After three disasters of such monumental proportions, Japanese newspapers are urging people to bind together to help those most in need, and expressing thanks to people around the world for coming to their aid. This editorial from the Akita Sakigake Shimpo, from Japan’s main island just south of the disaster zone, urges people to help others and take heart that they are not alone. The editorial from the...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

What’s the connection between the women of Rio’s Carnival and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg? For Brazil’s O Globo, Mônica Geraldi Valentim writes that even if women have become more financially independent in recent decades, the lengths to which they’ll go to look attractive is proof that catching a mate still requires good old-fashioned thin waists, full lips and silky hair; and...

In the wake of Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, the challenge facing Fukushima has been keeping the nuclear cores covered with water, which is needed to cool the fuel rods, the heart of a reactor. The most serious damage is at the Unit 2 reactor, where there was a hydrogen explosion on Tuesday; the suppression pool has been damaged. Only 50 employees remain on site, and they have been exposed to high...

Things have gone from really bad to much worse at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex as the radiation levels reached such high levels that all worker were withdrawn. FUKUSHIMA, Japan – Japan suspended operations to prevent a stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after a surge in radiation made it too dangerous for workers to remain at the facility. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said work on...

Half a century ago, Americans feared atomic weapons of a nation that long longer exists, the Soviet Union, and its potential to destroy us. Now, as devastation spreads in Japan, anxiety arises about the original Faustian bargain to unleash a power that can’t be fully controlled. If this sounds like the start of a Luddite tract, not so. Nuclear power will be not be disinvented but, as we now know, can not...

There are serious problems at all reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. But, as of 10.00 pm PDT Monday, there has been no “nuclear explosion” even though you may have seen headlines or tweets that imply or say that. The challenge facing Fukushima is keeping the nuclear core covered with water, which is needed to cool the fuel rods, the heart of the reactor. The most serious damage...

Talk about sticking my foot in my mouth. It now looks almost certain that the containment for Unit 2 has been breached and that the core may be in or close to full meltdown mode. I am being told second hand that my fears that the core will create a massive steam explosion that compromise the whole structure are not unfounded by still “unlikely.” This is by a friend of a friend who works at a nuclear...

While I’m not so happy about how the odds of disaster are presented, I think it is imperative that we put the safety of nuclear power in context. The truth of the matter is that coal power plants release much more destructive pollution into the environment than even the worst nuclear accident. This article in Slate cites 1 million annual premature deaths [or "500 Chernobyls"] from particulate pollution....

The paradox of material and technological progress is that we seem to become more risk-averse the safer it makes us. Thus begins the close of a must-read op-ed in Monday’s Wall Street Journal. It’s not a surprise that the WSJ would lament risk-aversion. What was a surprise is that many of the arguments put forth are the same ones I have been making for two days: There is no “clean”...

The situation in Japan is serious. But, as of 1.30 3.00 9.30 pm PDT, there has been no “nuclear explosion” even though you may have seen headlines or tweets to that effect. Officials assume, but have not confirmed, a “partial meltdown” which does not appear to be either a “China Syndrome” (thank you, Hollywood) or a “Chernobyl” (thank you, media). Four nuclear...

What a difference 66 years makes! In 1945, the Japanese homeland was devastated, not by Nature, by my country dropping atomic bombs to save lives of soldiers like me in what surely would have been a bloody invasion. Now, an earthquake and tsunami have set off scrambling in that unwarlike nation to avert another nuclear catastrophe, and reports show the 8.9 magnitude seizure has shifted the Earth off its axis. The...

The New York Times today has an “Op-Chart” purporting to depict “The Pentagon’s biggest boondoggles.” According to the Times, the list of “boondoggles” is “just a sampling of what systems could be ended without endangering America; indeed, abandoning some of them might actually enhance national security.” Some of the alleged “boondoggles” whose abandonment, according to the Times, would...

As a scientific rationalist I get irritated when people argue without understanding all the facts, but as a student of history I get more irritated when people with the facts argue without understanding their limits. One of the things that engineers tend to do incorrectly is assess risk factors largely independent of each other: if X happens then part 1 will address it and if Y happens then part 2 will address...

While the disaster in Japan impacted the Pacific Coast of the US, here in Oregon a few million dollars damage at Depot Bay and Brookings, it was mostly a reminder that a subduction zone like the one responsible for earthquake and tsunami in Japan can be found 75 miles of the Oregon Coast. An earthquake of similar magnitude occurred along that zone on January 26th, 1700.  We also know that such events occur...

STRATFOR Red Alert: Nuclear Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant [March 12, 2011 | 0827 GMT] A March 12 explosion at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown….. MORE

UPDATE: Washington Post, 20:12 ET, March 15: New assessments of the explosion at Unit 2 of Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Tuesday heightened fears that it will begin spewing large amounts of radiation. The explosion probably damaged the main protective shield around the uranium-filled core inside one of the plant’s six reactors. Such a breach would be the first at a nuclear power plant...

After my first initial reaction of pure horror, this was one of my first thoughts after hearing about the earthquake in Japan:

Raw footage — photographs and video — of the tsunami and its aftermath, and an extensive list of online resources for those who want to follow earthquake-related news and information.

On Friday, an earthquake, the largest in at least 100 years (1000 years?), struck Japan 130 kilometres east of Sendai on the main island of Honshu. It triggered a local tsunami with waves of 30 feet. The combined calamity killed hundreds. In addition, the 8.9-magnitude earthquake triggered tsunami alerts across the Pacific from Indonesia and New Zealand to Russia to the coasts of Alaska, Oregon and California. Initially,...