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“No longer unthinkable”: UK official weighs in on nuclear threat

A senior officer in the British Air Force has warned that nuclear war could be “only a few steps away” from becoming a reality, as reported by <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17953272/nuclear-war-few-steps-away-ukraine-warns-raf-chief/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Sun</a>. British Air Marshal Edward Stringer appeared on the British talkback radio station <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/nuclear-war-possible-few-steps-away-raf-chief/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LBC</a> on Tuesday morning local time and spoke about how the possibility of a nuclear war would be a “weight on the minds” of world leaders. “It’s no longer unthinkable and it clearly be weighing on the minds of those who are making all the political calculations at the moment, hence the very straight and consistent line from Biden and all the other senior heads of state recently,” he said. “It is in the realm of possibility, and that is what people have to get their heads around.” Air Marshal Stringer added that it was possible to “sketch a plausible chain of events” that could see the use of nuclear weapons, and that it was “a pretty terrifying prospect for anybody sensible”. He explained that it was also the reason why world leaders have been hesitant to establish no-fly zones over Ukraine. “NATO is not constructed to go onto the offensive, if it did it would be taking on another nuclear power - Russia,” he said. As for whether nuclear war is likely, US intelligence says Russia has a theory called “escalate to de-escalate” to use if in conflict with NATO where a dramatic action of threat is used to frighten opponents and cause them to back down, according to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BBC</a>. James Acton, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the outlet it may be a tactic to ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin gets his way. “I am legitimately worried that in that circumstance Putin might use a nuclear weapon, most likely on the ground in Ukraine to terrify everyone and get his way,” he said. “We are not at that point yet.” Image: Getty Images

News

Queen's "World War III" speech strikes a haunting note

Though it’s almost 40 years old, Queen Elizabeth II’s pre-prepared speech in the event of World War III is feeling quite pertinent lately. The sombre message, first penned in 1983 at the height of the Cold War and publicly released in 2013, is a script for a hypothetical broadcast the monarch would read if British citizens faced a threat of nuclear war or World War III. Devised by Whitehall officials, the speech was created as part of a war-gaming exercise that worked through potential scenarios and was written as if broadcast on Friday, March 4 at midday - almost 39 years ago to the day. “The horrors of war could not have seemed more remote as my family and I shared our Christmas joy with the growing family of the Commonwealth,” the script begins, as shared by the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-23518587" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BBC</a>. “Now, this madness of war is once more spreading through the world and our brave country must again prepare itself to survive against great odds.” The Queen also recalls the moment World War II broke out and her own experience of sadness and pride upon hearing her father make the announcement. “I have never forgotten the sorrow and the pride I felt as my sister and I huddled around the nursery wireless set listening to my father’s [George VI’s] inspiring words on that fateful day in 1939,” it reads. “Not for a single moment did I imagine that this solemn and awful duty would one day fall to me. “But whatever terrors lie in wait for us all, the qualities that have helped to keep our freedom intact twice already during this sad century will once more be our strength.” Unsurprisingly, the address <a href="https://honey.nine.com.au/royals/queen-elizabeth-secret-speech-in-case-of-world-war-iii/eb18bc06-e53c-4fa8-baab-549476b59370" target="_blank" rel="noopener">contains</a> some outdated aspects, including a mention of her “beloved” son Andrew - who was in the Royal Navy at the time - and references to her now-late husband Prince Philip. She also spoke of the power of the bond families share and how it “must be our greatest defence against the unknown”. “If families remain united and resolute, giving shelter to those living alone and unprotected, our country’s will to survive cannot be broken.” The war-gaming exercise it was devised for has become increasingly relevant as well, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues amid the threat of nuclear strikes from Moscow and ongoing peace talks between the two countries. In it, Orange bloc forces representing the Soviet Union and its allies launched a chemical weapon attack on the UK. NATO, represented by Blue forces, retaliates with a “limited-yield” nuclear strike that forces Orange to initiate a peace process. Image: Getty Images

