Related to Fukushima ...

James at Class:M has an important post on the perception and cost of Nuclear Energy: What Fukushima doesn't change

PalMD at The White Coat Underground has an important rant about iodine, which is much in the news these days for obvious reasons: Saturday Evening Rant, Iodine Edition

More like this

Normally, iodine just makes one bond, as you'd expect from a halogen. Some compounds, though, force it into lively higher oxidation states (hopefully without the tendency to explode, as some highly oxidized iodine reagents worryingly exhibit).
Potassium iodide isn't much of a structure: It's a source of iodide. Thyroid hormones contain iodine; the source of this is dietary iodide.