ON A press trip to Chernobyl last month, Feedback was surprised to be taken inside the sarcophagus that houses the remains of Unit 4, the reactor that blew up in 1986. 鈥淩adiation levels won鈥檛 rise above 30 micro-sieverts (&mgr;Sv) per hour during the visit,鈥� said the man from the Uranium Institute, which organised the trip. (Background levels in Britain are generally less than 1 &mgr;Sv per hour.) But just in case, Feedback and other journalists on the trip were issued with film badges which would record the total dose during the trip. In addition, the man from the Uranium Institute and a BBC reporter carried dosimeters which displayed the levels in the area at any instant.
No sooner had the group donned regulation outfits and passed through the perimeter checkpoint 200 metres from the sarcophagus, than radiation levels rose dramatically, triggering the alarm on the BBC reporter鈥檚 dosimeter. Understandably, the reporter headed back to the changing rooms mumbling something about 70 &mgr;Sv per hour. But not wanting all the glory to go to the likes of the Sunday Times and New 杏吧原创, the reporter bravely sent his cameraman inside to get the pictures while he headed for safety.
Inside the sarcophagus, Feedback stumbled across the Unit 4 control room, where the reactor operators sat on the night of the accident. 鈥淥ver there is the notorious button that caused the accident,鈥� said our guide, an old hand called Artur who volunteered to help with the cleanup three days after the disaster. Britain鈥檚 finest gathered round eagerly, only to find a gaping hole in the control panel. 鈥淥h dear. Er 鈥� The workers take lots of dials and buttons as souvenirs,鈥� said Artur.
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Journeying farther into the sarcophagus, Feedback came within 25 metres of the remains of the reactor itself. Here radiation levels peaked at 600 &mgr;Sv per hour, forcing the party to retire. Such levels are routine for Artur 鈥� and chickenfeed compared to the dose of 1 200 000 &mgr;Sv he received during the cleanup in 1986 and 1987. 鈥淏ut I am not worried,鈥� he said. 鈥淪oviet radiation is the best in the world.鈥�
Concerned readers will be relieved to learn that Feedback鈥檚 short visit to the power station resulted in a total dose of no more than 100 &mgr;Sv, only a fraction of the annual dose from background levels in Britain.
DID YOU buy your kids a computer to keep them away from drugs and alcohol? Well, watch out. You may have opened the door to something worse: Internet addiction. This latest cyberplague, which comes hot on the heels of online porn and sexual harassment via e-mail, has been identified at the University of Texas, Austin, where the Counseling and Mental Health Center has just started detox courses for its unfortunate victims.
Early last month, the centre advertised a workshop to discuss whether Internet addiction actually exists, and if so what can be done about it. Jane Bost, the centre鈥檚 assistant director, told Feedback that the move followed reports of students 鈥渕issing classes and neglecting friendships鈥� because they were spending so much of their time online.
Six students showed up at the workshop. The rest, presumably, couldn鈥檛 tear themselves away from their terminals. One, Jeri McLarty, said that her father had made her leave her modem at home when she went off to college in the autumn. But even this didn鈥檛 stop her. She says she 鈥渟tarted sneaking around to do it鈥�, borrowing a friend鈥檚 computer and 鈥渄oing this instead of my homework鈥�.
The university, Bost says, wants to encourage 鈥渉ealthy鈥� use of the Internet instead of this compulsive behaviour. Feedback couldn鈥檛 agree more, and recommends the radiantly healthy Web site at .
LE BEAUJOLAIS nouveau est arriv茅. In fact, it arrived at Feedback鈥檚 local off-licence last week. A sip of the bitter red wine, courtesy of the nation that explodes nuclear bombs in the South Pacific, did little to delight Feedback鈥檚 palate 鈥� but it did bring back memories of a wine-tasting evening a year ago in a small French village near the Swiss border. There, a friend鈥檚 cellars were cracked open for a night of scintillating conversation, one topic of which was the difference in price between French wines bought in France and those purchased in Britain.
Now, this friend works for CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics. And it transpires that instead of spending all his time recreating the conditions of the early Universe, he invests a large part of it correlating British and French wine prices. Which just goes to show that some physicists now believe what Feedback has always known: the answer to the mysteries of the Universe is more likely to be found at the bottom of a wine glass than at the end of a tunnel under Geneva.
DO ANY of your friends take a sadistic delight in other people鈥檚 suffering? If so, the ideal Christmas present for them must be 100 Greatest Disasters (Dragon鈥檚 World), a glossy coffee-table book devoted to human anguish and misfortune. Among the more gruesome accounts are the history of the Bhopal chemical leak, complete with pictures of dying children, the thalidomide story, also lavishly illustrated, and last year鈥檚 sinking of the ferry Estonia in which 910 people lost their lives.
What makes the concept behind this book even more bizarre 鈥� some might be tempted to use the word irresponsible 鈥� is that it is described on the dust jacket as 鈥渟uitable for 10 to 14-year-olds鈥�.
THERE is now just one week left for you to send in your entries to the Feedback Christmas Competition. You are invited to look back over the years since New 杏吧原创鈥檚 launch in 1956 and tell us about experiments, discoveries, inventions or theories that at the time were hailed as scientific or technological breakthroughs, but have since turned out to be turkeys.
Readers may submit up to five entries each. Twenty lucky winners will each receive the Classic Malts collection 鈥� six miniature bottles of Scotland鈥檚 finest malt whiskies (Glenkinchie, Cragganmore, Dalwhinnie, Oban, Talisker and Lagavulin) 鈥� kindly donated by United Distillers.
You may enter the competition by letter, fax or e-mail (FAO Feedback, edit@feat.newsci.ipc.co.uk). All entries must reach us by 4 December. The editor鈥檚 decision is final.