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The memoir displays Dunthorne’s gift for wry understatement and his doggedness as a researcher: he dug through archives, toted around a Geiger counter and even cooked food that his great-grandfather once consumed.

With Geiger counters in hand to measure local levels of radiation and personal protective gear to guard against radioactive dust, they gathered worms from samples of soil, rotting fruit, and other organic material.

Prosecutors also say he sent photographs showing "a dark rocky material" with a Geiger counter, which is used to measure levels of radiation.

But surrounding the site are reminders of the biggest challenge Japan faces in realizing those ambitions: abandoned buildings, empty lots, roadside Geiger counters — the grim aftermath of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

For particularly radiation-sensitive steel applications, such as Geiger counter consoles, that fallout poses an obvious problem: it won’t do for a Geiger counter to flag itself.