Fukushima
The accident is very stable and now the news has shifted to the radioactivity has escaped, and probably still leaking. If the nuclear plant operation is complex to explain in a couple of minutes, the basic concepts of radioactivity are impossible. But this is the time to care which will grant you the media and their audiences.
The radioactivity is measured is a units that are rare, and this makes them tend to avoid the precise values \u200b\u200band in turn relate in proportion to a given reference "normal", "the legal limit "or something like that (see headlines 1 , 2 or 3 ). Since the biological effects of low doses of radioactivity are very rare and can only be established statistically, the information conveyed by these headlines it is terribly misleading.
If we consider small or moderate exposure to radioactivity (after I put numbers to these adjectives) which produces radioactivity is an increased likelihood of developing cancer in the future, a future of about 8 or 10 years for leukemia and 20 for other tumors. So how much is that likely? Calculation is difficult, since not much data available there is no choice but to extrapolate results from higher doses (from Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl in particular). But it's even harder to get a correct perception of the calculated data.
Bridging the gap is the same with the snuff. Smoking increases the chance of getting cancer, especially lung, but not exclusively. Perhaps the daily contact with the snuff counterintuitive allows us to analyze the effects of very small probabilities. Does smoking 6 cigarettes a day doubles the chances of getting cancer from smoking about 3? Would almost certainly say no, chances are the same and very small in both cases, indistinguishable from the likelihood of cancer but not smoking anything at all. On the other hand smoking 4 packs a day if we would think that increases the risk of cancer far more than smoking a pack ... well, that's assuming that they may be sustained for some time, several years at least. Does smoking a pack a day for 10 years doubles the likelihood of cancer who smoked a pack for 5 years? probably not. We understand that the risks (increased likelihood of getting cancer) associated with these events are very very small, and that in these ranges can not be applied directly arithmetic (double time or double the dose does not double the risk).
Still, smoking is prohibited by law in many places (most recently in all enclosed public places), it is forbidden to sell snuff to minors, restrictions on the advertising of snuff, etc. The authorities try to minimize risks population, even though these very small now.
The same goes for radioactivity. We live in an environment with a constant background level of a given value, generally small and variable from place to place. "Doubling the dose doubled the risk of getting cancer? Probably not even multiply by 100 (see this exciting display dose and the phenomena that cause them). This does not mean you have to go around playing with radioactive material as the "boy plutonium, but not be alarmed because the sea water near the plant" if it exceeds 300 times the legal limit "or because were to be found Pamplona radioactivity from Fukushima "increasing by 50% the background level." The latter has not happened yet, but would not rule in the coming weeks.