CORRECTION: The research this blog is based on has been
questioned and Nature (our source) has retracted its article
pending further study. The original report detailed the
detection of a radioactive isotope in the region surrounding
North Korea on Feb. 15 days after the nation claimed to have
tested its third and most powerful nuclear weapon. The
radioactive signature — that normally poses no health risk — was
reported to have been measured in Japan and Russia. This
wouldn’t have been without precedent — the 2006 N. Korea test
yielded a radioactive signature, whereas the 2009 test did not.
The North Korean regime claimed it had carried out a nuclear
test on Feb. 12 and global seismometers confirmed this to be the
case. From those measurements, scientists were able to deduce
that the weapon detonated was in the several kiloton range — a
similar yield to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 by the
U.S. The original radiation study, carried out by scientists of
the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodyna