newsthink 1 April 2011: What links the photos? redcross.org.uk/newsthink

1. The cartoon character, Homer Simpson, works in a nuclear power plant. A long-standing joke is that he is careless in his work as an inspector and often sleeps on the job. After the Japan earthquake and tsunami threatened leakages from nuclear reactors, this was not so very funny any more. Some countries checked episodes due for broadcast and withdrew any that seemed in bad taste in view of the widespread suffering caused by the disaster. 4. A woman undergoes a screening test for signs of nuclear radiation by a doctor at a health centre in Yonezawa. Radiation detectors, often called geiger counters after one of the developers, Hans Geiger, can detect various forms of ionising radiation, depending on their cost and sophistication. 3. Workers at the Tokyo Electric Power Company attempt to repair power lines at the Fukushima number 1 nuclear plant. In the aftermath of the damaged power plant an urgent task was to re-establish electrical power – which is vital to cool the nuclear fuel rods. Levels of radiation were potentially dangerous to health, which meant workers wearing protective clothing and being exposed for short periods only. 2. Strong iodine solution. The US has seen a rush on potassium iodide tablets and strong iodine solution following fears of radiation contamination. In Japan thousands of units of stable iodine were distributed to evacuation centres to help protect against radioactive iodine-131, which can be released following nuclear incidents and which is potentially harmful to health. What links the photos? Nuclear radiation

How alert do TV schedulers have to be to events? Find other examples of programmes withdrawn because a news event makes a joke no longer funny or a storyline no longer appropriate. Imagine you were talking to someone who had been screened and recorded a high level of ionising radiation. What would you say to them? Write down sentences and lines of thought. Which would be most helpful? Which least? Write a message to send to power workers, firefighters and other emergency crews who have put their own health at risk to reduce the dangers to others. Find out exactly how stable iodine can help prevent radioactive iodine damaging the body's thyroid gland. Try this explanation: and summarise it in your own words. Activities

Photo credits Photo 1 © TM & copyright 20th Century Fox/Rex Features Photo 2© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Photo 3© REUTERS/Tokyo Electric Power Company via Kyodo/Handout courtesy of alertnet.org Photo 4© REUTERS/Kim Kyung Hoon courtesy of alertnet.org Important legal note The photographs supplied with this quiz are fully protected by copyright. A licence for educational use for each photograph has been acquired by the education unit of the British Red Cross. This allows schools and other educational organisations to use them freely, without payment, as part of the quiz package. The licence does not extend beyond this use. This means that anyone wishing to put the images on a website, crop or edit them, or use them in any other way than for the quiz, must first contact the copyright holder and negotiate a licence for the use they require. Picture agencies take violation of licences very seriously. Some charge punitive damages for unauthorised use of copyright photographs – in some cases up to five times the standard licence fee. If you are unsure whether your proposed use is acceptable, please contact the copyright holder. The British Red Cross will be unable to assist anyone who violates the terms of the licence.