The Japanese government now says that levels of radioactive contamination beyond the legal health limits have been found in tap water in a town nearly 30-miles (46-kilometers) northwest of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

FORBES: Radiation Found in Food and Water in Japan [Updated]

As the analogy goes, a viral media process unfolds like an episode of 24: unscrupulous characters gleefully break a vial into the water main, a few unsuspecting citizens drink from the tap, sneeze onto their colleagues, and soon the entire town has gone crazy.

FORBES: The Spreadable War on Viral Media

The pipeline's opening ceremony took place in the Geman town of Lubmin, where heads of state involved in the project opened a tap to release the first of the gas into the European grid.

BBC: Nord Stream gas pipeline opened by Merkel and Medvedev