Japan fears nuclear plant sits atop active geological fault

Japan fears nuclear plant sits atop active geological fault - A nuclear plant in northwestern Japan may be sitting right on top of an active geological fault, the country's nuclear watchdog has said, raising the risk that the facility may never resume power generation for fear of an earthquake.

For the first time in more than 40 years, Japan faces the prospect of having no nuclear power within weeks, after last year's crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crushed public trust in nuclear power and prevented the restart of reactors shut for regular maintenance checks.

Japan Atomic Power Co.'s Tsuruga nuclear power plant is seen in Tsuruga, Fukui prefecture, July 2, 2011. JAPAN-NUCLEAR/ARCADE REUTERS/Issei Kato

The fault fracture zone under the No.1 and No.2 units of the 1,517-megawatt Tsuruga plant could be an active fault that could move jointly with a confirmed nearby active fault, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) found in a site survey on Tuesday, a spokesman for the plant's operator said.

The operator, unlisted Japan Atomic Power Co, denies the existence of an active fault right under the plant, citing its geological assessment, but the NISA has ordered an additional investigation following its findings, the spokesman said.

Nuclear power, long advertised as safe and cheap, provided almost 30 percent of Japan's electricity before the crisis, but now all but one of Japan's 54 reactors are off-line, mainly for maintenance. The last reactor will shut down on May 5.

Japan has rules against installing a nuclear plant on top of an active fault that has moved within the last 120,000 to 130,000 years, and the Tsuruga site could be declared unfit to host a nuclear plant.

The plant's 357-MW No.1 unit and the 1,160-MW No.2 unit have been shut since last year for planned maintenance.

Japan Atomic Power had previously aimed to add No.3 and No.4 units at the plant, with capacity of 1,538 MW each, by 2018, but the plan has stalled, reflecting public worries over nuclear power after the Fukushima plant was wrecked in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, triggering radiation leaks that caused mass evacuations and widespread contamination.

The restart of the No.1 unit, which began operation in 1970, has been uncertain in light of Japan's plans to limit the life of reactors to 40 years, and permit extensions only under stringent terms. The company had planned to scrap the Tsuruga No.1 unit in 2016. ( Reuters )

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Is Russia's Orthodox Church privileged or persecuted?

Is Russia's Orthodox Church privileged or persecuted? - The Russian Orthodox Church's ties with the government are facing push back. Church leaders have decried recent incidents, including a punk band's protest inside a church.

Tens of thousands of people attended special services across Russia yesterday – about 50,000 in Moscow alone – to pray in defense of the Russian Orthodox Church, which insists that it is facing an unprecedented attack from irreligious social forces that are out to destroy its reputation and undermine the nation's faith.

The Moscow prayer meeting at the cavernous Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a stone's throw from the Kremlin, was led by Patriarch Kirill, whose lifestyle, formerly off-limits, has become the subject of public scrutiny and a roiling controversy over his alleged job perks and wealth.

Kirill told the huge crowd that the church had to respond to a spate of sacrilegious challenges that began in February when a women's punk rock group entered the same cathedral – which was almost empty at the time – and performed an obscenity-laced "punk prayer" to protest the church's alleged support for the electoral campaign of Vladimir Putin.

"We are under attack by persecutors," Kirill said. "The danger is in the very fact that blasphemy, derision of the sacred is put forth as a lawful expression of human freedom which must be protected in a modern society."

Three members of the band were arrested, and could face up to seven years in prison for the impromptu performance. The incident, and the subsequent trial of the women, has blown open a long-simmering debate about the social role of the church, its allegedly cozy links with the Kremlin, and the way Russia's "anti-extremist" laws are often invoked to protect the church from criticism or artistic commentary that would pass largely unnoticed in most Western societies.

"This incident with the punk group opened the floodgates of public discussion about the church, and it has taken forms that are new for Russia," says Viktor Michaelson, a political scientist with the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow. "People on both sides feel deeply engaged in it. Liberal and secular people feel one way, religious people feel another way. It's far from over."

Liberal critics say the punk band, provocatively named Pussy Riot, violated no laws at all, and that the only reason the women now face stiff jail sentences is because the church is able to get its way in Russian courts and wants a tough example set in order to deter any repetition.

