Top ten picks

For obvious reasons, this week’s picks will take a slightly different format. First up is a list of my favourite coverage of the Japanese crisis, followed by five other top picks.

Explainers

Maggie Koerth-Baker wrote the best “explainer”, heads and shoulders above the rest in terms of clarity. Is everything you know about nuclear power plants out of the Simpsons? Start here.
Other good explainers: John Timmer at Ars Technica, The Economist, and an excellent, unique video explainer from the Guardian, featuring Ian Sample looking over at the week’s events.
Andrew Maynard was one of the first with a good guide on the health effects of radiation. Also have a look at this Knight Tracker post for links to other good (and very bad) explainers on how radiation is measured and what it does to you.
Chris Rowan wrote a great explainer about the earthquake and tsunami at Scientific American
Cristine Russell compares the Fukushima situation to Three Mile Island, which she reported on, and suggests some good sources

Reporting

Geoff Brumfiel and David Cyranoski absolutely killed with their reporting over at Nature. Their landing page on the situation would probably be my first port of call ...