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Robot finds likely melted nuclear fuel deposits inside Fukushima reactor

FOX News

TOKYO – Images captured by an underwater robot showed massive deposits believed to be melted nuclear fuel covering the floor of a damaged reactor at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. The robot found large amounts of solidified lava-like rocks and lumps in layers as thick as 3 feet on the bottom inside of a main structure called the pedestal that sits underneath the core inside the primary containment vessel of Fukushima's Unit 3 reactor, said the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. On Friday, the robot spotted suspected debris of melted fuel for the first time since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused multiple meltdowns and destroyed the plant. The three-day probe of Unit 3 ended Saturday. Locating and analyzing the fuel debris and damage in each of the plant's three wrecked reactors is crucial for decommissioning the plant. The search for melted fuel in the two other reactors has so far been unsuccessful because of damage and extremely high radiation levels.


Online Retail Boom Means More Warehouse Workers, And Robots To Accompany Them

NPR Technology

There's a good chance something you've bought online has been in the hands of a "picker" first. These are the workers in warehouses who pick, pack and ship all those things we're ordering. Experts say while the robots are replacing some human workers, the machines aren't quite ready to take over completely. To keep pace with a growing hunger for fast delivery, more pickers are being hired in the distribution industry. And on the outskirts of the Bay Area, a school is using technology to train students in these new jobs.


Robot finds 'monster' in Loch Ness _ but it's a movie prop

U.S. News

An underwater robot exploring Loch Ness has discovered a dark, monster-shaped mass in its depths. Disappointingly, tourism officials say the 30-foot (9-meter), object is not the fabled Loch Ness Monster, but a prop left over from a 1970 film. Billy Wilder's "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" puts the great detective on the trail of the monster -- which turns out to be a disguised submarine. A model of the submarine-monster sank during production to the bottom of the 750 foot (230 meter) -deep lake. Tourism body Visit Scotland is backing a survey of the Highlands lake by a marine robot to study its depths and see if there is any sign of the fabled monster, which helps attract hundreds of thousands of visitors a year to the region.

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