Travel Trouble

West responds to Putin placing nuclear arsenal on high alert

As tensions and fighting continue to escalate between Russia and Ukraine, the US and NATO have slammed Putin's decision to put Russia's nuclear forces on high alert. Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin directed the Russian defence minister and the chief of the military's General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a "special regime of combat duty." The Russian president also discussed the hard-hitting sanctions that have been placed on Russia, and Putin himself. "Western countries aren't only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country," Putin said in televised comment. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the dangerous move was part of a wider pattern of unprovoked escalation and "manufactured threats" from the Kremlin. "This is really a pattern that we've seen from President Putin through the course of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don't exist in order to justify further aggression — and the global community and the American people should look at it through that prism," Psaki told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on 'This Week'. She added, "This is all a pattern from President Putin and we're going to stand up for it, we have the ability to defend ourselves, but we also need to call out what we're seeing here from President Putin." In reaction to the nuclear alert, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN, "This is dangerous rhetoric. This is a behaviour which is irresponsible." Given that Russia, as well as the US, typically have both land and submarine-based nuclear forces on alert for combat at all times, the practicality of Putin's order is not yet clear. As the conflict only continues to grow with Moscow troops drawing closer to Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that a delegation would meet in an undisclosed location on the Belarusian border to discuss peace talks. Image credits: Getty Images

News

What is radioactivity?

<div class="copy"> We owe the discovery of radioactivity to bad weather. French physicist <a rel="noopener" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Becquerel" target="_blank">Henri Becquerel</a> was trying to study fluorescence, a phenomenon where certain materials glow when exposed to sunlight, but overcast days thwarted his experiments and so he wrapped his fluorescing uranium salts in cloth and left them in a drawer, along with a photographic plate and a copper cross. This simple serendipitous accident, in 1896, revealed the existence of radioactivity, a phenomenon that opened a window into the subatomic world and kickstarted the nuclear revolution. <h2>Understanding radioactivity</h2> When he finally fetched the salts, Becquerel found that an image of the cross had appeared on the photographic plate – even though the salts had not been exposed to light. “I am now convinced that uranium salts produce invisible radiation, even when they have been kept in the dark,” he wrote after conducting further experiments. Becquerel’s doctoral student, <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/this-week-in-science-history-marie-curie-dies/">Marie Curie</a>, investigated the matter with her husband Pierre and they realised the effect had nothing to do with fluorescence, instead discovering that certain materials naturally emit a constant flow of energy. They coined the term ‘radioactivity’ and also found two new radioactive elements: polonium and radium. For this profound and exciting work, Becquerel and the Curies received the Nobel Prize for <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/">Physics</a> in 1903. Physicists Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy delved deeper and found that tiny amounts of matter contain huge reserves of energy. They also realised that in the process of radioactive decay, one element can turn into another – an atom of uranium can transform (via a few intermediate steps) into an atom of lead. Around the world people assumed that these miraculously energetic materials could be put to good use. Until the 1920s, many manufacturers of laxatives and toothpaste proudly laced their products with radioactive thorium, and radioactive substances were only banned in consumer products in the US in 1938. <h2>How does radioactivity work?</h2> Today we have a much more comprehensive understanding of what radioactivity is, how it can be dangerous, and how we can use it. Here’s a basic rundown: imagine an atom, composed of a cloud of electrons around a central nucleus where particles called neutrons and protons are crammed in together. Some arrangements of protons and neutrons are more stable than others; if there are too many neutrons compared to protons, the nucleus becomes unstable and falls apart. This decay releases nuclear radiation in the form of alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma radiation. An alpha particle carries off two protons and two neutrons, and since an element is defined by its number of protons, the parent atom becomes a whole new element when an alpha particle is emitted. In beta decay, a neutron transforms into one proton and one electron, and the electron speeds off, leaving an extra proton behind and once again resulting in an atom of a different element. Alongside either of the above particles, decaying nuclei can also produce gamma rays: high energy electromagnetic radiation. <h2>What are the health effects?</h2> As Becquerel and the Curies discovered, radioactivity is a naturally-occurring phenomenon. Many minerals in the Earth emit a slow and steady trickle of radiation, the air we breathe contains radioactive gases, and even foods and our bodies contain a small percentage of radioactive atoms like potassium-40 and carbon-14. The Earth also receives radiation from the Sun and as high-energy cosmic rays. These sources create a natural but unavoidable level of background radiation. Many artificial sources add to this, including medical procedures such as X-rays, smoke detectors, building materials and combustible fuels. We generally aren’t harmed by low-level background sources of radiation, as the extent of harm depends on the length and level of exposure. Radiation can damage the body’s internal chemistry, breaking up chemical bonds in our tissue, killing cells, and damaging DNA, which may lead to cancer. In very high doses, radiation can cause sickness and death within hours. <h2>Harnessing nuclear power</h2> The effects of radioactivity have been felt on an even grander scale with the meltdown of nuclear power plants throughout history. The radioactive process of fission has been harnessed for several decades to produce electricity: the nucleus of an atom is split, creating at least two “daughter” nuclei and releasing energy as heat. The heat is used to boil water and create steam, turning a turbine and generating electricity. Unfortunately this isn’t a clean process – it produces radioactive waste that is difficult to safely dispose of, and in extreme cases reactions can spiral out of control, such as the disaster triggered by an earthquake at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in 2011. Another radioactive process could provide a safe way to generate clean energy: fusion. In contrast to fission, fusion involves joining two atomic nuclei together. This process also releases energy – it’s the exact process occurring in the Sun and other stars – but fusion requires extremely high temperatures and pressures, which are expensive and difficult to recreate on Earth. <h2>A long road ahead</h2> Becquerel died 12 years after his initial discovery at age 54, with burns and scars likely from handling radioactive materials, and Marie Curie died several decades later from leukemia. Radiation was probably slowly killing Pierre Curie too, although it’s difficult to know as he was fatally run down by a carriage in 1906. Today our greater understanding of radioactivity allows us to use it much more safely. Accidents with radioactive materials have decreased in frequency and produce fewer fatalities due to stringent safety measures and thorough emergency responses. In the most recent nuclear disaster at Fukushima, no deaths resulted from radiation exposure – but there’s still a long way to go before we can safely harness the immense raw power of radioactivity. Image credits: Shutterstock  <img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=76198&title=What+is+radioactivity%3F" alt="" width="1" height="1" />  </div> <div id="contributors"> This article was originally published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/what-is-radioactivity/" target="_blank">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Lauren Fuge. </div>

