It’s Open Season for Bad Science and Science Hoaxes

Believe it or not, nuclear power isn't that difficult of a technology to grasp, but it still remains what's called a "black box technology." That is, for most people, it's basically magic and don't ask what actually happens to get whatever "stuff" goes in to a plant to turn into electricity that powers your microwave (speaking of black box tech). Naturally then, it's prime time for science abuse; where there is misunderstanding, there is pseudoscience or just plain old bullshit.

With an information flood coming from Japan right now about nuclear meltdowns, partial meltdowns, and, uh, the "supermoon," it's full-on information war. Indeed, a neat thing is that as fast as this stuff gets out—everyone on the west coast of the U.S. is as good as dead from radiation, say—there's a legion of actual intelligence waiting to counterstrike.

The map of doom

This is a full-on hoax by some creeps with no basis in reality and has been racing around the internet today like a celeb upskirt shot.

750 rads, OK. The radiation dose over three-weeks for people within close proximity to Chernobyl was recorded to be .5 rads, and that was the result of explosions straight from the core of a melting down reactor into the atmosphere. Raw exposed core elements were raining down around the plant like mortars. Also, we don't talk in terms of "rads" and "rads" really aren't a thing. Maybe in movies? I dunno. In any case, the unit is the "sievert" these days.

The explosion that happened at Fukushima was outside of the plant's containment dome and, moreover, the meltdown(s) occurring in Japan are by all accounts contained. Chernobyl, by force of reckless engineering, didn't even have its core protected. It was more or less exposed to the world like it was burning coal or something. And this is just not how things are built now (or then, for that matter, in most of the world).

What nuclear power actually is

There are four nuclear power plants in Japan currently in some stage of meltdown or partial meltdown. So it's about time you learned at least a little bit how this stuff actually works. An early favorite explanation appeared on BoingBoing yesterday and has a great analogy between controlled nuclear reactions and Jenga towers. Basic but sometimes that's all you want.

For more, MIT's Dr. Josef Oehmen assures that "there was and will not be any significant release of radioactivity" in a lengthy blog post here that explains the anatomy of a modern nuclear plant, how reactions work and are used, and, at least one seriously goofy thing that led to the cooling system failure.

And about that release of contaminated steam: "If you were sitting on top of the plants' chimney when they were venting, you should probably give up smoking to return to your former life expectancy." The U.S. west coast, meanwhile, can smoke away.

However, it needs to be noted that that post is already a day old in a quickly evolving situation and, according to the Times this afternoon, radiation levels outside the Fukushima plant were at twice the legal limit and local evacuations are going down as a “precaution.” Still, even in a worst-case, what’s happening won’t be even close to Chernobyl levels.

"Supermoon"

When the meltdown(s) started happening, this quickly went away. But, if you missed it, there was some talk about the "supermoon" that's occurring this month and how supermoons, e.g. a full-moon at its closest possible point to the Earth, have occurred close to massive earthquakes before. Repeat after me: correlation does not imply causation, correlation does not imply causation, correlation does not imply causation, correlation does not imply causation, correlation does not imply causation.

Feel better? No? Well, Bad Astronomy has you covered. Naturally.

Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.