What’s the Story Behind these Pics?
Wed, Sep 3, 2008
No prizes going this week for guessing the story behind this strange but colorful image of a doctored Dresden doll. The first haunting image of a derelict amusement park should give you a clue.
We’d love to be in the position to offer a prize every week but until we get some EG merchandising going, or anyone wants to organize a give-away deal, we’re going to have to settle with being entertained with your great, and often very funny, answers.
Last Week’s Winner
Alli was spot on with her summary of last week’s image, which featured two men seemingly holding back a surging hoard.
The photograph, entitled Famine in Niger, was taken by Omar Vega and won 1st prize at last year’s Black & White Spider Awards, an organization dedicated to the advancement of black and white photography.
This year’s deadline for entries was 31 August so judging is now in progress but you can be part of the exclusive online Nomination and Winners Presentation on 19 October 2008, which last year drew 10,000 viewers. Or better still, get snapping and enter your own photos next year.
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September 7th, 2008 at 2:12 am
This deresden doll depicts the after affects of exposure to high levels of radiation and the effects on child birth mutations.
The image of the amuzement park was taken in city of Pripyat where The Chernobyl station (51°23?14?N 30°06?41?E? / ?51.38722, 30.11139) is located , Ukraine, 18 km (11 mi) northwest of the city of Chernobyl, 16 km (10 mi) from the border of Ukraine and Belarus, and about 110 km (68 mi) north of Kiev. The station consisted of four reactors of type RBMK-1000, each capable of producing 1 gigawatt (GW) of electric power. During the daytime of 25 April 1986, reactor 4 (51°23?22?N 30°05?56?E? / ?51.38944, 30.09889) was scheduled to be shut down for maintenance as it was near the end of its first fuel cycle. An experiment was proposed to test a safety emergency core cooling feature during the shut down procedure.On 26 April 1986 at 1:23:45 a.m., reactor 4 suffered a massive, catastrophic power excursion, resulting in a steam explosion, which tore the top from the reactor, exposed the core and dispersed large amounts of radioactive particulate and gaseous debris, allowing air (oxygen) to contact the super-hot core containing 1,700 tonnes[7] of combustible graphite moderator. The burning graphite moderator increased the emission of radioactive particles. The radioactivity was not contained by any kind of containment vessel (unlike in Western plants, Soviet reactors often did not have them[8]) and radioactive particles were carried by wind across international borders. The radiation levels in the worst-hit areas of the reactor building have been estimated to be 5.6 röntgen per second (R/s), which is equivalent to 20,000 röntgen per hour (R/h).
The majority of premature deaths caused by Chernobyl are expected to be the result of cancers and other diseases induced by radiation in the decades after the event. This will be the result of a large population (some studies have considered the entire population of Europe) exposed to relatively low doses of radiation increasing the risk of cancer across that population. It will be impossible to attribute specific deaths to Chernobyl, and many estimates indicate that the rate of excess deaths will be so small as to be statistically undetectable, even if the ultimate number of extra premature deaths is large. Furthermore, interpretations of the current health state of exposed populations vary. Therefore, estimates of the ultimate human impact of the disaster have relied on numerical models of the effects of radiation on health. Furthermore, the effects of low-level radiation on human health are not well understood, and so the models used, notably the linear no threshold model, are open to question.
Ionizing radiation damages tissue by causing ionization, which disrupts molecules directly and also produces highly reactive free radicals, which attack nearby cells. The net effect is that biological molecules suffer local disruption; this may exceed the body’s capacity to repair the damage and may also cause mutations in cells currently undergoing replication.
Longer term effects of the Chernobyl accident have also been studied. There is a clear link between the Chernobyl accident and the unusually large number, approximately 1,800, of thyroid cancers reported in contaminated areas, mostly in children. These were fatal in some cases. Other health effects of the Chernobyl accident are subject to current debate.