How are you going to find trustworthy information about an ongoing disaster?

I guess you start by using what you have learned in ordinary times: ignore sources that deal in sensational speculation; and exercise skepticism when technical topics are clearly over the heads of the talking heads.

But what about topics new to you, like nuclear reactor operations and safety systems, tsunamis, or whatever? Is there any alternative to becoming your own expert as fast as possible?

How do you find the voice of reason?

Lessons learned for me personally (so far) from the accident with the Japanese reactors:

=> Do your homework in advance. Nuclear physics is a complex field. I don't intend to learn every possible nuclear reaction formula under the sun. But I do want to learn enough to translate data - like an anomalous high radiation measurement - into the important question: What does this MEAN? Exactly how dangerous is it, and under what circumstances? What us the best course of action?

I've done my share of learning and re-learning some basic physics, and this process takes TIME. Even more so if your background isn't that of the natural sciences.

The same applies to other kinds of disaster (tsunami, chemical power plant etc). But I dare say that those things are far simpler to learn about than the basic nuclear physics and how nuclear contamination will affect you in the short and long term. (By the way, the answer to that is "not very much" for all but the absolutely worst catastrophic scenarios in proximity to the source).


=> Don't expect the authorities to give out factual info until they are forced to do so. Even with the best intentions, they may be overwhelmed, things are happening too fast and some bureaucrats at some level will inevitably fall victim to "wishful thinking" and dictate that the public should only be told the most possible positive interpretation of events.

You are quite correct. In essence, this is another example of the value of the "It's what you know, not what you carry" theme that comes up time and time again in this forum.

Lacking good information, it is smart to be conservative, especially if the indicated moves are fairly painless. "Honey, I notice there is a tsunami alert on for today. Let's go to the mountains, rather than the beach. OK?"

Interestingly enough, every time there is a tsunami alert here in California, there are some people who will go down to the beach to gawk. Every now and them, someone gets killed (one fatality in this last event).

The biggest problem I am having with the news reports is that the news cycle at various outlets is reporting news as a "new" development when the situation has already changed. For example, this AM the radio station that woke me up was breathlessly reporting that radiation had spiked and the workers pulled out.
I then put the TV news on and found out that yes, that had happened, but the workers had already returned. Some sources were reporting "another" explosion/fire-- but which one, one I heard about last night or another? The news sources are really doing a poor job of reporting what actual specific information there is.

As for the voice of reason, it seems to be lost. So I think we have to fall back to the first rule of any emergency: Don't Panic!

dweste... I'll offer a short vocabulary list

alpha particles... two protons and two neutrons... big but not very penetrating unless it gets inside of your body

beta particles (high energy electrons.. more pentetrating but small)..cesium 137,iodine 131, and strontium 90 are beta emitters and are chemically absorbed by the human body

gamma radiation...high energy electromagnetic wave with more energy than an x-ray

ionizing radiation... what happens to the electrical makeup of the chemistry of the body when a charged particle (beta (-) alpha (++))disrupts the normal electrical bonding.. damage about 10 to the 3rd power compared to size of the particle

half life...time it takes for 1/2 the mass of a radioisotope to decay... short means more particles are being emitted... more dangerous

decay daughters... as the alpha leave, the atom loses two protons and two neutrons, the atomic number is decreased by two, mass by four...as the beta leaves, basically a neutron is converted to a proton, and the atomic number increases by one, with no mass change (electron has virtually no mass)... the resulting daughters have a different proton to neutron ratio (when the nucleus has 1.5 neutrons to protons it is radioactive)and the change in nuclear binding energy (strong force) makes it an entirely new element with new characteristics.. in the case of uranium 238, the daughters Polonium 210, and Radon 222 are much more dangerous(short half life alpha emitters) if taken internally than is mother Uranium...this natural change (transmutation) continues until the neutron to proton ratio becomes less than 1 1/2 to 1... typically Lead 206 for U238.. the decay chain for fissionable Plutonium 239 and Uranium 235 will be different...it happens one atom at a time within the original large sample mass

rem (Roentgen equivalent man)...older term that describes the amount and radiation source type to describe danger to humans

rad.(radiation absorbed dose) amount of energy imparted to the body... typically x and gamma... most detectors will be in rads

Sievert... newer term for absorbed dose rem... 1 Sv = 100 rem

Gray.. newer term for rad ... 1 Gy = 100 rad

most pocket detectors will measure rads... alpha can be stopped by piece of paper (externally) and a beta by aluminum, so only the beta and gamma will penetrate to work the detector

Thanks all, particularly Les - though I will have to sit with that vocabulary a while before I am comfortable I have a grasp of it.

