic presentation to convince people, but even that may not be enough.

(The imagineers of war : the untold story of DARPA, the Pentagon agency that changed the world / by Sharon Weinberger., New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2017, united states. defense advanced research projects agency──history. | military research──united states. | military art and science──technological innovations──united states. | science and state──united states. | national security──united states──history. | united states──defenses──history., U394.A75 W45 2016 (print) | U394.A75 (ebook) | 355/.040973, 2017, )

____________________________________

Evelyn Fox Keller, A feeling for the organism : the life and work of Barbara McClintock, 1983

p.65

Stadler's investigation of the mutagenic effects of X rays ── discovered independently by H. J. Muller in 1927 ── greatly excited McClintock's imagination.

To this day, mutations are the mainstay of genetic research, and in the early days progress was limited by the need to rely on their spontaneous occurrence.

p.65

By vastly increasing the frequency and variety of mutation, X rays could greatly expedite the probing of genetic structure.

p.65

The technique was to irradiate the pollen grains of plants carrying dominant genes of particular traits, and then use the irradiated pollen to fertilize kernels of plants carrying recessive genes for the same traits. It emerged that the X rays were inducing large-scale changes in the chromosomal arrangement ── changes that would show up in a wide range of visible alterations in the young plant, most dramatically in the coloring and texture of the kernels. McClintock's challenge that summer was to identify the specific nature of these chromosomal changes. The same cytological techniques she had earlier developed now enabled her to determine the minute physical changes within the chromosomes that were induced by the X rays. She found translocation, inversions, and deletions of parts of chromosomes, all resulting from exchanges between normal and damaged chromosomes occurring in the course of meiotic division.

(A feeling for the organism : the life and work of Barbara McClintock./ Evelyn Fox Keller., 1. McClintock, Barbara, 1902- ., 2. geneticists──united states──biography., QH439.2.M38K44 1983, 575.1'092'4, 10th anniversary edition, 1983, )

____________________________________

radiation causes cancer

radiation destroyed cancer

chemical causes cancer

chemical destroyed cancer

virus causes cancer

virus can destroyed cancer (no one was doing this)

environment causes cancer

environment can destroyed cancer

microenvironment causes cancer

microenvironment can destroyed cancer

micro cellular matrix

micro cellular environment causes cancer

micro cellular environment can destroyed cancer

micro cellular environment can inhibit cancer

micro cellular neighborhood

micro cellular environment (radiation, chemical, virus)

radiation, chemical, virus => micro celluar environment

Semyon D. Savransky., Engineering of creativity, 2000 [ ]

p.11

1.5.2 MORPHOLOGICAL BOX

Based on the works of famous mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716), in 1942 astronomer Fritz Zwicky [7] proposed morphological analysis. The goal of this method are

• to expand search space for a problem's solution and

• to safeguard against overlooking novel solutions to a design problem.

This method combines parameters into new sequences for later review. The result of this analysis is the so-called morphological box or matrix or table.

The best known morphological box is the Chemical Periodic Table (created by Russian chemist D. I. Mendeleev) with the number of electrons at the outer shell along the X-axis and the number of electronic shells along the Y-axis. Atoms with ... ...[...]... Such a matrix can be used for forecasting properties; in fact, Mendeleev predicted many elements based on the Periodic Table.

( Savransky, Semyon D., Engineering of creativity : introduction to TRIZ methodology of inventive problem solving / by Semyon D. Savransky., 1. engineering--methodology., 2. problem solving--methodology., 3. creative thinking., 4. technological innovations., 2000, )

____________________________________

Mark Stefik and Barbara Stefik, Breakthrough, 2004 [ ]

pp.144-145

Mark Stefik

At that time I was a second-year graduate student in computer science. Preparing for my thesis, I was spending a lot of time in Joshua Lederberg's genetics laboratory in the medical school. Researchers in Josh's lab were always conducting experiments where they were digesting DNA, that is, cutting DNA into fragments using enzymes. Jerry Feitelson and I came up with the idea of writing a computer program to infer the DNA structure from the data.

Researchers in the lab were doing enzyme digests all of the time. Figuring out the segment structure was reasonably difficult, so people might spend hours doing it for each experiment. We thought that a good first project for me would be to automate the reasoning for these problems.