Technology

Aspirin could be our next weapon against aggressive breast cancer

Aspirin may be used in future treatments of breast cancer, with doctors saying it can make hard-to-treat tumours more responsive to anti-cancer drugs. A new trial is starting in Manchester, England, with triple-negative breast-cancer patients, run by a team at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust. The team suspects aspirin’s anti-inflammatory properties may be what boost the effectiveness of anti-cancer drugs, rather than its analgesic effect. Though animal studies have shown encouraging results and there is some evidence aspirin may help prevent other cancers, more research is needed before it is recommended as a treatment. Around 15 percent of breast cancers are triple negative, which is a more aggressive type of breast cancer and frequently affects younger women and black women. Triple negative cancer tumours lack some of the receptors that other breast cancers have, which means they can’t be treated with drugs such as herceptin. But other treatments could work. In the Manchester trial, some patients will be given aspirin and immunotherapy drug avelumab before they undergo surgery and chemotherapy. If the trial is successful, further clinical trials could start to test the effectiveness of aspirin and avelumab on incurable secondary triple-negative breast cancer - the stage where cancer cells start to spread to other parts of the body. “Not all breast cancers respond well to immunotherapy,” trial lead Dr Anne Armstrong said. “Trialling the use of a drug like aspirin is exciting because it is so widely available and inexpensive to produce. “We hope our trial will show that, when combined with immunotherapy, aspirin can enhance its effects and may ultimately provide a safe new way to treat breast cancer.” Co-researcher Dr Rebecca Lee said their findings suggest that aspirin may be preventing the cancer from making substances that weaken the body’s immune response, in turn increasing the effectiveness of certain types of immunotherapy. “We hope aspirin can dampen down bad inflammation so the immune system can get on with the job of killing cancer cells,” she said.

