I've mentioned before that UC Berkeley is doing daily monitoring of air, rain, and some foods, and they're updating their site daily, too:

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling

So far, levels detected in spinach show that you'd get the same levels of radiation as on a roundtrip flight coast to coast - _if_ you eat 800 pounds of spinach. As of yesterday, Berkeley is showing no increases in radiation levels in the US.

Fukushima has indeed been raised to level 7, but this is based on getting more accurate records from earlier in the month. At that time, the reactor was releasing 10,000 terabecquerels of Iodine-131. Level 7 is defined as being the release of "tens of thousands of terabecquerels." Although Chernobyl was classed as a level 7, also, Chernobyl released about 10 times as much radiation as Fukushima. They're both level 7 because that's the definition of level 7. It's like saying because the White Sox are a major league time, they're in the same league as the Yankees. :-> Technically true.

We all have access to information freely available on the Web to read these numbers and to know what they mean. Relying on TV news for knowledge and understanding of what's going on at Fukushima is, in my very humble opinion, a mistake.

In addition to UC Berkeley, we have access to MIT's page on Fukushima:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/explained-radioactivity-0328.html
which has links to their blog and other articles on Fukushima and radiation dangers in general;

Canada's Occupational Health and Safety:
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/phys_agents/ionizing.html
which has information on ionizing radiation in general and how it's measured;

Harvard's Medical School's page on understanding radiation in light of Fukushima:
http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/radia...ve-201103161976
which compares releases there with more common experiences such as chest X-rays and mammograms;

and an excellent presentation from UC Santa Barbara's Department of Physics:
http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/plecture/bmonreal11/
which talks about radiation in general and ties it specifically to Fukushima. The video and slides explain what happened at Fukushima and why this wasn't another Chernobyl, no matter what the level number.

Two of the keys to survival are preparation and knowledge. We have access to incredibly rich resources which we can use to learn about what's going on and then to know whether there is danger, knowledge based on our own new-gained expertise. People who panic are less likely to perform well under stress. I recommend that we learn about the danger, judge the extent of the danger, then decide what preparation we need to take.

So far, Japanese police report over 13,000 confirmed deaths and over 14,000 people still missing. This report:
http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979215937
estimates the death toll will exceed 27,000, as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami. As far as I can tell, no deaths are related to Fukushima's releases of radiation. But we fear radiation. We can lessen our fear of radiation by learning.