I started out by interviewing people in the lab about how they solved the problems. There was an underlying set of rules that governed how the DNA molecules were split apart by enzymes. My program was supposed to look at the digestion data and figure out how the segments were arranged in the original molecule. In any given experiment, a molecule might be digested by more than one enzyme. There were also experimental techniques called “partial digests” where the enzymatic processes were interrupted before they ran to completion. The partial digests gave intermediate-sized segments, which were clues about which pieces were next to each other.

At first things seemed to go quite easily. I interviewed people, wrote down their rules of reasoning, and programmed them in the computer. The program would re-assemble representations of the segments into representations of larger molecules. But as I explored more data, something began to bother me about the way the program worked. The more data the program had──the more clues it had about the segment structure──the longer it took. This seemed completely wrong to me. A puzzle should get easier when you have more clues. I set up an appointment to ask Lederberg for help.

I sweated for two weeks. I have tremendous admiration for Josh. In my mind he was high on a pedestal. I did not want to go and ask him a stupid question. Finally, on the afternoon of our meeting an hour before our appointment, I figure it out. I needed to reorganize the program so that it used the enzyme data as contraints or data for pruning rules rather than as clues for assembly. Having Josh tell me this WOULD have been embarrassing since he had pioneered the Dendral algorithms that used this approach for organic chemistry problems.

There was actually a saving grace to the interview. After staring at these problems for so long I came upon a new kind of experiment for elucidating DNA structure and was eager to tell Josh about it. I thought that it would make it easier to solve more complex structure problems than the ones being done in his laboratory. My idea was to do a partial digest with one enzyme, and then a complete digest in the other direction with another one. I was pretty proud of my idea.

When I met with Josh and told him my idea, the most amazing thing happened. He scratched his chin for and moment and said “That's interesting.” Then, as I remember it, he went to a whitebord and started listing the variables were could control: one, two, or three enzymes, complete digests versus partial digests, two and conceivably even three dimensional arrangements of the gels, and the order in which the digests were performed. He took my single variation on their experiments and in two or three minutes generated a whole family of additional experimental variations. I was dumfounded.

Josh showed me a NEW WAY TO THINK about problems. You could call what he did a kind of dimensional analysis. This left a lasting impression on me. Now when I get stuck I look for ways to generate variations. I will always remember that afternoon.

to George Pake, the founder of PARC, who passed away on March 4, 2004.

(Stefik, Mark., Breakthrough : stories and strategies of radical innovation / Mark Stefik and Barbara Stefik., 1. technological innovation., 2. inventions., 2004, )

____________________________________

• Waste such as piping, scrap cloth, filter cloths, papers, rubber gloves, clothing and the like had be carefully saved in order to recover the small concentrations of uranium, particularly of Uranium-235. Inventories of the alpha cycle were made every four weeks and of the beta cycle every two. Constant studies were made to find out where losses occurred., p.107, Leslie R. Groves, Now it can be told : the story of the manhattan project, 1983.

Leslie R. Groves, Now it can be told : the story of the manhattan project, 1983

p.8

Virtually all laboratory research until this time had been aimed at achieving a controlled chain reaction, using U-235, a rare isotope of uranium which comprises less than one percent of the metal in its natural state. This isotope has the property of fissioning readily ── a property which the far more abundant form of uranium, U-238, does not display. But it soon became apparent that unless unprecedented quantities of this material could be produced in a much purer state, U-235 chain reaction would be impossible. The basic problem was to arrive at an industrial process that would produce kilograms of a substance that had never been isolated before in greater than submicroscopic quantities. The processes then being considered were all designed to take advantage of the very minor physical difference between U-235 and U-238

p.9

In the meantime, other laboratories in colleges, universities and a few industrial plants were trying to find some method of physically separating U-235 from U-238 that would be practical from the standpoints of both economy and time.

p.9

The purpose of the research was to develop the knowledge needed to design, build and operate a plant for the conversion of uranium into plutonium.5

5 Metallurgical Laboratory was a code name chosen to conceal the nature of the work being done there.

p.10

In his report to Bush, he expressed the prevailing opinion that there were five basic production methods, each of which held out equal chances of success. U-235 could be separated by means of the centrifuge, diffusion and electromagenetic processes; while plutonium could be obtained from either the uranium-graphite pile or the uranium-heavy-water pile. All these processes appeared to be nearly ready for pilot plant construction and possibly for the preliminary design of production plants.