"Pussy Riot performed in an empty church. They left peacefully when a priest ordered them to go. The only violation they committed was of a church rule that no woman can penetrate the altar space," says Yevgeny Ikhlov, an expert with For Human Rights, a Moscow-based public movement. "People understand these women have been imprisoned for purely political reasons. This is about the church splitting society to prove it is stronger, has more followers than supporters of a secular state do. In fact, the church is behaving as part of a repressive state machine."

Father Vsevolod Chaplin, a leading church spokesman, denies the church has any influence over the outcome of the trial of the punk rock group and he does not personally favor tough punishment for it. But he adds that "the feelings of religious believers must be protected…. The law must make certain that this sort of desecration is not repeated."

Mr. Chaplin argues that Western attitudes, which take a lenient view of "blasphemous" artistic expressions, are wrong and not suitable for Russia. "We survived mass desecrations in Soviet times, and it's clear that [the atheism] of Soviet leaders contributed to the collapse of the USSR," he says. "The West is wrong to allow actions that cast down public morality. . . Rules protecting sacred objects and places must be strict. Such crimes are extremely dangerous because they can lead to a breakdown in public order."

Since the punk rock incident, according to Kirill, there has been a string of "hooligan attacks" on priests and churches, including one case in the northern Russian town of Veliky Ustug, where a man allegedly chopped up 30 icons with an axe, and another in the southern town of Nevinnomyssk, where a priest was assaulted and an altar desecrated.

Critics allege that religious leaders are really upset about growing public criticism of the church and recent scrutiny of the lavish lifestyles of top church officials, including Kirill.

Though the Russian government has quietly handed back to the church vast amounts of land, property, and artifacts formerly held by state museums, the Russian media recently gave unexpectedly critical coverage to a decision that would give half of a functioning Moscow-area children's hospital to the church for inclusion in a monastery.

The press also ran embarrassing stories this winter about Patriarch Kirill's court battle with former health minister Yury Shevchenko over an allegedly botched renovation of Kirill's sumptuous downtown Moscow apartment, which resulted in Mr. Shevchenko having to pay the Patriarch nearly $700,000 in damages. For most Russians, who still inhabit cramped little Soviet-era flats, the revelations about the scale and sheer luxury of Kirill's private accommodations were eye-popping.

"These revelations in the media are viewed by believers as part of an orchestrated campaign against the church," says Mr. Michaelson. "For many Russians, the church is much more than just a political institution, and they feel very insulted by this [media attention]."

Perhaps most painful – because it was largely self-inflicted – was a blogger's allegation that Kirill owned a $40,000 Breguet watch, a claim that the Patriarch initially denied. Then bloggers found a photo of Kirill wearing the watch on an official church website. The timepiece was subsequently airbrushed out of the photo by a church technician. It was a sloppy job – while Kirill's wrist appeared clean, a clear reflection of the watch remained in the polished oak table and the retouched picture went viral.

"All this activity, with the church trying to mobilize its parishioners to support it, is not about the [punk rock] case, but something much larger," says Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the independent Center for Political Technologies in Moscow.

"The Russian Orthodox Church is terrified that there will be a real process of secularization here, such as has happened in Europe. It's not impressed with the results the Catholic Church has obtained in Europe, by compromising with civil society and embracing more tolerance. The Russian Church wants to preserve its historic identity, side by side with the Russian state, in which it supports the state and the state supports it. It doesn't want to embrace any change, or accept any new trends. Increasingly, it sees the modern, or liberal part of society as its adversary," Mr. Makarkin says. ( Christian Science Monitor )

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Entire Pacific nation could one day move to Fiji

Entire Pacific nation could one day move to Fiji - Fearing that climate change could wipe out their entire Pacific archipelago, the leaders of Kiribati are considering an unusual backup plan: moving the populace to Fiji.

Kiribati President Anote Tong told The Associated Press on Friday that his Cabinet this week endorsed a plan to buy nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji's main island, Viti Levu. He said the fertile land, being sold by a church group for about $9.6 million, could provide an insurance policy for Kiribati's entire population of 103,000, though he hopes it will never be necessary for everyone to leave.

