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...our first glimpse of the corium, perhaps.

@lillymunster At 7:53-7:54? looks like a hole?

@lillymunster , difficult to say. It could be reflections of the camera light source from a distant wet black surface.

All, the existence of an ex-vessel spray system (as we confirmed below) might by itself answer the question: How would there be water pooled in the dry well below the bottom of the RPV for dropping corium to strike and trigger an ex-vessel steam explosion?

@lillymunster, good point. Though it takes a few hours to freeze dry meat.

@Ian Regarding the radio-isotopes analysis, that is incorrect. Thorough scientific analysis of radioactive isotopes in soil, liquids, plants or animal tissue can take from weeks to several months. Detecting radioactivity is quick, but scientific isotope analysis is a hard and laborious work. Also, there are not that many facilities around the world with the right equipment to perform such analysis. There are only a few and I would guess, after the WHOI Fukushima Expedition, most of them have over a year worth of samples to process and analyse. They have to squeeze those seal tissue samples in between.

@Ian , as to the dry well sprayers, I cannot recall a single tepco entry that these were used.

Couple examples (soil from Japan) www.youtube.com (rain water from Virginia www.youtube.com

NHKWorld reports First video clip of reactor interior released
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has released a video clip taken inside the damaged No.2 reactor for the first time since the accident last year.

Tokyo Electric Power Company recorded 30 minutes of video by running an optical fiber scope, known as an endoscope, through a hole into the reactor's containment vessel Thursday.

The company released an edited version of the video lasting about one minute on Friday. The footage begins inside the aperture leading to the containment vessel, and as the endoscope reaches the interior, white dots caused by gamma rays immediately appear.

Walls and several pipes are also visible, although most of the images are blurry.

TEPCO says white lines seen in the clip are actually condensed vapor from contaminated water falling like rain.

One of the reasons for shooting the video was to determine the depth of water that has collected on the bottom of the vessel.

TEPCO says the water is less than 4 meters deep. The company was able to make this determination because a foothold located at that height is visible on the video.
Friday, January 20, 2012 13:23 +0900 (JST) www3.nhk.or.jp

@lillymunster , of course, and the way tepco phrases the message no water in the drywell is not excluded either.

@Pedro Jesus, one of those flunkies is a professional scientist who used the gamma-spec at her lab. You're just wrong here. It;s taking them time for some reason, but not because it takes weeks to get a measurement.