I am finding the ETS braintrust a comforting source, overall.

So: vocabulary so we can understand technical information, an ongoing timeline of events so we can shrug off the sensationalist media who are not diligent about such things, what else?

I have mentioned this guy in Tokyo has been giving daily updates on the "view from Tokyo", and he makes a number of good observations:
http://www.blogtv.com/People/TokyoCooney

Yesterday he ranted about the Cooper Andersons of the world all looking for "touchy/feely" stories rather than news you could use. He does some work in the Japanese entertainment media, but mentioned that about 5 years ago many of the media Tokyo News divisions were RIF'ed, and many moved to Shanghai as the global economies shifted toward China. Now the main news teams arriving in Japan don't have any staff on hand to do the little and big things that need to get done- things like translators and logistical suppliers. They are going to fill the vacuum or "feed the animals" to use an insiders term with whatever low hanging fruit they can find, even if the "experts" are adjunct professors at the local community college.

The Boulder wild fires last year showed the role social media is playing and changing the game. Reporters may be dialed in urban areas they are familiar with, but often horrible in the wilderness- they were reporting "mountains on Fire" while bloggers/twitterers from an RV club, were saying 'I am camping on that mountain as we speak...not on fire"

Here are some links for some schoolboy nuclear physics taught at the local school.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/b...ions_rev1.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/bitesize/higher/physics/radiation/dosimetry_rev1.shtml

We get BBC world news and Deutsche Welle news here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and they spend less time on the hysteria and more on the details with professors from local (to them) universities.

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_17...;nclick_check=1 has an article on tsunamis within the Golden Gate for those that are in the Bay Area, but it mentions the most likely source of a tsunami on America's West Coast is from Alaska, so West Coasters may find the article interesting.

"Scientists say worries about radiation are overblown":
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/03/15/2728833/scientists-say-worries-about-radiation.html
(I think someone may have been having fun with that quote)

The most common radiation from power plants comes from cesium-137 (http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/cesium.html), strontium-90 (http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/strontium.html), and iodine-131 (http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/iodine.html), and the EPA has information about those elements.

I can't remember whether it was the Beeb or D-W, but their expert said if things continue as they are in Japan (total disaster from the plant's perspective but containment of the core and waste), the chance of "extra" cancer from the radiation is statistically zero in the areas around the plants. If there is a "Chernobyl" and the plants' containment buildings are breached, the chances of cancer are increased but no one can hazard any estimate in advance because there's no way to predict what a breach would look like.

Voices of reason are hard to find, because ratings are driven by drama and my opinion is that news is driven by ratings; others have different opinions, and I'm find with that. I mentioned during the swine flu or bird flu or whatever flu hysteria that people say what benefits them, so we get people predicting things that generate funds in their industry or create bigger bureaucracies for them to manage and so on.

Some of the experts being quoted on the Japanese reactors are not in the field of nuclear power at all; look at the tag with their name or listen to their introduction and see if they work at a planning agency or firm that manages disasters. If so, I tend to think they're promoting themselves and their company and benefit from scaring people.

If the talking head has a degree in physics or nuclear engineering and is at a known university, I'll give her more credence, but still that person isn't at the site and can't give first-hand information on what's happening.

The major problem is that we don't have access to what's really going on. It's possible that not even the Japanese have knowledge of what's going on; however, I remember events around their nuclear reactors from years past when the power companies lied about the severity of the problems. I have some disbelief about their statements to the press about what's going on.

I think one of my lessons is to know that I don't know and not to make worst-case assumptions based. My take on this is based on all the hysteria on past predictions of plagues, disasters, and doom that have never come to pass. Not knowing what's going on is a natural state of affairs. Sometimes we know we don't know, and sometimes we don't even know we don't know. I have no idea about nuclear reactor operations and safety systems, and if I did it doesn't seem to me to make any difference in what will happen in Japan.

Tsunamis, on the other hand, have the potential to affect me and my lesson is, if one is predicted to know the height of the predicted wave and move to higher ground if necessary. I'm not sure what else I need to know. (Oh, if I'm on an ilsand on vacation and the water suddenly moves way out on the beach, head for high ground NOW.)

Yokoso News is an erstwhile travel stream on Ustream, but the guy is presently giving updates on local events in Tokyo, including realtime translations into English of local Japanese newscasts:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/yokosonews

He's one guy, so he's offline to sleep and eat with no real schedule as far as I can tell. However, he's there while it's happening.