Radiation

SEOUL - Tokyo residents carrying radiation-monitoring equipment have found mini-hot spots in several areas across the city, prompting Japanese officials to promise more detailed government monitoring of radiation levels in the country's most populous region. In areas more than 125 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility that was heavily damaged by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami, residents reported yesterday that they had found two small areas with radiation higher than some levels within the 12-mile evacuation zone.

A year after an earthquake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima disaster, a United Nations agency preparing a report on the health effects says none of the six former reactor workers who have died since the catastrophe perished due to the effects of radiation. The U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation said Wednesday that although several workers at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were irradiated after contamination of their skin "no clinically observable effects have been reported.

Does it make any difference having a cellphone just a couple of feet away from your head, for example by using a headset, instead of against your ear? There are conflicting studies about whether radio waves from cellphones pose a health hazard, so it remains unclear whether moving your phone away from your head provides any safety for your brain. Rather than wade into that debate, let’s look at the technicalities: There are two parts of an electromagnetic field around a cellphone.

WASHINGTON - When your child's doctor orders a CT scan, X-ray, or similar test, there are two big questions: Is the scan really needed? And if so, will it deliver a child-sized or adult-sized dose of radiation? That was the message from the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday as it took steps to help protect children from getting unneeded radiation from these increasingly common tests. The FDA is pushing manufacturers to design new scanners to minimize radiation exposure for the youngest, smallest patients.

WASHINGTON — President Obama said yesterday the United States will stand by longtime ally Japan as it recovers from last week’s earthquake and tsunami and the nuclear crisis that those twin disasters spawned. Meanwhile, the Navy reported that several US ships involved in the relief effort had to be moved away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after officials found out that the ships and 17 helicopter crew members had been exposed to low levels of radiation. The plant’s cooling systems failed after Friday’s earthquake and tsunami.

TOKYO — Japan’s nuclear safety officials reprimanded the operator of Japan’s tsunami-damaged power plant yesterday and demanded an investigation of how two workers were exposed to radiation more than twice a government-set limit. The government also ordered the utility to reduce workers’ risks of heat-related illnesses as concerns grow about the health risks faced by the people toiling to get the Fukushima Daiichi plant under control. The two men with high radiation exposures worked at a central control room for two reactors when the tsunami struck March 11 and the days...

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent investigators to the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant after a small amount of radiation was detected in the Unit 1 reactor. About 150 employees were sent home Saturday afternoon after the radiation was detected at the plant in central Pennsylvania. Officials said there is no public health risk. Beth Archer, a spokeswoman for Exelon Nuclear, said investigators are searching for a cause of the release. Archer said the radiation was quickly contained and tests showed the contamination was confined to surfaces...

MOSCOW — Wildfires threatened to stir radioactive dust from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster back into the air over western Russia, and authorities boosted forest patrols to keep the flames from contaminated areas. Environmentalists and forest experts warned that the radioactive particles could be harmful, even though doses would likely be small. “The danger is still there,’’ Vladimir Chuprov of Russian Greenpeace said. The Emergency Situations Ministry said at least six wildfires were spotted and extinguished this week in the Bryansk region, the...

WASHINGTON — A former Food and Drug Administration scientist said yesterday that his job was eliminated after he raised concerns about the risks of radiation exposure from high-grade medical scanning. Dr. Julian Nicholas said at a public hearing that he and other FDA staffers “were pressured to change their scientific opinion,’’ after they opposed the approval of a CAT scanner for routine colon cancer screening. Nicholas said that he objected to exposing otherwise healthy patients to the cancer risks of radiation.

TOKYO - Japan's prime minister has declared an end to the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, saying technicians have regained control of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. "Today, we have reached a great milestone," Yoshihiko Noda said in a televised address to the nation. "The reactors are stable, which should resolve one big cause of concern for us all. " The declaration - which comes nine months after a calamitous earthquake and tsunami destroyed the seaside plant, triggering a huge radiation leak - could set the...

