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Radiation

A particular type of UV light, shown here with a scintillator composed of plastics, could revolutionize the practices of flu prevention.

A cure for the flu? It could be as simple as sitting under a lamp.

Health

Researchers say that when they came across their most recent discovery to prevent the flu a light bulb went off — a UV light bulb.

Most Americans are never too far away from their cell phones. To date there have been no evidence of harmful radiation effects from the collective scientific community in spite of a recent report from California.

A California public health report suggests that cellphone exposure is bad for us — but the scientific community isn’t so sure

Lifestyle
Popcorn

We’ve been nuking our food for 50 years now — but how do microwaves even work?

Technology
Children play near a Geiger counter that monitors radiation at a kindergarten about 30 miles from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The government is increasingly pushing families displaced by the disaster to return to their home

Some of Japan’s ‘nuclear refugees’ can finally go home — but they don’t want to

Environment
A man walks between a fallow rice field at Miyakoji area in Tamura, Fukushima prefecture on April 1, 2014. The area was finally opened to residents three years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Riding the bus through Japan’s forbidden nuclear zone

Environment
These residents have been given temporary jobs maintaining public places.

Not everyone wants the clean-up in Fukushima to be over

Environment

It’s been three and a half years since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, and clean-up is still going. The area is still too dangerous for residents to return, but an army of decontamination employees has created its own small economy in the area, keeping a small number of businesses alive.

PBS NewsHour Science Correspondent Miles O'Brien

Science reporter Miles O’Brien on the Fukushima cleanup, irradiated fish and losing his arm on assignment

Environment

Three years after the tsunami-induced meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, PBS NewsHour correspondent Miles O’Brien talks about the continuing contamination crisis, and the accident that caused him to lose his arm.Three years after the tsunami-induced meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, PBS NewsHour correspondent Miles O’Brien talks about the continuing contamination crisis, and the accident that caused him to lose his arm.

Pete Knutson and his son Dylan sell local Pacific salmon at outdoor markets around the Seattle area. The sign on their stall at a recent market in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood reads, “In response to multiple customer inquiries regarding the Fukushima i

Worried about radioactive ‘Fukushima’ fish in the US? Don’t be, scientists say

Environment

Nearly three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, many consumers in the US remain concerned about radiation in fish from the Pacific Ocean. One Seattle fisherman finally got his fish tested, and found what many scientists have also found: there’s nothing to worry about.

Touring ghost towns left behind by Japan’s nuclear disaster

More than 100,000 people living within 12 miles of the Fukushima plant were ordered out — a journalist touring an abandoned town in the area describes what he found.

Searching for impossible silence

Business, Economics and Jobs

Noise permeates every aspect of modern life, especially city life. Is there anywhere a person can go for real silence?