WASHINGTON—Responding to widespread dissatisfaction regarding the U.S. Postal Service’s newly announced plans to discontinue Saturday mail delivery service, Postmaster General Patrick R.

Drone That Destroyed Wrong Target Casually Flying Away Like Nothing Even Happened

WASHINGTON—Following the release of a secret Department of Justice memo this week that outlines the administration’s legal justification for killing U.S.

Spent Fuel Pool

What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? Would I need to dive to actually experience a fatal amount of radiation? How long could I stay safely at the surface?

—Jonathan Bastien-Filiatrault

Assuming you’re a reasonably good swimmer, you could probably survive treading water anywhere from 10 to 40 hours. At that point, you would black out from fatigue and drown. This is also true for a pool without nuclear fuel in the bottom.

Spent fuel from nuclear reactors is highly radioactive. Water is good for both radiation shielding and cooling, so fuel is stored at the bottom of pools for a couple decades until it’s inert enough to be moved into dry casks. We haven’t really agreed on where to put those dry casks yet. One of these days we should probably figure that out.

Here’s the geometry of a typical fuel storage pool:

The heat wouldn't be a big problem. The water temperature in a fuel pool can in theory go as high as 50°C, but in practice they're generally between 25°C and 35°C—warmer than most pools but cooler than a hot tub.

For the kinds of radiation coming off spent nuclear fuel, every 7 centimeters of water cuts the amount of radiation in half.

The most highly radioactive fuel rods are those recently removed from a reactor. Based on the activity levels provided by Ontario Hydro in this report, this would be the region of danger for fresh fuel rods:

Swimming to the bottom, touching your elbows to a fresh fuel canister, and immediately swimming back up would probably be enough to kill you.

Yet outside the outer boundary, you could swim around as long as you wanted—the dose from the core would be less than the normal background dose you get walking around. In fact, as long as you were underwater, you would be shielded from most of that normal background dose. You may actually receive a lower dose of radiation treading water in a spent fuel pool than walking around on the street.

That’s if everything goes as planned. If there’s corrosion in the spent fuel rod casings, there may be some fission products in the water. They do a pretty good job of keeping the water clean, and it wouldn’t hurt you to swim in it, but it’s radioactive enough that it wouldn’t be legal to sell it as bottled water. (Which is too bad—it’d make a hell of an energy drink).

We know spent fuel pools can be safe to swim in because they’re routinely serviced by human divers.

However, these divers have to be careful.

On August 31st, 2010, a diver was servicing the spent fuel pool at the Leibstadt nuclear reactor in Switzerland. He spotted an unidentified length of tubing on the bottom of the pool and radioed his supervisor to ask what to do. He was told to put it in his tool basket, which he did. Due to bubble noise in the pool, he didn’t hear his radiation alarm.

When the tool basket was lifted from the water, the room’s radiation alarms went off. The basket was dropped back in the water and the diver left the pool. The diver’s dosimeter badges showed that he’d received a higher-than-normal whole-body dose, and the dose in his right hand was extremely high.

The object turned out to be protective tubing from a radiation monitor in the reactor core, made highly radioactive by neutron flux. It had been accidentally sheared off while a capsule was being closed in 2006. It sank to a remote corner of the pool floor, where it sat unnoticed for four years.

The tubing was so radioactive that if he’d tucked it into a tool belt or shoulder bag, where it sat close to his body, he could’ve been killed. As it was, the water protected him, and only his hand—a body part more resistant to radiation than the delicate internal organs—received a heavy dose.

So, as far as swimming safety goes, the bottom line is that you’d probably be ok, as long as you didn’t dive to the bottom or pick up anything strange.

But just to be sure, I got in touch with a friend of mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in their radiation containment pool.

“In our reactor?” He thought about it for a moment. “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.”

Today, I was dragged to a Super Bowl party. While there, the host's kid threw 3 cups of apple sauce at my feet, which then exploded and covered my jeans. 10 minutes later, the host's wife announced that she was pregnant with twins. All I could come up with was, "You're making more!?" FML

Today, after heavy rain my street flooded. While in my living room, I looked outside to see that my elderly neighbour was outside splashing in a knee deep puddle. He was butt-naked and wearing a snorkel and flippers. FML

In the wake of a four-month cyber-assault by Chinese hackers on the New York Times, during which multiple high-level Times reporters’ passwords were stolen using sophisticated infiltration techniques, The Onion would like to onc...