FILE - In this March 30, 2004 file photo, Tarawa atoll, Kiribati, is seen in an aerial view. Fearing that climate change could wipe out their entire Pacific archipelago, the leaders of Kiribati are considering an unusual backup plan: moving the populace to Fiji. Kiribati President Anote Tong told The Associated Press on Friday, March 9, 2012 that his Cabinet this week endorsed a plan to buy nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji's main island, Viti Levu. He said the fertile land, being sold by a church group for about $9.6 million, could provide an insurance policy for Kiribati's entire population of 103,000, though he hopes it will never be necessary for everyone to leave. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

"We would hope not to put everyone on one piece of land, but if it became absolutely necessary, yes, we could do it," Tong said. "It wouldn't be for me, personally, but would apply more to a younger generation. For them, moving won't be a matter of choice. It's basically going to be a matter of survival."

Kiribati, which straddles the equator near the international date line, has found itself at the leading edge of the debate on climate change because many of its atolls rise just a few feet above sea level.

Tong said some villages have already moved and there have been increasing instances of sea water contaminating the island's underground fresh water, which remains vital for trees and crops. He said changing rainfall, tidal and storm patterns pose as least as much threat as ocean levels, which so far have risen only slightly.

Some scientists have estimated the current level of sea rise in the Pacific at about 2 millimeters (0.1 inches) per year. Many scientists expect that rate to accelerate due to climate change.

Fiji, home to about 850,000 people, is about 1,400 miles south of Kiribati. But just what people there think about potentially providing a home for thousands of their neighbors remains unclear. Tong said he's awaiting full parliamentary approval for the land purchase, which he expects in April, before discussing the plan formally with Fijian officials.

Sharon Smith-Johns, a spokeswoman for the Fijian government, said several agencies are studying Kiribati's plans and the government will release a formal statement next week.

Kiribati, which was known as the Gilbert Islands when it was a British colony, has been an independent nation since 1979.

Tong has been considering other unusual options to combat climate change, including shoring up some Kiribati islands with sea walls and even building a floating island. He said this week that the latter option would likely prove too expensive, but that he hopes reinforcing some islands will ensure that Kiribati continues to exist in some form even in a worst-case scenario.

"We're trying to secure the future of our people," he said. "The international community needs to be addressing this problem more."

Tong said he hopes that the Fiji land will represent just one of several options for relocating people. He pointed out that the land is three times larger than the atoll of Tarawa, currently home to more than half of Kiribati's population.

Although like much of the Pacific, Kiribati is poor — its annual GDP per person is just $1,600 — Tong said the country has plenty of foreign reserves to draw from for the land purchase. The money, he said, comes from phosphate mining on the archipelago in the 1970s. ( Associated Press )

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Design, not just threads, toughens spider web

Design, not just threads, toughens spider web - Scientists said they had unraveled the mystery of how spider webs can withstand multiple tears and even hurricane-force winds without collapsing.

SCIENTISTS said they had unraveled the mystery of how spider webs can withstand multiple tears and even hurricane-force winds without collapsing.

The findings should be of keen interest to engineers searching for shock-resistant structural designs, they said.

The silk-like threads with which arachnids spin their traps are famously stronger than steel and tougher than Kevlar, but this alone does not explain how webs withstand, say, a gash from a fallen branch.

Once ripped, what keeps the whole web from falling apart?

A spider in its web. Picture: AP Source: AP

Researchers led by Markus Buehler of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) probed the question using lab experiments, observation and computer modelling.

They began by delving deeper into the molecular structure of the silk threads.

A strand comprises a unique combination of shapeless protein and ordered, nanoscale crystals, they found.

When stress increases -- the falling branch, for example -- the filament elongates in four phases: a linear tugging, a drawn-out stretching as the protein unfolds, a stiffening phase that absorbs force, and finally the breaking point triggered by friction.

Spider threads fall into into two categories, and what makes webs so resilient is how they interact, the researchers said.

So-called viscid silk -- stretchy, wet and sticky -- winds out in ever-widening spirals from the centre of the web, and serves to capture unsuspecting prey.

But the straight threads that radiate outwards like spokes on a wheel, called dragline silk, are dry and stiff and provide structural support.

The radial and spiral filaments each play a different role in absorbing motion, and the way they are intertwined limits puncture damage to the spot where it occurs, the researchers found.

As a result, the web is organised to "sacrifice" local areas so that failure will not prevent the remainder from functioning, even if this is in a diminished capacity.