Body

Unlikely new weapon in the war on COVID

A new study in the UK has shown that mouthwash has been shown to kill coronavirus in just 30 seconds. Scientists at Cardiff University found that there were "promising signs" that over-the-counter mouthwashes may help to destroy the virus. Dr Nick Claydon said the study could lead to mouthwash becoming an important part of people's routines. Dr Claydon, a specialist periodontologist, said: "If these positive results are reflected in Cardiff University's clinical trial, CPC-based mouthwashes... could become an important addition to people's routine, together with hand washing, physical distancing and wearing masks, both now and in the future." Dr Richard Stanton, lead author on the study, said: "This study adds to the emerging literature that several commonly-available mouthwashes designed to fight gum disease can also inactivate the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (and other related coronaviruses) when tested in the laboratory under conditions that are designed to mimic the oral/nasal cavity in a test tube. "This study is not yet peer reviewed and published which means it has not yet been scrutinised by other scientists as is the usual process with academic research. It has now been submitted for publication in a journal. "People should continue to follow the preventive measures issued by the UK government, including washing hands frequently and maintaining social distance." Prof David Thomas, from the university, said the initial results were encouraging, but the clinical trial would not produce evidence of how to prevent transmission between patients. "Whilst these mouthwashes very effectively eradicate the virus in the laboratory, we need to see if they work in patients and this is the point of our ongoing clinical study," he said to the <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54971650" target="_blank" class="editor-rtflink">BBC</a>. "The ongoing clinical study will, however, show us how long any effects last, following a single administration of the mouthwash in patients with Covid-19."We need to understand if the effect of over-the-counter mouthwashes on the Covid-19 virus achieved in the laboratory can be reproduced in patients."

Caring

315 nuclear bombs and ongoing suffering: The shameful history of nuclear testing in Australia and the Pacific

