DisasterJapan: Technics: American robots examine nuke plant's innards

Nasdaq (Apr17,2k11)

refWrite editorial comment:  The news story introduced below vaguely moves in a counter-direction to the news we hear from Japan since the earthquake, tsunami, flood, and nuclear near-meltdown.  Just in the last few days, another quake hit the Honshu area in Japan.  In the midst of all the disaster news and the rehabilitation efforts of the Japanese people, govt, outside help and support from many nations and organizations, and the work of Christian aid organizations and those of other religions including Buddhists (Japan's majority religion), this infobit regarding the deployment of very advanced robotry creates a precedent for future h+tech solutions.  As in the case of war technology, such developmental deployments will have applications outside the "realm" of nuclear radiation, and also outside the "realm" of natural disaster.  We can't predict where, as the deployment of the iRobot-made technical apparatus utilizes an innovation on a scale for a purpose that simultaneously tests it and in the very utilization/testing stretches the innovation process.

Robotry is being used to do a marvellous thing, and offers promise of further applications to other kinds of problems (God forbid, we shoud have to use it again for runaway nuke radiation).  "Mixed and uneven development" where a good emerges from a horrible vast bad.  The robotry itself can be used for good, but it can also be used for extremely negative purposes; we need to keep reminding ourselves of this mixed actuality.

-- EconoMix

US-made Robots to examine 

inside of Japan nuclear plant

TOKYO (Dow Jones) A U.S.-made robot built for bomb disposal were set to make its way into a reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Sunday to find out whether conditions were safe enough for workers to begin badly needed measures to put the crippled plant under control.

The "Packbot", made by U.S. firm iRobot Corp, will measure radiation and oxygen levels as well as the temperature inside the building, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company  said.

Read the complete article at the Nasdaq webpage, click here.