Chosen from the ranks of the University of Chicago's budding physicists for the Manhattan Project, Morton Camac was just 20 when he went to work on the atomic bomb. He put the plutonium into the bomb destined for Nagasaki, Japan, and was stationed on the runway with a radiation detector in 1945 as the bombers took off. If a plane crashed, the young physicist was supposed to search for radiation while senior members of his team watched from miles away. "The people who were out there didn't worry about the long-range implications involved in this thing," Dr. Camac said in...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he's heading back to Cuba on Saturday night for his next round of radiation therapy as part of his cancer treatment. Chavez made the announcement in a phone call broadcast on television Friday night. He says the daily radiation treatments in Havana will help him continue what he calls a "battle for health and for life. " Chavez has been making regular trips to Cuba for treatment. He returned to Venezuela on Wednesday after his second round of several days of radiation treatment following surgery in February to remove a...

Venezuela's vice president says Hugo Chavez's second cycle of radiation treatment was successful. Elias Jaua says Chavez plans to return to Venezuela on Wednesday after receiving treatment in Cuba. Chavez has vowed to beat cancer to win re-election in October. Chavez has not identified the type of cancer he is trying to overcome. The socialist leader has said he choose to undergo treatment in Cuba because it's where his cancer was originally diagnosed and where his surgeries have been carried out. Chavez expects to be traveling to Cuba for treatment for...

Another Japanese nuclear reactor has been taken off line for maintenance, leaving the country with only one of its 54 reactors operational following last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami. The last reactor is expected to be shut down by early May, raising the possibility of power shortages across the nation as demand increases in the hot summer months. The No. 6 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex was taken off line early Monday by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. The utility also runs the plant in Fukushima, northeast of Tokyo, that suffered meltdowns, explosions and...

One of his radiation detection gadgets made a cameo appearance on "CSI Miami," but Paul Steinmeyer's work also played a key real-life role after last year's deadly tsunami in Japan. Working from the small Hebron business started by his father, Steinmeyer — a self-described nerd with a passion for math, software programming and electronics — developed specialized equipment to help locate contamination in the aftermath of the meltdowns and radiation releases at Japan's Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant after the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

DUXBURY - The big, boxy building looms ominously over the bay from her roomy Colonial, like a scar on an otherwise pristine horizon for Mary Lampert, who considers it a potential source of "mass, random, premeditated murder. " Over the past 25 years, the slight, meticulously coifed grandmother with a penchant for salty language has relentlessly needled, picketed, and sued the owners of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, repeating her slogan to anyone willing to listen: "Better active today than radioactive tomorrow!"

TOKYO - Traces of radiation spilled from Japan's hobbled nuclear plant were detected in baby formula yesterday in the nation's latest case of contaminated food. Major food and candy maker Meiji Co. said it was recalling canned powdered milk for infants, with expiration dates of October 2012, as a precaution. The levels of radioactive cesium were well below government-set safety limits, and the company said the amounts were low enough not to affect babies' health even if they drank the formula every day. Specialists say children are more at risk than are adults of getting...

Illinois Emergency Management Agency officials say lab tests show no measureable increase of radiation after steam was released to cool a northern Illinois nuclear reactor. Officials said Friday that the environmental sampling was conducted earlier this week after a reactor lost power and shut down at Byron Nuclear Power Plant on Monday. Agency director Jonathon Monken says the results confirm "no health hazard for people who live and work in the area. " Monday's outage started when an electrical insulator failed and fell off the metal structure that it was attached to. That...

Love was in the air yesterday as Wendell Scraders and Carol Anne Perinchief were joined in holy matrimony. An intimate crowd of about 25 was on hand to witness the ceremony, held in an unusual locale: the radiation oncology center at Lahey Clinic in Burlington. Since early this month, Scraders, 60, has been receiving radiation and chemotherapy treatments for esophageal cancer at the hospital, a Lahey spokesman said. The bride and groom are from Bermuda and have known each other for about 30 years.