Today, my loyalty and regularity at my local pizza place were noticed. The delivery guy, when bringing yet another order, asked me if the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were living with me. FML

Today, I took my new girlfriend to meet my grandmother. We were drinking coffee when my gran leaned to one side and let out a huge fart. Proud of herself, she added, "That one didn't pay his rent on time!" Coffee came out of my girlfriend's nose. FML

Today, I was trying on some shoes. As I was bending down, an old lady with a walking frame slowly approached. As she got close she whispered to me "Mmm, you've got a nice tushie." My girlfriend will not let me hear the end of it. FML

We already knew the Tesla Model S was fast, but not this fast. After dropping a 12.371 quarter mile this past weekend at the Palm Beach International Raceway in Florida (@ 110.84 MPH), the National Electric Drag Racing Association awarded the Tesla Model S its stamp of officiation for being "the quickest production vehicle" in quarter mile tests. That's not just on a single pass, mind you, but several quarter mile runs over the course of a day at the track. Each pass reaffirmed a 12-second average from the 416HP electric beast -- more than proficient for a 4,700-lb hulk of metal, and more than competitive against much lighter and more expensive beasts. And that's all without internal combustion, lest you forget -- the thing even gets 350 miles per charge. Drag Times attended the event and promises video in the coming days, but for now you can peep the quarter mile timeslips and read their rundown.

[Photo credit: Drag Times; Thanks Fred!]

Filed under: Transportation

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Source: Drag Times, Drag Times (2)

Yawn Of The Dead

Today, I saw a woman breast feeding her child at the local park. That would have been just fine if the child wasn't at least 8 years old. FML

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Setting up barricades and unloading emergency food supplies today as they readied for what may perhaps be the single most commercially successful film of all time, movie theaters across the nation continued urgently preparing for the ...

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA—In a provocative and defiant pronouncement aimed at the United States and the U.N., North Korean officials announced Thursday that the country’s latest generation of ballistic missiles possessed the capability to fly rig...

SLIDESHOW: 8 INSANELY CUTE Child Soldiers

By Donald Trump

After falling for an Internet romance hoax, linebacker Manti Te'o has finally found love with an amazing women who looks like two famous actresses taped together.

By Hank T. Norman, Owner of Nature's Acres Ranch

NORFOLK, VA—According to numerous reports, local 62-year-old Earl Bailey, who owns a shotgun and several boxes of ammunition, is currently the last bastion of defense between the United States of America and the federal government’s plot of a ...

Before Jesse Eisenberg was known for playing Facebook's quirky founder, he starred with Woody Harrelson in a delightfully campy film called Zombieland. That film is apparently being adapted for the little screen -- well, perhaps not so little, but littler -- by none other than Amazon Studios, the in-house team created to produce original content on Amazon's Instant streaming service, reports Broadcast Now. It's not clear just how far along the series is, but io9 did discover some casting pages which reveal the plot: "the show will center around the original group of post apocalyptic survivors." Presumably that means more Twinkie references, more awkward romance, and a ton more comical zombie killing. That is, of course, if the early casting sheets are indicative of what the final show ends up being. Regardless, we've reached out to Amazon for more info, and we've dropped some of the film's best parts just below the break.

Filed under: Misc, Home Entertainment, HD, Amazon

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Via: The Verge

Source: Broadcast Now, io9

FOXBOROUGH, MA—In a savage and gruesome turn of events, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick reportedly slaughtered a half-dozen dogs adopted from the humane society Friday, sewing together the dismembered body parts to construct a new, horrific tight...

Today, I dragged my boyfriend to see Les Misérables with me. He now refuses to communicate with me through any medium other than singing. Apparently, this is his revenge. FML

FOXBOROUGH, MA—In a shocking reversal of behavior, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick reportedly adopted a half-dozen dogs from a local humane society Friday, saving the canines from euthanasia.

While we can't speak for everyone, SimCity's urban construction triggers fond memories for more than one of us -- mostly the small thrills of building our first arcologies or getting statues in our honor. A chance to feed our nostalgia (and megalomania) is coming quickly with the advent of EA's beta for the SimCity reboot. Windows users who register before January 20th will get one hour's worth of game time to use between January 25th and 28th, along with an opportunity to provide feedback on bugs and play balancing. It's an almost cruel tease when we know we'll have to wait until the final version's March 5th launch to play more, or to play on a Mac, but we'll take the beta offer when many of us haven't seen a 'pure' SimCity game for a decade.

[Thanks, David]

Filed under: Gaming, Software

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Via: EA (Facebook)

Source: SimCity

Today, as usual, my cat was sleeping on my stomach. I couldn't fall asleep so I delicately picked him up and put him down next to me. He got up, hopped back onto me, gave me a slap and then went back to sleep on my stomach. I didn't dare move all night. FML

SAN FRANCISCO—Tired of being bombarded with constant requests to share content on social media, bestow ratings, leave comments, and generally “join in on the discussion,” the nation’s Internet users demanded substantially less inte...