Fujifilm to the rescue!

May has turned out to be a much busier month than I ever imagined.  Not much playing going on here, and not much action going on this blog either, though I have been blogging up a storm with and for my students.
To break my recent dry spell in postings here, I have two items to report in the name of cleanup.

First, Fujifilm has been working hard since March to help people restore photos that were drowned and dirtied but not lost. In addition to spending hundreds of man hours cleaning up mud and seawater-damaged photos, the company has perfected a way that people can do the job themselves, without special equipment, and is teaching people in person and via their website how to do it (yes, I checked!).
     Fujifilm figures that on average, families in Japan take 200-300 photos a year, so photo memories tend to accumulate, even in these digital days. Restoration work needs to go quickly, since damaged photos will deteriorate rapidly when the temperature warms up.

Onsite volunteers cleaning up damaged photos

The second cleanup effort concerns removing radiation from the air and soil. It is known that sunflowers absorb radiation from the air. An experiment has begun to plant sunflowers in affected areas and observe how much radiation they actually collect. If the experiment proves worthwhile, we will be seeing a lot of sunflowers. 

Himawari power!

Removing radiation from topsoil is another project in progress. Here, researchers are experimenting with a liquid chemical combination that, when poured on affected soil, makes it hard like clay. This clay-like product should be full of radiation. If the method is successful, the next challenge will be how to discard the radiated result safely.