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The Cold War's Legacy of Mutation

Posted by michael on from the third-eye-blind dept.

fm6 writes: "Not surprising, but still pretty sobering: Russian communities downwind from cold-war-era surface testing sites are experiencing 50% increase in mutation rates. I'm reminded of Terry Tempest William's term: Virtual Uninhabitants."

32 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. So much for... by Lars+T. · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is Evolution Over In Humans?

    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    1. Re:So much for... by Stone+Rhino · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Evolution !=mutation.
      Mutation means the random changes that allow creatures to evolve, though that's not all these changes do. They also cause cancer and the like, and are the reason that radiation exposure leads to cancer.
      Evolution involves more than just these random changes, however. It also involves the recombination of these through sexual reproduction, and the survival of the best of them through natural selection. Therefore, the fact that mutation still is present does not mean that evolution will occur.

      --


      Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
    2. Re:So much for... by Mr.Intel · · Score: 1

      Whoa there... Lets not crack open that whole evolution can of worms so soon. I don't know if ./ can take another deluge of posts on this subject again. Besides, not everyone even agrees that evolution ever happened.

      --
      ASCII tastes bad dude.
      Binary it is then.
    3. Re:So much for... by Zara2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Evolution !=mutation. Sorry man, more mutations usually does indicate an increase in the speed of evolutionary change. IF mutations and random change of some sort is happening a certian small percentage of those mutations will be more (or less) useful for furthered survival of that organisms genes. The more mutation that occurs means that there is a better chance of a "good" mutation happening. Especially considering how rare a "good" mutation is. While most mutations will be bad an increace in mutations usually means an increace in ALL mutations, useful and detrimental. The really detrimental ones die off without passing on thier genes. Most traits and mutations dont ultimately matter and may or may not be passed on depending on other traits that organism has. (A non-useful mutation of a third nipple doesn't stop Marky-mark from getting laid.) And that one in a million benificial mutation that can also be passed on is evolution.

      --

      Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!

    4. Re:So much for... by (void*) · · Score: 2

      Mutation is the core ingredient of evolution. You would have a hard time arguing that allele frequencies have not changed, given excessive mutattions.

  2. Did this... by Stone+Rhino · · Score: 2

    Make anyone else think of the X-Men? Mention of mutation always brings that to mind. [X-men theme plays in head]

    --


    Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
  3. Coming soon to a mailbox near you.. by hkon · · Score: 2, Funny

    I imagine the spam "Now you can get a 50% increased chance of having the super powers you always wanted!!!". Coming to you from the same people who brought you "Want to be a SPY!?" and "Spank me HARD, make me wet"
    (titles taken from actual spam-messages I've gotten during the last couple of months)

    1. Re:Coming soon to a mailbox near you.. by Not2Bryt64 · · Score: 1

      (also off topic)

      Who wants a man with bigger breasts?

      Sorry.

      --
      -These aren't my pants.
  4. Happened right here, too. by Deagol · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I don't know about mutations and such, but a few of the Southwest states had down-wind surprises delivered by the Nevada test sites.

    We just bought some rural property in southern Utah. My wife was searching for plant zone information for our area and happened across a link discussing the sterility and cancer rates of people in Cedar City and Parowan. I can't find that link, but a quick search turned up several relavent sites:

    http://www.downwinders.org

    http://www.eq.state.ut.us/EQRAD/fallout.htm

    --
    Method of processing duck feet
  5. Don't forget the US by Hard_Code · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.nuclearfiles.org/maps/

    http://rex.nci.nih.gov/massmedia/Fallout/content s. html

    --

    It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
  6. No X-Men. Sorry. by fm6 · · Score: 2

    You do know that was just a movie? Most mutations are quite unphotogenic.

    1. Re:No X-Men. Sorry. by Stone+Rhino · · Score: 2

      umm... k. X-men was not "just a movie." It was a movie, several series of comic books, a few animated series, and of course numerous computer games and other paraphenelia. So X-men is not "just a movie." Though I take it that your point is that not all mutations are like X-men.

      --


      Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
  7. How do you count mutations? by SIGFPE · · Score: 2

    A mutation in an intron isn't going to do much? Or ar they talking about people with extra fingers?

    --
    -- SIGFPE
  8. US & Nukes by Mr.Ned · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    It's too bad everyone thinks nuclear power is the way of the future, if only we can contain the wastes. Never mind that, even when subsidized, it's still the most expensive way to boil water.

    What worries me is situations like this in the future. This is just (!) after some atmospheric testing. In 10-30 years, when all the US nuclear reactors go offline, all the fuel rods and other radioactive waste (I'm not sure, but I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable if I knew that I was drinking water formerly used as steam heated by uranium) have to be dealt with. Right now, as a previous slashdot story has noted, the US will be dumping its nuclear wastes in an earthquake-prone area likely to contaminate the water table in the area of Las Vegas. Even a small amount of radioactivity, as seen in this story, can cause mutation, to say nothing of the level of contamination during that Japanese disaster a decade or three back. Think about what happens when a large US city is exposed to bunches of radiation. It suddenly becomes not far off on another continent, but in our own back yard too late to do anything about it.

