Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lagslayer]

Went to google images. They are like aliens if they were boiled alive. Hoping this doesn't come back to haunt me.

[alway]

Is that the one where the baby looks like a mutated cross between a fetus and an olive? With red eyes and green skin? Or am I thinking of another scarring image?

You've got the right one if you're talking about harlequins disease.

Huh; seems there's a 28 year old survivor of the condition. There are several others, though she is the oldest.
http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-health-news/2008/05/09/nelly-is-a-real-diamond-girl-65233-20886612/


Also, unrelated, but this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

The Goiânia accident was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, at Goiânia, in the Brazilian state of Goiás after an old radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 were found to have significant levels of radioactive material in or on their body.

From another site

The dispersal of radiation was equivalent to what scientists would classify as a medium-size dirty bomb.

On September 13, 1987, the guard in charge of daytime security, Voudireinão da Silva, did not show up to work, using a sick day to attend a cinema screening of Herbie Goes Bananas with his family.[8] That same day, scavengers Roberto dos Santos Alves and Wagner Mota Pereira entered the partially demolished facility, found the teletherapy unit--which they thought might have some scrap value--and placed it in a wheelbarrow, taking it to Alves's home,[9] about 0.6 km north of the clinic. There, they began dismantling the equipment. That same evening, they both began to vomit. Nevertheless, they continued in their efforts. The following day, Pereira began to experience diarrhea and dizziness, and one of his hands began to swell. He soon developed a burn on this hand in the same size and shape as the aperture - one month later, the arm required amputation.

On September 16, Alves succeeded in puncturing the capsule's aperture window with a screwdriver, allowing him to see a deep blue light coming from the tiny opening he had created. ... Thinking it was perhaps a type of gunpowder, he tried to light it, but the powder would not ignite.

Yeah... Blue light means you're dead.

On September 18, Alves sold the items to a nearby scrapyard. A scrapyard employee came to the house, loaded the contents into a wheelbarrow, transported them to the yard, and unloaded them. That night, the owner, Devair Alves Ferreira, who lived next door to the scrapyard, went into the garage and noticed the blue glow from the punctured capsule. Thinking the capsule's contents were either valuable or even supernatural, he immediately brought it into his house. Over the next three days, he invited friends and family to view the strange glowing substance and offered a reward to anyone who could free it from the capsule. He mentioned that he intended to make a ring out of it for his wife, Gabriela Maria Ferreira. On September 21 at the scrapyard, a friend of Ferreira's (given as EF1 in the IAEA report) succeeded in freeing several rice-sized grains of the glowing material from the capsule using a screwdriver. He shared some of these with his brother, claimed some for himself, and the rest remained in the hands of Ferreira, who readily began to share it with various friends and family members. That same day, his wife, 37-year-old Gabriela Maria Ferreira, began to fall ill.

Ooooohhhh! Blue light! It must be MAGIC! Let's share our newly found, glowing blue magic with our friends!

On September 24, Ivo, Devair's brother, scraped dust out of the source, taking it to his house a short distance away. There he spread some of it on the cement floor. His six-year-old daughter, Leide das Neves Ferreira, later ate a sandwich while sitting on the floor. She was also fascinated by the blue glow of the powder, and applying it to her body, showed it off to her mother. Dust from the powder fell on the sandwich she was consuming; she eventually absorbed 1.0 GBq, total dose 6.0 Gy.

Then let's let the children play with the magic blue dust!

[Loud Whispers]

You know, I wonder how they found out the specifics regarding the security guard :/

That... Just sounds like the most unfortunate case of science meets superstition ;-;

[alway]

You know, I wonder how they found out the specifics regarding the security guard :/

Eh, if you skipping work to see a movie results in 4 deaths and a radiation release equivalent to a dirty bomb, you're going to be questioned pretty damn well.

[Teneb]

I wonder why the hell no one asked a scientist what the "magic blue powder" was. I guess I should be glad I don't live anywhere near that.

[kaijyuu]

I dunno about you, but if I found something glowing I'd be all "awesome!" Self preservation instinct gets trumped by "ooh shiny."

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Shiny is the mother of invention.

[Lagslayer]

I dunno about you, but if I found something glowing I'd be all "awesome!" Self preservation instinct gets trumped by "ooh shiny."

That is very much how a dwarf thinks. Except radioactive material is replaced with gem-encrusted socks.

[alway]

Then there was the day we kinda sorta accidentally crashed 4 1.1 megaton thermonuclear bombs into Greenland.
...
Whose HE bits detonated on impact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash#Broken_Arrow

Nuclear accidents are fun to read about because holy crap.

