Comments on: Where there’s smoke…

By: Sensational | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

Sensational | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:18:06 +0000

[...] are secure”, and the mandatory evacuation order has been rescinded. The fire itself was international news. Now that the immediate threat to Los Alamos National Lab has passed, the news cycle has moved on. [...]

By: Dirty Hippies, Romney’s Lying, Report Her, Shoes, and other assorted topics « blueollie

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:03:05 +0000

[...] Yes, wildfires got close to the Los Alamos national lab. But no, there was very little danger to the public from the release of radioactive material. [...]

By: Anchor

Anchor — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 06:59:27 +0000

thomas #8: HAHAHAhahaha….

Oh yes. Beware of those who practice ‘activism’. Why, I imagine they could wreck the entire world.

By: thomas

thomas — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 06:28:24 +0000

Activists should stick to social issues like racism and gay marriage and stay out engineering discussions. It’s quite clear that the activists don’t know what they’re talking about, for that matter don’t care, and even if they did care, nuclear physics is too complicated for activism.

By: Douglas Watts

Douglas Watts — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 03:52:20 +0000

It is odd that a post about a laboratory built to test and construct bombs designed to destroy the entire planet, which is now threatened by forest fire, ends with:

“So this material is probably safe.”

By: melinmelin

melinmelin — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 01:22:22 +0000

I worked with a man who was a maintenance man at Los Alamos. He said that, in the 1980s-90s, they used to ditch radioactive tractors and other machinery and materials in the canyons there. This is what worries me. The protected and closely guarded material is obviously not a problem. The lack of accountablilty and laissez-faire attitude of many employees there is a huge problem.

By: Anchor

Anchor — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:14:46 +0000

“I guess everyone’s really worried that my theory of quantum gravity, which is of course sitting in my desk drawer at work, might go up in flames.”

If you aren’t worried about it there wouldn’t be much reason to suppose we should be. But now that we all know about the existence of such a work, it is painful to learn we may be deprived of some excellent insight. Surely you have copies of it lurking around elsewhere besides in a “desk drawer” threatened by fire.

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 01:44:56 +0000

You forgot the ultimate peril in situations such as this, nervous nellies (NNs). NNs get to bellowing and the next thing you know, you’re forced to transport radioactive materials through storm and fire and the end of the world in cardboard containers because everything else has been banned for one reason or another.

The good news is, your boss has been replaced by an A list actor, and you have been replaced by an A list actress.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:22:26 +0000

It’s just sensationalism. For the next few years anything remotely related to nuclear power is going to be reported. The other day I clicked a link that said “RADIATION FOUND IN ALL TESTED FUKUSHIMA RESIDENTS”, with the actual article content being that no one actually tested in the danger range for the cesium isotope they’re looking for.

Same deal with the Nebraska flood thing. No actual danger, tons of press.

By: DaveR

DaveR — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:06:59 +0000

“I’m going out on a limb here, everyone’s worried that the lab’s nuclear material might catch fire? *A quick sanity check is in order.* Most of the seriously radioactive material is in “hardened” bunkers at the lab.”
To even have to worry about nuclear material is INSANE. To be creating such materials is INSANE ! For some strange ill-reason, humans seem to think that the ability to create such substances shows that they are advanced. Los Alamos and the whole nuclear industry needs to be shut down before anyone can speak of a “SANITY CHECK”
Beam me up, Scotty.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:05:40 +0000

Hope all is resolved with minimal damage and no casualties; visited NM last fall, spent a couple hours in Los Alamos. While there I ate green chile cream cheese for the first time at Ruby K’s, so Los Alamos will always hold a special place in my heart. A beautiful land