p.10

No longer would it be conducted in the laboratory on a purely theoretical basis, for our scientists had now accumulated sufficient theoretical knowledge to permit the preliminary engineering of possible production processes.

p.107

Waste such as piping, scrap cloth, filter cloths, papers, rubber gloves, clothing and the like had be carefully saved in order to recover the small concentrations of uranium, particularly of Uranium-235. Inventories of the alpha cycle were made every four weeks and of the beta cycle every two. Constant studies were made to find out where losses occurred.

p.111

gaseous diffusion process, later termed the K-25 project,

a large scale multistage process for the separation of U-235 from U-238

p.111

The method was completely novel. It was based on the theory that if uranium gas was pumped against a porous barrier, the lighter molecules of the gas, containing U-235, would pass through more rapidly than the heavier U-238 molecules.

p.111

The heart of the process was, therefore, the barrier, a porous thin metal sheet or membrane with millions of submicroscopic openings per square inch. These sheets were formed into tubes which were enclosed in an airtight vessel, the diffuser.

p.111

As the gas, uranium hexafluoride, was pumped through a long series, or cascade, of these tubes it tended to separate, the enriched gas moving up the cascade while the depleted moved down. However, there is so little difference in mass between the hexafluorides of U-238 and U-235 that it was impossible to gain much separation in a single diffusion step. This was why there had to be several thousand successive stages.

p.111

The basic scientific research on gaseous diffusion process was done by Columbia University's SAM 6 Laboratory in New York City under the leadership of Dr. Harold C. Urey, with Dr. John R. Dunning as chief physicist.

6 Code name originally based on Substitute (or Special) Alloy Materials.

p.111

M. W. Kellogg Company for the extensive research and development, design, procurement and related services necessary to build a plant to produce U-235 of the purity and the quantity found needed for atomic bomb production. For operational reasons, as well as for security, Kellogg set up a wholly owned subsidiary, Kellex, to handle this project.

(Now it can be told : the story of the manhattan project / Leslie R. Groves, 1. united states. army. corps of engineers. manhattan district ─ history., 2. atomic bomb ─ united states ─ history., Reprint. Originally published: New York: Harper, 1962., QC773.A1G7 1983, 623.4'5119'0973, 623.4511 GROVES, 1962, 1983, )

____________________________________

• Out of all this came several extremely important technological breakthroughs. Until this time it had never been thought that extractable amounts of uranium would be found in any hydrocarbon-bearing material, such as petroleum or coal. From his pattern studies, Bain concluded that they should be; and was proved to be right., p.182, Leslie R. Groves, Now it can be told : the story of the manhattan project, 1983.

Leslie R. Groves, Now it can be told : the story of the manhattan project, 1983

p.178

Union Minière was not our only supplier of ore. Prior to the formation of the MED all ores had been obtained from the Eldorado Mining Company, which had a uranium mine at Great Bear Lake, not far from the Arctic Circle. Eldorado also operated a refinery at Port Hope on Lake Ontario, where uranium oxide, as well as radium, was extracted from uranium ore, and through which we eventually funneled all the Belgian Congo ore.

p.179

A systematic search of the Colorado Plateau disclosed uranium-bearing wastes in the dumps at the Vanadium Corporation of America. Contracts were let for the uranium content of these dumps, which was of considerable quantity, and for its extraction.

p.179

He also checked to determine whether there were not some tailing dumps that contained a substantial amount of ore; that there might be seemed most probable in the light of the richness of the ores we had previously received. Merritt's inquiry was successful and as a result we had immediately available another large amount of ore. It was not so rich as that which we had previously obtained from the Congo, but the Congo's poorest was much better than the best from Canada or the Colorado Plateau. These dumps had been built up during the years as a result of hand-sorting the richer ores. Their uranium content varied widely from 3 per cent to 20 per cent.

pp.179-180

p.180

To collect the necessary knowledge we decided to use the services of some existing organization rather than attempt to organize an agency of our own for the work. We also decided that we should us a private organization rather than one within the government. The principal reason for this was the need for security, since extensive field investigations by a government agency would be apt to attract too much attention.