Dennis Carter, an expert on biomechanics at the US National Science Foundation, which partly funded the research, paid tribute to a "clever strategy" by spiders, which expend precious energy to build their webs.

"It is a distinct departure from the structural principles that seem to be in play for many biological materials," he said in a press release.

There are lessons to be learned from these insights, the researchers said.

"Engineering structures are typically designed to withstand large loads with limited damage, but extreme loads are more difficult to account for," said lead-author Steven Canford of MIT.

"The spider has uniquely solved this problem by allowing a sacrificial member to fail under a high load." ( dailytelegraph.com.au )

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Mystery of Pompeii's Trashy Tombs Explained

Mystery of Pompeii's Trashy Tombs Explained - The tombs of Pompeii, the Roman city buried by a volcanic eruption in A.D. 79, had a litter problem. Animal bones, charcoal, broken pottery and architectural material, such as bricks, were found piled inside and outside the tombs where the city's dead were laid to rest.

To explain the presence of so much garbage alongside the dead, archaeologists have theorized that 15 years before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, an earthquake left Pompeii in disrepair.

However, this theory is unlikely, according to an archaeologist who says the citizens of Pompeii may have just been messy, at least by modern, Western standards.

"We tend to assume things like that are universal, but attitudes toward sanitation are very culturally defined, and it looks like in Pompeii attitudes were very different than ours," said Allison Emmerson, a graduate student studying Roman archaeology in the classics department of the University of Cincinnati.

Archaeological evidence from the last 15 years indicates that the city likely did not fall into ruin after the earthquake in A.D. 62; rather than flee, citizens appear to have rebuilt, reconstructing public spaces and elite houses. When the eruption buried the city, new tombs were still being built and the city appeared prosperous, according to Emmerson.

"It just didn’t make sense that trash would mean the tombs weren't being used," she said.

In fact, the tombs weren't unique; excavators have found the same sort of household garbage in the city streets, along the walls of the city, even on the floors of homes. When Emmerson excavated a room in a house that appears to have also served as a restaurant, she found a cistern for storing water between two garbage pits packed with broken pottery and food waste, such as animal bones, grape seeds and olive pits.

No evidence has been found for a system for handling garbage or for dedicated dumps.

"The closest thing that has been found is a giant heap of garbage outside the city walls," she said.

The residents of Pompeii also appear not to have shared our conventions on burial. As Romans, they were primarily concerned with being remembered after death, so they sought tombs in high-traffic areas. Since Roman law and custom forbid cemeteries inside the city, the tombs ringed the city walls, and clustered at its gates.

The walls of the tombs also served as the billboards of the day, bearing official graffiti announcing gladiator fights, and political advertisements for candidates for office in red paint. Other graffiti was of the "bathroom" variety, Emmerson said. These included more obscene versions of "I had a girl here," and messages back and forth scratched into the plaster of the tombs.

Emmerson is scheduled to present her work, which examines how Pompeii's tombs reflect the culture at the time, on Saturday (Jan. 7) at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Philadelphia. ( LiveScience.com )

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Why Kids Aren’t Exercising in Day Care

Why Kids Aren’t Exercising in Day Care - Kids want to play, so what's stopping day care centers from letting children be physically active?

More than one third of US children are now overweight or obese, and the reason for the burgeoning bulge isn’t surprising — they aren’t getting enough exercise. But some of the causes of their sedentary habits are more startling, and go beyond the emergence of computers and social media that keep youngsters indoors and relatively immobile.

About 75% of preschoolers in the US spend most of their days in child care centers, and they’re not moving around for 70% to 83% of their hours there; in fact, they’re only active about 2% to 3% of the time. Why? Given the growing problem of obesity among children, why aren’t day care facilities focused on getting kids moving?

Dr. Kristen Copeland, a pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and her colleagues have been conducting a series of focus group studies exploring just that. In previous studies in which parents, teachers and administrators were asked about daily day care activities, they identified familiar issues such as clothing, weather and parental concerns as barriers to getting kids outdoors to play.

In the current study, published in the journal Pediatrics, the team focused on societal factors that could make it difficult to maintain physical activity programs. After conducting nine focus groups with 49 child care providers in Cincinnati, Ohio, the team found three main societal barriers to exercise — concerns about the children injuring themselves while at play, financial constraints that limited some centers’ ability to purchase playground equipment, and a growing emphasis on academic learning over unstructured physical play time.

