Twitter user @gakuranman put “the radiation levels at Fukushima into perspective” with this handy chart. Meanwhile, Dutch and Flemish broadcasters began leaving Japan due to the threat of radiation, and 50 workers in the Fukushima nuclear plant remained on site to attempt to avert disaster. To repeat–that is 50 workers.

Overwhelmed shelters are housing 550,000 people along Japan’s east coast after the earthquake and tsunami killed at least 10,000 people. Kyodo news agency reports that authorities have lost contact with a further 30,000 citizens.

If you are searching for someone in Japan, you can go here and enter their details. Google is tracking about 162,000 people through this service. Google also has a crisis response page with shelter locations, message boards and times of expected power blackouts. For a livestream of Japanese television, go here.

Scientific American has an excellent nuclear primer.

In 1965, the Cold War was running very hot, and in an effort to spy on the Chinese, the CIA mounted an expedition to Nanda Devi, a mountain in northern India, to place a listening device. Unfortunately, bad weather forced the team off the mountain, abandoning the device in the process. It proceeded to sink into the surrounding glacier, and is still there today. Worse, it’s powered by plutonium, which may or may not be slowly seeping into a rather important river: the Ganges.

Recently, we caught up with Pete Takeda, author of An Eye at the Top of the World about the botched CIA plan. Watch the first part in a three-part interview.