Union Carbide and Carbon agreed to undertake the assignment.

p.182

Out of all this came several extremely important technological breakthroughs. Until this time it had never been thought that extractable amounts of uranium would be found in any hydrocarbon-bearing material, such as petroleum or coal. From his pattern studies, Bain concluded that they should be; and was proved to be right.

p.182

He had a remarkably thorough knowledge of geological formations throughout the world and recalled that, in the course of a trip he had made in 1941, he had found uranium in amounts that might be of interest to us in the gold mines of the Rand, in South Africa. A further investigation confirmed the presence of uranium, but not of suffcient richness for our needs. These findings were at considerable variance with Bain's estimate of what they should have shown.

p.182

After reviewing the entire situation with Guarin, Bain went home to Amherst from New York on Sunday. While he was there, he took from his private collection a sample of the Rand gold-bearing rock, placed it on a photographic plate, and was delighted to find from the exposure very definite proof that the ore did emit beta rays of an intensity that indicated uranium content far beyond anything that had previously been suspected.

p.182

This made us feel certain that we had uncovered great possibilities. But we had a great deal of trouble convincing others, who insisted that it was impossible that uranium could have been overlooked in the Rand ore for so many years. I discussed the matter with Sir Charles Hambro and Sir James Chadwick and they agreed with me that we could pursue our investigation of the Rand vigorously.

p.182

A new assay confirmed Bain's opinion of the ore's richness, and proved that the Rand was probably a major potential source of uranium. It also led directly to the adoption of Bain's views that all placer deposits should be carefully considered; thus many other areas throughout the world came be regarded as possible sources of uranium.

p.183

The economic effect of these discoveries on the Union of South Africa has been tremendous. In 1959, well over $150 million worth of uranium was exported. It has made possible the working of many gold mines which, without this valuable by-product, would not have been able to operate. It is difficult to estimate how much of the $700 million worth of gold produced during that same year would have been reduced, but it would have been by a substantial amount if uranium had not been recovered from what previously had been discarded as waste.

____________________________________

• Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy: "In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely."

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and its discontents revisited, 2018, 2002

p.267

A U.S. government enterprise called the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) would buy Russian uranium from deactivated nuclear warheads and bring it to the United States.

p.268

Worse still, we at the Council of Economic Advisers had analyzed that it had every incentive to keep the Russian uranium out of the United States.

p.268

USEC adamantly denied that it would ever act counter to broader U.S. interests, and affirmed that it would always bring in Russian uranium as fast as the Russians were willing to sell; but the very week that it made these protestations, I got told of a secret agreement between USEC and the Russian agency. The Russian had offered to triple their their deliveries, and USEC had not only turned them down but paid a handsome amount in what could only be termed “hush money” to keep the offer (and USEC's refusal) secret.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and its discontents revisited, 2018, 2002

____________________________________

The Three Tradesmen

A GREAT CITY was besieged, and its inhabitants were called together to

consider the best means of protecting it from the enemy. A Bricklayer

earnestly recommended bricks as affording the best material for an

effective resistance. A Carpenter, with equal enthusiasm, proposed

timber as a preferable method of defense. Upon which a Currier stood up

and said, “Sirs, I differ from you altogether: there is no material

for resistance equal to a covering of hides; and nothing so good as

leather.”

Every man for himself.

source:

AESOP’S FABLES

By Aesop

Translated by George Fyler Townsend

***** This file should be named 21-0.txt or 21-0.zip *****

This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:

http://www.gutenberg.org/2/21/

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Aesop’s Fables, by Aesop

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Aesop’s Fables

Author: Aesop

Translator: George Fyler Townsend

Posting Date: June 25, 2008 [EBook #21]

Release Date: September 30, 1991

Last Updated: October 28, 2016

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

____________________________________

• Respect even small amounts of radiation.

• Rickover management objectives

• Quotations of Rickover from The Rickover Effect (1992) by Theodore Rockwell, ISBN 1-55750-702-3

• I'll be philosophical. Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on earth; that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn't have any life — fish or anything. Gradually, about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet—and probably in the entire system—reduced and made it possible for some form of life to begin... Now when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible... Every time you produce radiation, you produce something that has a certain half-life, in some cases for billions of years. I think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it... I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all. Have I given you an answer to your question?