These factors are curtailing children’s natural desire to be active, says Copeland, and could be detrimental to youngsters’ health in the long term. “Children are naturally active — they love to play, and to play vigorously,” she says. “If given the time and place and freedom to run, they will do that. But children at this age are entirely dependent on caregivers for the opportunity to be active.”

Allowing children to be physically active from younger ages could help them to learn better and develop enhanced social skills as well. And rather than trying to convince sedentary older kids to start exercising, it might be more effective to establish exercise as a good habit at an early age. “Children develop mastery of gross motor skills — climbing, throwing and catching ball, skipping and learning to control their body — on their own at an early age, and these skills aren’t taught in school,” says Copeland. “And children who are most comfortable with these skills show more self confidence and have better peer relationships than children who don’t.”

But caregivers cited some very real constraints in letting children play vigorously. For one, worries about injuries led many to limit play time and the types of physical activity children enjoyed; some parents of children in the study specifically requested that their children not be allowed to use playground equipment for fear they would get hurt. Parents also pressured some teachers of preschoolers to focus more on academic learning — of letters, numbers, shapes and colors — over physical skills such as climbing or skipping. “The question is, are we doing more harm to prevent scrapes by keeping children sedentary and letting them potentially become obese?” says Copeland.

While the focus group study was designed only to tease out what factors might be contributing to children’s inactivity, the teachers and caregivers also acknowledged that active time did not need to come at the expense of learning. Playgrounds are rich sources of learning, and children can become familiar with numbers, nature and concepts such as weather, time and distance with games organized around running or other playground equipment. But appreciating that exercise, which is often perceived as play time, can be an important partner to learning may take some time. ( time.com )

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Finger Length Linked to Penis Size

Finger Length Linked to Penis Size - Hold up your right hand. Are your index and ring fingers close to the same size? Congratulations, you're more likely than men with mismatched digits to have a long penis.

A smaller ratio between the second and fourth fingers is linked to a longer stretched penis size, researchers report today (July 4) in the Asian Journal of Andrology. The findings go beyond providing a new finger ratio-based pick-up line for men in bars, however; researchers say that a quick look at a man's fingers could reveal his exposure to male hormones in the womb, providing a hint about his risk for hormone-driven diseases like prostate cancer.

The idea that men's finger ratio and hormone exposure are linked is not a new one. Studies have found that the ratio between the second and fourth finger is related to sperm count, likelihood of heart attack, hand preference, facial masculinity and more. One small 2002 study published in the journal Urology found a correlation between the length of the index finger and genital size in healthy men under 40, suggesting that testosterone exposure in the womb affects the growth of both.

Stretched penis length

In the new study, researchers at Gachon University Gil Hospital in South Korea recruited 144 volunteers 20 years of age and older who were going to undergo urological surgery. While the men were under anesthesia, the researchers measured their finger lengths and both their flaccid and stretched penis lengths. Stretched penis length is statistically correlated to the size of the penis when fully erect.

The average flaccid penis length, the researchers found, was 3.0 inches (7.7 centimeters), with a range of 1.6 to 4.7 in. (4 to 12 cm). Stretched lengths ranged from nearly 3.0 to 6.7 in. (7.5 to 17 cm), with an average of 4.6 in. (11.7 cm).

The average ratio between the two fingers was 0.38 in. (0.97 cm), with a range of 0.35 to 0.44 in. (0.88 to 1.12 cm), making the differences hard to make out with the unaided eye. But the lower the digit ratio, the study found, the longer the penis was likely to be.

Testosterone in the womb

The prenatal hormone exposures and genetic processes that link fingers to penises are still unknown, the researchers wrote, though testosterone in the womb seems to play a role. If the findings hold, wrote Skidmore College biologist Denise Brooks McQuade in an editorial accompanying the study, digit ratio could provide an at-a-glance measure for doctors to gauge how much testosterone their patients were exposed to in the womb.

That makes digit-ratio measurement far more than a fancy bar trick, wrote McQuade, who was not involved in the research.

"'Hotness' aside, the value of digit ratio research for the biomedical scientist or clinician may come from the predictive abilities and risk-assessment qualities of the measurement for clinical conditions," she wrote. ( LiveScience.com )

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