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware this article contains the name of a deceased person. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons received its <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/10/1076082">50th ratification on October 24</a>, and will therefore come into force in January 2021. A historic development, this new international law will ban the possession, development, testing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately the nuclear powers — the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea — haven’t signed on to the treaty. As such, they are not immediately obliged to <a href="http://hrp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Victim-assistance-short-4-8-18-final.pdf">help victims and remediate contaminated environments</a>, but others party to the treaty do have these obligations. The shifting norms around this will hopefully put ongoing pressure on nuclear testing countries to open records and to cooperate with accountability measures. For the people of the Pacific region, particularly those who bore the brunt of nuclear weapons testing during the 20th century, it will bring a new opportunity for their voices to be heard on the long-term costs of nuclear violence. The treaty is the first to enshrine enduring commitments to addressing their needs. From 1946, around <a href="https://icanw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Pacific-Report-2017.pdf">315 nuclear tests</a> were carried out in the Pacific by the US, Britain and France. These nations’ largest ever nuclear tests took place on colonised lands and oceans, from Australia to the Marshall Islands, Kiribati to French Polynesia. The impacts of these tests are still being felt today. All nuclear tests cause harm Studies of nuclear test workers and exposed nearby communities <a href="https://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/">around the world</a> <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-review-of-the-red-cross/article/humanitarian-impact-and-implications-of-nuclear-test-explosions-in-the-pacific-region/1FDB0D26842BEA5621F33A0B53FCD7F9">consistently show</a> adverse health effects, especially increased risks of <a href="https://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/">cancer</a>. The total number of global cancer deaths as a result of atmospheric nuclear test explosions has been estimated at between <a href="https://scope.dge.carnegiescience.edu/SCOPE_59/SCOPE_59.html">2 million</a> and <a href="https://ieer.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/1991/06/RadioactiveHeavenEarth1991.pdf">2.4 million</a>, even though these studies used radiation risk estimates that are now dated and likely underestimated the <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n3873/pdf/ch08.pdf">risk</a>. The number of additional non-fatal cancer cases caused by test explosions is similar. As confirmed in a <a href="http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1667/RR14608.1">large recent study</a> of nuclear industry workers in France, the UK and US, the numbers of radiation-related deaths due to other diseases, such as heart attacks and strokes, is also likely to be similar. ‘We all got crook’ Britain conducted 12 nuclear test explosions in Australia between 1952 and 1957, and hundreds of minor trials of radioactive and toxic materials for bomb development up to 1963. These caused untold health problems for local Aboriginal people who were at the highest risk of radiation. Many of them were not properly evacuated, and some were not informed at all. We may never know the full impact of these explosions because in many cases, as the Royal Commission report on British Nuclear Tests in Australia <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22publications/tabledpapers/HPP032016010928%22;src1=sm1">found in 1985</a>: “the resources allocated for Aboriginal welfare and safety were ludicrous, amounting to nothing more than a token gesture”. But we can listen to the survivors. The late Yami Lester directly experienced the impacts of nuclear weapons. A Yankunytjatjara elder from South Australia, Yami was a child when the British tested at Emu Field in October 1953. He <a href="https://icanw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/BlackMist-FINAL-Web.pdf">recalled</a> the “Black Mist” after the bomb blast: It wasn’t long after that a black smoke came through. A strange black smoke, it was shiny and oily. A few hours later we all got crook, every one of us. We were all vomiting; we had diarrhoea, skin rashes and sore eyes. I had really sore eyes. They were so sore I couldn’t open them for two or three weeks. Some of the older people, they died. They were too weak to survive all the sickness. The closest clinic was 400 miles away. His daughter, Karina Lester, is an ambassador for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in Australia, and continues to be driven by her family’s experience. She <a href="https://icanw.org.au/choosinghumanity/">writes</a>: For decades now my family have campaigned and spoken up against the harms of nuclear weapons because of their firsthand experience of the British nuclear tests […] Many Aboriginal people suffered from the British nuclear tests that took place in the 1950s and 1960s and many are still suffering from the impacts today. More than 16,000 Australian workers were also exposed. A key <a href="https://www.dva.gov.au/documents-and-publications/british-nuclear-testing-australia-studies">government-funded study</a> belatedly followed these veterans over an 18-year period from 1982. Despite the difficulties of conducting a study decades later with incomplete data, it <a href="https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.pace.edu/dist/0/195/files/2018/10/Australia-PosObs-Country-Report-7-1zbngsb.pdf">found</a> they had 23% higher rates of cancer and 18% more deaths from cancers than the general population. An additional health impact in Pacific island countries is the toxic disease “ciguatera”, caused by certain microscopic plankton at the base of the marine food chain, which thrive on damaged coral. Their toxins concentrate up the food chain, especially in fish, and cause illness and occasional deaths in people who eat them. In the Marshall Islands, Kiritimati and French Polynesia, outbreaks of the disease among locals have been associated with coral damage caused by <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(89)91212-9/fulltext">nuclear test explosions</a> and the extensive military and shipping infrastructure supporting them. Pacific survivors of nuclear testing haven’t been focused solely on addressing their own considerable needs for justice and care; they’ve been powerful advocates that no one should suffer as they have ever again, and have worked tirelessly for the eradication of nuclear weapons. It’s no surprise independent Pacific island nations are strong supporters of the new treaty, accounting for ten of the first 50 ratifications. Negligence and little accountability Some nations that have undertaken nuclear tests have provided some care and compensation for their nuclear test workers; only the US has made some <a href="https://www.justice.gov/civil/common/reca">provisions</a> for people exposed, though only for mainland US residents downwind of the Nevada Test Site. No testing nation has extended any such arrangement beyond its own shores to the colonised and minority peoples it put in harm’s way. Nor has any testing nation made fully publicly available its records of the history, conduct and effects of its nuclear tests on exposed populations and the environment. These nations have also been negligent by quickly abandoning former test sites. There has been inadequate clean-up and little or none of the long-term environmental monitoring needed to detect radioactive leakage from underground test sites into groundwater, soil and air. One example among many is the Runit concrete dome in the Marshall Islands, which holds nuclear waste from US testing in the 1940s and 50s. It’s increasingly <a href="https://www.latimes.com/projects/marshall-islands-nuclear-testing-sea-level-rise/">inundated by rising sea levels</a>, and is leaking radioactive material. The treaty provides a light in a dark time. It contains the only internationally agreed framework for all nations to verifiably eliminate nuclear weapons. It’s our fervent hope the treaty will mark the increasingly urgent beginning of the end of nuclear weapons. It is our determined expectation that our country will step up. Australia has not yet ratified the treaty, but the bitter legacy of nuclear testing across our country and region should spur us to join this new global effort. Written <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/tilman-ruff-89">Tilman Ruff</a>, University of Melbourne and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dimity-hawkins-292972">Dimity Hawkins</a>, Swinburne University of Technology. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/315-nuclear-bombs-and-ongoing-suffering-the-shameful-history-of-nuclear-testing-in-australia-and-the-pacific-148909">The Conversation.</a>

Cruising

“Dancing was my secret weapon in managing diabetes!”

