A few years after the United States unleashed the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union tested their first nuclear warhead ever. They appropriately called it “First Lightning”, the opening of a series of 456 atomic tests that brought hell to Earth 60 years ago. For all of us, that summons terrifying but beautiful images like this into our brains:

Sadly, to more than one million innocent people living near the Semipalatinsk Polygon — the Soviet nuclear testing site in the northeast of Kazakhstan — it means this:

For three generations, and more to come, those tests mean deformed babies. They mean premature aging and countless diseases caused by radiation poisoning. The bombs’ ghosts still live in the dead steppe, their invisible fangs ready to suck seven years off the life of every person living around that place. That’s the difference in life-expectancy with the rest of Kazakhstan.

Of course, it’s not the only horror inflicted by weapons in the Soviet Union — or in the rest of the world. I recently read all about them in a fascinating book by Ryszard Kapuściński, one of the best journalists and writers of our time. The book, called Imperium, talks about the Soviet Union through a series of adventures and trips that reach all the corners of the Red Empire. The mosaic is a frightening view of the deadliest, most insensitive killing machine that has ever existed, all through the eyes of the people who suffered it. Not even Hitler matched the horrors of Stalin and his cohorts.

But while Kapuściński’s raw prose have moved me to tears many times, these images by Ed Ou are a perfect summary of the horrors inflicted upon hundreds of millions that Kapuściński describes in his book.

However, as I watch through glassy eyes how Mayra Zhumageldina massages her daughter Zhannoor, or how 29-year-old Berik Syzdykov sings and plays piano despite being deformed and blind after being exposed to a nuclear blast while he was inside his mum’s womb, I try to smile a bit. I try to be a bit optimistic because, no matter how monstrous some men and women can be, the human spirit always seems to find a way to survive. [Adventures With Light and Getty Images via Big Picture]

To be able to instantly detect contraband like this would be a game-changer in Iraq, where the (effectively) free transit of roadside bombs and IEDs is a constant threat, so the Iraqi government is willing to pay a premium for devices that promise as much — they’ve already bought 1500 of the detectors at a price of $US16,500 to $US60,000 each. Despite the steep price and fierce user loyalty though, US government officials say the devices don’t work at all:

Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security centre at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of defence, said the centre had “tested several devices in this category, and none have ever performed better than random chance.”

Capital “S” Sceptical organisations like the James Randi Educational Foundation have joined the cause too, flagging the ADE 651’s manufacturer’s claims that the device works with spooky-sounding “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction” and offering a (rhetorical) bounty to anyone who can prove they actually work.

ATSC, the company that manufactures the device out of the UK, wouldn’t even talk to the New York Times, cementing an already obvious conclusion: This is a case of a bogus company taking advantage of credulous, vulnerable consumers by selling a device that seems like it works by virtue of being many users’ only means of bomb detection, meaning that they never notice when it doesn’t work — it’s just another car passing through a checkpoint; who knows if the bombing later that afternoon had anything to do with it!— and always notice when it does, even if by pure chance.

You may have failed miserably at designing a universal contraband detector, ATSC, but hey, at least your scam was well engineered. [NYT]

As many IEDs are set off using a wireless signal, these drones will be able to survey areas for the electromagnetic emissions associated with receivers and provide an early warning to soldiers. No matter how silly the codename, this is one important project and I hope that it gets put into use as soon as possible. [Aviation Week via Pop Sci]

Now, the FAA says the airlines need approval from the FAA’s hazardous materials division, and has asked them not to store spare lithium ion batteries for the readers on planes. A few airlines went through some special training to get the OK, but at least Delta and JetBlue don’t carry spares or charge the readers on board at all.

The current rate for gadgets exploding on planes is about one every four months, says a former NTSB dude. Which isn’t so bad, considering there are millions of flights happening in that time period. Still, I have the feeling this xkcd comic is going to stay funny for the reasons it’s funny now for like another year, max. [NYT]

The $US250 kit description says:

Detects radiation and significantly removes radioactive material from human skin and other surfaces after a dirty bomb attack or other radiological events.