Also, how have I never before come across the third worst nuclear accident of all time (second only to Chernobyl up until Fukushima). I've wikiwalked nuclear accidents at least 3 times now....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_Disaster

The Mayak plant was built in a great hurry between 1945 and 1948. Gaps in Soviet physicists' knowledge about nuclear physics at the time made it difficult to judge the safety of many decisions. Also, environmental concerns were not taken seriously during the early development stage. All six reactors were on Lake Kyzyltash and used an open cycle cooling system, discharging irradiated water directly back into the lake.[1] Initially Mayak was dumping high-level radioactive waste into a nearby river, which was taking waste to the river Ob, flowing further down to the Arctic Ocean. Later on, Lake Karachay was used for open-air storage.

*facepalm*

A storage facility for liquid nuclear waste was added around 1953. It consisted of steel tanks mounted in a concrete base, 8.2 meters underground. Because of the high level of radioactivity, the waste was heating itself through decay heat (though a chain reaction was not possible). For that reason, a cooler was built around each bank containing 20 tanks.

On 29 September 1957, the cooling system in one of the tanks containing about 70–80 tons of liquid radioactive waste failed and was not repaired. The temperature in it started to rise, resulting in evaporation and a chemical explosion of the dried waste, consisting mainly of ammonium nitrate and acetates (see ammonium nitrate bomb). The explosion, estimated to have a force of about 70–100 tons of TNT threw the concrete lid, weighing 160 tons, into the air.[3] There were no immediate casualties as a result of the explosion, but it released an estimated 20 MCi (800 PBq) of radioactivity. Most of this contamination settled out near the site of the accident and contributed to the pollution of the Techa River, but a plume containing 2 MCi (80 PBq) of radionuclides spread out over hundreds of kilometers.[4] The affected area was not virgin - the Techa river had previously received 2 ¾ MCi (100 PBq) of deliberately dumped waste, and Lake Karachay had received 120 MCi (4000 PBq).[2]
In the next 10 to 11 hours, the radioactive cloud moved towards the north-east, reaching 300–350 kilometers from the accident. The fallout of the cloud resulted in a long-term contamination of an area of more than 800 to 20,000 square kilometers, (depending on what contamination level is considered significant,) primarily with caesium-137 and strontium-90.[2] This area is usually referred to as the East-Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT)

To reduce the spread of radioactive contamination after the accident, contaminated soil was excavated and stockpiled in fenced enclosures that were called "graveyards of the earth".[14] The Soviet government in 1968 disguised the EURT area by creating the East-Ural Nature Reserve, which prohibited any unauthorised access to the affected area.

A nature reserve! To preserve the endangered 20-headed fish and birds with gills!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There was also the time the United States Air Force accidentally nuked South Carolina.

Fortunately, the fission core was out at the time, otherwise it would have gone off.

[alway]

There was also the time the United States Air Force accidentally nuked South Carolina.

Fortunately, the fission core was out at the time, otherwise it would have gone off.

I see your South Carolina bomb, and raise you one North Carolina bomb:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

The two nuclear weapons separated from the gyrating aircraft as it broke up between 10,000 and 2,000 feet (3,000 and 610 m). Five of the six arming mechanisms on one of the bombs activated, causing it to execute many of the steps needed to arm itself, such as charging the firing capacitors and, critically, deployment of a 100-foot-diameter (30 m) retard parachute. The parachute allowed that bomb to hit the ground with little damage.
According to former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, he saw highly classified documents indicating that the pilot’s safe/arm switch was the only one of the six arming devices on the bomb that prevented detonation.[1][5] The Pentagon claims that there was no chance of an explosion and that two arming mechanisms had not activated. A United States Department of Defense spokesperson told United Press International reporter Donald May that the bomb was unarmed and could not explode.[5] Later, however, it was found that both bombs were fully functional.

Yeah; 2 3.8 megaton active thermonuclear weapons, one of which had 5 of 6 arming mechanisms activated in the crash. North Carolina nearly turned into a smoking hellcrater.

The real thing to keep in mind with such nuclear weapons incidents is they almost certainly won't set off a nuclear explosion, even if the triggering HE explosives go off. If an impact detonates the HE explosives, it isn't all at once, the shock from impact and explosion of other HE bits takes some time to travel through the device, making for an asymmetric detonation. This will largely throw the nuclear material around, but it won't result in the perfectly timed, entirely symmetric implosive detonation required for the fission to begin. Which is why, out of all the nuclear accidents, that north carolina one is IMO the scariest. If that sixth arming mechanism had jiggled just a bit, similar to how the other 5 had, BOOM. A properly trigger explosion which would actually result in a full thermonuclear detonation. Even if the core had been in that South Carolina warhead, it would only result in a dirty bomb-like explosion, rather than a nuclear detonation.

[Vorthon]

Smoking Hellcrater would be an awesome name for a band. Just sayin'.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Eh, I never liked Goldsboro anyway.

[Tellemurius]

I have the sudden ambitions of becoming a corporate hacker spy........

[Scelly9]

I have the sudden ambitions of becoming a corporate hacker spy........

I want to be a Pentester. It's exactly what I want to do, except legal!