• On the hazards of nuclear power. Testimony to Congress (28 January 1982); published in Economics of Defense Policy: Hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., Pt. 1 (1982)

• Hyman G. Rickover wikiquote

• Fish don't vote.

• Statement on why submarine names changed from fish to cities, as quoted in "BRIEFING; Navy Reverts to Fish" by James F. Clarity and Warren Weaver Jr., The New York Times (22 April 1985)

• Hyman G. Rickover wikiquote

____________________________________

Ben Bova, New Earth, 2013

pp.211-212

p.211

Longyear's lean face was entirely serious. “I've been thinking about this planet's ozone

Jordan felt surprised.

“It's much thicker than Earth's”, Longyear said.

“Well, it has to be, doesn't it? Sirius emits much more ultraviolet radiation than our Sun does. The ozone layer screens out the UV, protects life on the planet's surface.”

“Exactly right”, said Meek.

Longyear leaned closer and asked, “But how did the ozone get there, in the first place?”

Jordan blinked at him. “As I understand it, the ultraviolet light coming in creates a reaction that turns some of the oxygen molecules high in atmosphere into ozone: oxygen-three, isn't it, where regular oxygen is a two-atom molecule.”

“Right”, said Longyear. “But how did the oxygen get into the atmosphere?”

Feeling as if he were taking a high school science exam, Jordan answered, “From living plants that give off oxygen as a result of photosynthesis.”

“Aha!” Meek pounced. “And how could plant life arise in the face of heavy ultraviolet radiation reaching the planet's surface?”

Jordan was puzzled by that. “Why ... how did photosynthetic plants arise on Earth? In the oceans, wasn't it? Single-celled bacteria in the water.”

“That's what happened on Earth, true enough”, said Longyear. “The so-called blue-green algae──”

“Cyanobacteria, actually”, Meek interrupted.

A frown flashed across Longyear's face as he continued, “Those single-celled creatures lived deep enough in the water so that the Sun's UV didn't reach them.”

“The water protected them”, Jordan said.

“Right. And over many eons, they pumped enough oxygen into Earth's atmosphere to allow an ozone layer to build up. The ozone layer protected the planet's surface from killing levels of ultraviolet and life could eventually evolve on land.”

p.212

Jordan spread his hands. “So the same thing has happened here, obviously.”

“Not so obvious, Jordan”, Longyear contradicted. Ticking off points on his stubby fingers, biologist said, “One, Sirius puts out so much UV that it's tough to see how life could have arisen n the first place.”

“Really? Even in the oceans?”

Raising a second finger, Longyear went on, “Which brings us to point number two : time. It took billions of years for life to evolve in the oceans of Earth. Billions of years for those cyanobacteria to generate enough oxygen to change the atmosphere and form an ozone layer.”

“This planet can't be that old”, Meek said. “Sirius itself can't be more than half a billion years old, from what Elyse Rudaki's told me.”

“That's not enough time for a thick ozone layer to be built up”, Longyear resumed.

“So how did it get there?” Meek demanded.

“How did life evolve on the ground without an ozone layer to protect it from lethal levels of US?” Longyear added.

Jordan looked at them: Longyear earnest, serious, troubled; Meek burning with righteous indignation.

“Life couldn't get started on the ground without a strong UV shield, a thick ozone layer high in the atmosphere”, Longyear repeated. “But the ozone layer couldn't get created until life spent billions of years producing oxygen.”

p.212

“I've run the numbers through the computer. Considering the level of ultraviolet that Sirius emits, and the time scale involved, there's no way that such a thick ozone layer could have been built up.”

p.213 geomagnetic field

“That's because there's no planetary magnetic field, as on Earth”, said Jordan.

“Uh-huh. And how did Adri's people evolve to the level of high technology without a geomagnetic field to protect them?”

NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C., section 107, some material is provided without permission from the copyright owner, only for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of federal copyright laws. These materials may not be distributed further, except for "fair use," without permission of the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

habitat for humanity

Friday, November 12, 2021

cancers, radiation, ...

Folding Beijing (sci-fi)

Search This Blog