Dubbed the ‘Silent Pandemic’ of our times, type 2 diabetes is a huge health issue in our country – and around the world. So many have it, but don’t realise it. Currently, 1 in 4 adults are living with diabetes or pre-diabetes – with the largest proportion of Australians with type 2 diabetes in the 50-79 age bracket according to the National Diabetes Service Scheme. The good news is, diabetes can be managed – if you educate yourself, take steps to change your diet and shoehorn more activity into your day. Here’s how Yvonne Appleby, ambassador for Diabetes NSW / ACT, changed her life after being diagnosed with type 2 in 2011. “I was ill on and off for a long time before I discovered I had type 2 diabetes. I kept getting sore throats, and earaches, and I gained 20 kilos over 4 years, which was significant as I’d been a size 8-10 most of my life. I was getting really bad headaches and migraines and I felt something wasn’t right. “One early blood test showed my blood glucose levels were a bit high, but my GP just said if I dieted and exercised it would go down. I know now that I was pre-diabetic then, but I trusted my doctor. She did ask if I was peeing a lot or thirsty all the time and I wasn’t, so she told me ‘it couldn’t be diabetes’. It didn’t occur to me to get a second opinion. I just assumed she knew what she was talking about. “Finally I couldn’t handle being so unwell anymore and asked for another blood test. It then showed up that I had type 2 diabetes and at that point I had been sick on and off for 6 or 7 years. I know now that not everyone gets typical symptoms. Some people have zero symptoms. If I had my time again, I wouldn’t have left it so long. I would’ve gotten a second opinion, or changed doctors (I have now). I know you can take steps to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes. “When I was diagnosed, I didn’t know much about diabetes. I’d heard the horror stories, but I didn’t know it was common in the older age group – like 50 and over. And my doctor wasn’t a lot of help. She just said, ‘You’ve got diabetes, go to the chemist and get a blood glucose monitor’. I also went on Metformin and as soon as I was on that, I started feeling better within three days. “At first, I had no idea what I was doing. I was testing my glucose levels for about a week thinking, ‘I’m writing all these numbers down but what do they mean? Are they low? High? Normal?’ I remember one time my sugar dropped to 4.3mmol and I panicked and started eating nuts and it just went lower. I rang the Diabetes NSW customer care line and they said, ‘Oh no. Nuts will just lower your glucose levels – you need a bit of orange juice or some lollies to bring it back up’. It was all very trial and error getting to know what worked for me. I was lucky to know a lady who works at Diabetes NSW and I rang her and told her I’d just been diagnosed. She asked me to come in and talk to someone. “I did an 8-week education course there, which was hugely helpful. We had an exercise physiologist, a dietitian and a diabetes educator talk to us. They taught us how to read nutritional panels, which is something I never did before. We had to put cereal boxes in a line according to how much sugar they had in them and Nutrigrain was something like 46 per cent sugar! That’s really stuck with me. “My diet before was bad. Lots of sugar. Now, I make much more sensible choices. Lots of vegies and swaps to low-GI foods. I’ve totally changed how I think about food. I no longer skip meals either, which I’d had a tendency to do. “I also took up dancing and at one stage I was dancing 9-10 hours a week, doing rock’n’roll and Latin dance. I became an assistant dance teacher and I lost 15kg just from dancing and eating well. I even got to dance with Robbie Kmetoni, former winner of So You Think You Can Dance Australia, for the Move4Diabetes campaign. Two years after being diagnosed, my sugars were stable, I was the fittest I’d ever been and I was even off my meds. My doctor was very pleased. “I’ve had some health problems since including a serious respiratory infection and some knee issues. As a result I’ve been on steroids and haven’t been able to exercise as much, but my HbA1c levels were still that of a non-diabetic person – around 5.5mmol when I was last tested. When I was diagnosed they were 9mmol! I’m back on the meds to keep my glucose levels stable, but when I’m better I’ll be getting back into dancing and getting back on track. “My advice to anyone who’s newly diagnosed is to go to the Diabetes NSW and ACT webpage. Ring the customer care line. They saved my skin a lot of times because I had no idea where to turn. They also have amazing recipes and advice. You can ask questions and talk to an expert. I also think it’s important for everyone to get routinely tested because there are so many people out there with diabetes who don’t know they have it. If you have prediabetes, losing just 10 percent of your body weight can stop you developing type 2 diabetes. So early diagnosis is really important.” Written by Rachel Smith. Republished with permission of <a href="https://www.wyza.com.au/articles/health/secret-weapon-in-managing-diabetes.aspx">Wyza.com.au.</a>