It includes:

• Our proprietary and patent-pending Quick Decon Mass Effect™ solutions for Radiation Decontamination. These water-based liquids come in convenient-to-use color-coded 32 oz. bottles with accompanying trigger sprayers (2). Our solutions are made from cosmetic-grade, FDA-approved materials and are not radioactive before use.
• One quart (32 fl oz.) for Transition metals such as Cobalt, Cesium, Strontium and Thallium. See chart for all radioactive elements.
• One quart (32 fl oz.) for Actinides such as Uranium, Plutonium, Technetium and Radium. See chart for all radioactive elements.
• 2 RADTriage™ Personal Radiation Detectors
# Decontamination Rad-wipes (45 per package)
• Vinyl gloves for use during decontamination process (4 pairs)
• Rad-Waste Bags (2)
• Radioactive Material Caution Labels (2) for use with Rad-Waste Bags
• Radiacwash Towelettes (6)
• N95 Particulate Face Masks (4)
• Instructions for Use
• Instructions in PDF format
• Downloadable Material Safety Data Sheets
• MSDS for Transition Metals Solution
• MSDS for Actinide Solution
• Chart of Problematic Radioactive Elements showing Actinides and Transition Metals
• A convenient and sturdy yellow hard-plastic carrying case easily identifiable as the Dirty Bomb Emergency Kit™ by its yellow and purple label

After reading all that, somehow I have the feeling that I won’t need one of these in the case any dirty bomb explodes near me. I would just run around like a headless chicken, waiting for the people in the rad suits to arrive and get me into a bag. [Nukepills via Defense Tech]

That includes every single nuclear weapon, every one of the Russian Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles in ground silos, nuclear submarines and heavy bombers around the world. Scary stuff indeed.

But fear not, fellow humans, because the Dead Hand system is not completely automatic. The actual red button is apparently activated by a soldier hidden in some underground bunker.

Yes, I feel so much safer now. [gradremstroy—in Russian via DRB]

The point of the system, he explains, was to guarantee an automatic Soviet response to an American nuclear strike. Even if the US crippled the USSR with a surprise attack, the Soviets could still hit back. It wouldn’t matter if the US blew up the Kremlin, took out the defence ministry, severed the communications network, and killed everyone with stars on their shoulders. Ground-based sensors would detect that a devastating blow had been struck and a counterattack would be launched.

The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, or Dead Hand. It was built 25 years ago and remained a closely guarded secret.

The scary thing is that Perimeter still works today. At least according to Valery Yarynich, a former Soviet colonel now 72 years old. Yarynich should know, though: He worked 30 years at the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and Soviet General Staff helping to build it.

US Officials won’t even like to mention it, but with the Cold War over and Russia being more or less a friend, why risk having such a system in place? I really don’t like the idea of something going wrong in a rusty 25-year-old piece of Soviet-era technology.

Not when it can automatically launch a nuclear attack capable of taking out Humanity out of the map. [Wired]

It’s an anti-explosive container, placed in a subway station in Beijing. As China prepares for its 60th Anniversary—proclaimed on October 1, 1949—authorities are tightening security against terrorist attacks even more. Because we all know that terrorists leave packages marked as “bomb” ready to be put into a bomb trashcan. [Boston]

As a statement against war, these Peaceful Bomb Vases were created to hold flowers instead of violence. As someone with an irrational fear for potted plants, it makes me want to hide. [LikeCool via geekologie]

That’s exactly what happened to Tsutomu Yamaguchi back in 1945. He was on a business trip in Hiroshima, where he suffered serious burns to his upper body after the US dropped a nuke on the city. He spent the night in the city then returned home to Nagasaki, just in time for the second bomb to drop.

He had previously been certified as a survivor of Nagasaki, but it’s just recently that he’s been certified as a survivor of both bombs. Of course, if the bombs were that bad, he wouldn’t still be alive 64 years later. What’s so bad about nukes, anyways? [AP]