worksinprogress.co

Drinking a beer a night for a year is a lot less harmful than drinking 365 at once. Radiation is similar, as long-term studies of those living near Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima suggest (along with a bunch of other interesting scenarios where people have inadvertently been exposed to radiation for a long time)

Japan’s vast railway network is divided between dozens of companies, nearly all of them private. The largest of these, JR East, carries more passengers than the entire railway system of every country other than China and India. Each year, JR East carries four times as many passengers as the whole British railway system, even though it has fewer kilometers of track, serves about ten million fewer people, and competes with eight other companies. Japan’s railway system turns a large operating profit and receives far less public subsidy than European and American railways.

Olivine is a green mineral that reacts with CO2 in the ocean to form a harmless silt. This reaction might be the key to slowing down climate change, or reversing it altogether.