Retirement Life

"Beyond anything you can imagine": The brutal truth of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster

The launch of HBO miniseries Chernobyl has once again brought attention to the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Discussions have emerged as to whether the five-part show provided a realistic depiction of the catastrophe. While some details in the story have been contested, most experts and survivors agree that the portrayal of the radiation effects is true to life. Oleksiy Breus was an engineer at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the then-Soviet Union. Following the 1986 explosion at the fourth reactor, he took part in a dangerous operation to drain water from under the power station to prevent further explosion. The 59-year-old told <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48580177" target="_blank">BBC</a> that the physical impacts of acute radiation syndrome (ARS) were shown well in the series through the character of firefighter Vasily Ignatenko. Breus said he met with shift leader Oleksandr Akimov and operator Leonid Toptunov – both of whom were featured prominently on the show – hours after the incident. “They were not looking good, to put it mildly,” he said. “It was clear they felt sick. They were very pale. Toptunov had literally turned white.” Akimov and Toptunov died two weeks later from ARS. Breus said his other colleagues who worked at the ill-fated night died in hospital after their skin turned to “a bright red colour”. He said, “Radiation exposure, red skin, radiation burns and steam burns were what many people talked about but it was never shown like this. When I finished my shift, my skin was brown, as if I had a proper suntan all over my body. My body parts not covered by clothes – such as hands, face and neck – were red.” This was in line with the testimony from Lyudmilla Ignatenko, wife of the fallen firefighter. In the book <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/apr/25/energy.ukraine" target="_blank">Voices from Chernobyl</a> by Russian journalist Svetlana Alexievich, Lyudmilla said she witnessed her husband’s condition exacerbate as he began experiencing serious diarrhea, hair loss and skin cracking and discolouring. She recalled, “I tell the nurse: ‘He’s dying’. And she says to me: ‘What did you expect? He got 1,600 roentgen. Four hundred is a lethal dose. You're sitting next to a nuclear reactor’.” Archaeologist and Chernobyl expert Robert Maxwell also vouched for the show’s accuracy in showing how nuclear radiation affects the human body. “The skin of the tongue sloughs off; the skin of the body turns black and peels way upon touch... eyes blister. The colon is covered in third degree burns,” Maxwell told <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/chernobyl-radiation-poisoning/?utm_source=Mamamia.com.au%20-%20All%20Newsletters&utm_campaign=e78d678868-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_06_17_06_53&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9dc62997a2-e78d678868-211561537&mc_cid=e78d678868&mc_eid=c10f87c072" target="_blank">Mamamia</a>. “Their depiction of ARS and its treatment during the Soviet 1980s is highly accurate.” The show’s creator Craig Mazin said he and his team took great care to show “total respect” to Vasily and his family in the series. “We had to be really careful in episode three when we showed the final stage of Vasily Ignatenko's body,” Mazin told <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/chernobyl-finale-explained-creator-craig-mazin-interview-1215670" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a>. “It was the most extreme thing that we showed, and our makeup and prosthetic designer Daniel Parker did a brilliant job — so brilliant, in fact, that there was a concern that we lingered on it a bit. “We shortened that shot by quite a bit, because the last thing we wanted was to feel like we were trading on this man's sad fate for sensationalist points on a TV show. What we wanted was for people to see the truth of what happens… “Those were the things we were dealing with all the time, because that man was a real person, and his wife is still alive, and the last thing we want to do is show anything other than total respect.” 134 people were <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18049222" target="_blank">diagnosed with ARS</a> in the aftermath of the explosion. 28 of them died within months. The number of people affected by the disaster remains disputed, with many suspecting that the radiation may be the reason behind other health problems such as cancer and birth defects.

Body

The Queen's secret weapon for getting out of conversations

The Queen has a schedule that is jampacked with social engagements that even the best chatterbox could feel a little tired sometimes. To help her out when the conversation gets awkward when she is hosting guests, the Queen has a trick that she is reported to use time and time again. According to The Express, the Queen’s method is known as the “dog mechanism” to members of her family and involves Her Majesty ducking her head under the table to feed her dogs. If the Queen needs an escape from the dinner conversation, she ducks her head under the table and no one thinks anything of it because she is known to love her corgis. The Queen’s corgis are known to be treated to a very lavish life at Buckingham Palace and they are reportedly served fish, steak, rabbit or chicken for dinner. In an interview with Town & Country magazine, Dr Roger Mugford revealed how dinner is served to the Queen’s dogs. “At feeding times, each dog had an individually designed menu, including an array of homeopathic and herbal remedies. “Their food was served by a butler in an eclectic collection of battered silver and porcelain dishes. “As I watched, the Queen got the corgis to sit in a semi-circle around her, and then fed them one by one, in order of seniority. The others just sat and patiently waited their turn.”

Mind

Polluted nuclear site to become tourist destinations

America's most polluted nuclear weapons production site is now its newest national park. Thousands of people are expected next year to tour the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, home of the world's first full-sized nuclear reactor, near Richland, about 200 miles east of Seattle in south-central Washington. They won't be allowed anywhere near the nation's largest collection of toxic radioactive waste. "Everything is clean and perfectly safe," said Colleen French, the US Department of Energy's program manager for the Hanford park. "Any radioactive materials are miles away." The Manhattan Project National Historic Park, signed into existence in November, also includes sites at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Manhattan Project is the name for the US effort to build an atomic bomb during World War II. At Hanford, the main attractions will be B Reactor - the world's first full-sized reactor - along with the ghost towns of Hanford and White Bluffs, which were evacuated by the government to make room for the Manhattan Project. The B Reactor was built in about one year and produced plutonium for the Trinity test blast in New Mexico and for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, that led to the surrender of the Japanese. Starting in 1943, more than 50,000 people from across the United States arrived at the top-secret Hanford site to perform work whose purpose few knew, French said. The 300 residents of Richland were evicted and that town became a bedroom community for the adjacent Hanford site, skyrocketing in population. Workers laboured around the clock to build reactors and processing plants to make plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons. The park will tell the story of those workers, plus the scientists who performed groundbreaking research and the residents who were displaced, said Chip Jenkins of the National Park Service, which is jointly developing the park with the Energy Department. "The intention of the park is to tell the full and complex and convoluted story," Jenkins said. That story is still being developed, but will certainly include a Japanese perspective, he said. "What happened at B Reactor changed the course of human history," Jenkins said. "They went from sparsely populated ranching communities to the first packet of plutonium over the course of 18 months." Eventually, nine reactors were built at Hanford and operated during the Cold War to make plutonium for the US. nuclear arsenal. That work created more than 56 million gallons of radioactive waste that the government still spends more than $1 billion a year to maintain and clean up. While details of the new national park are still being worked out, French said, the Energy Department will continue its tours of the B Reactor and the old town sites that began in 2009 and fill up with some 10,000 visitors a year. The plan is to greatly expand the number of tourists and school groups who visit the site, she said. Tours will occur from April to October, French said. Exhibits at the B Reactor include the exposed face of the reactor and the control room, where many visitors like to sit and be photographed at control panels, she said. The Hanford story is far from over. Jenkins noted that thousands of scientists and other workers remain active on the Hanford site, inventing and implementing new techniques to clean up the massive volume of nuclear waste. Written by Nicholas K. Geranios. First appeared on <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/" target="_blank">Stuff.co.nz.</a> Related links: <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/international/2015/12/largest-flower-garden-in-the-world/">14 images from the world’s largest flower garden</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/international/2016/01/how-i-drove-a-motorhome-around-the-world/">When I retired I drove a motorhome around the world</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/international/2015/12/shibuya-pedestrian-crossing-japan/">The busiest pedestrian crossing in the world</a>

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"Beyond anything you can imagine": The brutal truth of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster

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Polluted nuclear site to become tourist destinations

News

Shop

Catalogues

Travel

Health

Lifestyle

Finance

Entertainment

Property

Information

Keep up to date

Search

“No longer unthinkable”: UK official weighs in on nuclear threat

Queen's "World War III" speech strikes a haunting note

West responds to Putin placing nuclear arsenal on high alert

What is radioactivity?

Aspirin could be our next weapon against aggressive breast cancer

Unlikely new weapon in the war on COVID

315 nuclear bombs and ongoing suffering: The shameful history of nuclear testing in Australia and the Pacific

“Dancing was my secret weapon in managing diabetes!”

"Beyond anything you can imagine": The brutal truth of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster

The Queen's secret weapon for getting out of conversations

Polluted nuclear site to become tourist destinations

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