    Write your congressman about Yucca Mountain. Hope that state's rights prevail and the governor of Nevada can nix the project. It's our future. This isn't something like the DMCA or the SSSCA - this is nuclear waste in our back yard.

    1. Re:US & Nukes by Mr.Ned · · Score: 1

      >
      Let me spell it out for you: Not approving Yucca mountain doesn't cause that waste to disappear. Instead it's kept in big swimming pool like storage tanks close to populaton centers.
      >

      I agree, that's a big problem. The US spends millions a year trying to contain wastes in temporary storage facilities. But putting it in Yucca Mountain doesn't keep nuclear swimming pools away from population centers; instead, it creates what amounts to a giant nuclear lake just a little ways away from one major population center.

      >
      So approving Yucca mountain is probably the safest thing to do. Even the greenies know that.
      >

      That would be incorrect. It's no safer than the current alternative of temporary storage, but when (not if) the waste gets loose, it only affects Nevada.

      >
      So why are the greenies still raising a stink ? Because they have to make sure that Yucca mountain is so expensive, politically as well as financially, that no new nuclear power plants are built. (That's their goal, whether or not it is smart is a separate issue.)
      >

      No new nuclear power plants have been commissioned since 1979. All orders for nuclear power plants since 1973 have been cancelled. You're ill informed.

      >
      So the Greenies are yapping and suing but they know they don't want to win. They just want to make sure that the conservatives don't get the idea that now that we have Yucca mountain, they can start putting nuclear power plants in every county.
      >

      Not everyone who is concerned about Yucca Mountain is a greenie. The greenies are not some sort of worldwide secret organization.

      Countries around the world are halting the use of nuclear power. France, who gets most of its power from nukes, has cancelled all new projects. The Scandanavian countries, also heavy users, are scaling back as well. The only country that isn't is China, but equating them with being worried about their populance doesn't have any real precedent.

      >
      There is no reason why you can't on one hand have the position that current waste should be stored in Yucca, but no new plants should be built to make more waste. Which is probably what will happen as a result of the political balencing act.
      >

      Balancing act? Again, there haven't been any new power plants in most 20-something's lifetimes. You don't seem to be old enough to remember Three Mile Island. Or old enough to read the above article.

      There are several better ways of going about this - I won't go into detail, but they are: shoot it into the sun (bad idea), put it under the ice caps (bad idea), store it in the Pacific muck (good idea), put it in a subduction zone (no one knows if it's a good idea), or store it under the water table of a large city (bad idea) - oh, wait, that last one is already being done.

    2. Re:US & Nukes by Komodo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Just as a matter of note, the water used to cool (American, commercial) reactors does not mix with the water used to moderate the reaction... eg, the water in the cooling towers never passed through the reactor vessel and is not radioactive, did not absorb neutrons, or anything like that.

      The water used in the reactor vessel passes through a heat exchanger and transfers the heat to another cooling system, and that's what ends up in the cooling towers. You'll never touch 'steam heated by uranium', it's 'steam heated by other steam'.

      Not all reactor designs are so safe. Be glad you live in the US. In former Soviet states, some reactors use liquid sodium as a moderator (at least, they use it in nuclear subs). I don't know all that much about power plants, but I've been told that this is very scary when it breaks.

      So forget the radiation, a more immediate effect than radiation is 'thermal pollution' - eg all that heat has to go somewhere, and in coastal areas, putting it back in the ocean basically kills the ecosystem deader than the radiation ever could.

      Hazards of an industrial civilization... but most of us would be dead already without it.

    3. Re:US & Nukes by z)bandito(_X · · Score: 1

      putting it in a subduction zone sounds interesting, do you have more information on this?

      of course, a boat accident would probably be worse than Yucaa mountain being damaged, considering how the ocean currents could really distribute the waste.

      --
      full length albums complete with print resolution artwork -- earth2willi.com
    4. Re:US & Nukes by RFC959 · · Score: 2
      ...even when subsidized, it's still the most expensive way to boil water.
      That could well be because there isn't anything like the investment in nuclear infrastructure that there is in most other energy sources. For example, camel dung is used as a fuel by lots of people around the world, but I'll bet you $50 boiling water with camel dung in New York City would be significantly more expensive than using any more common power source, simply because there isn't a large market for it, or a distribution system in place.
      Even a small amount of radioactivity, as seen in this story...
      The story didn't say how much radioactivity there was. Your prejudices are showing.
    5. Re:US & Nukes by leucadiadude · · Score: 2

      "I agree, that's a big problem. The US spends millions a year trying to contain wastes in temporary storage facilities. But putting it in Yucca Mountain doesn't keep nuclear swimming pools away from population centers; instead, it creates what amounts to a giant nuclear lake just a little ways away from one major population center."

      You left out that it's actually 95 miles away, under 1000+ feet of rock, stored inside some of the toughest corrosion resistant metal containers known to our science, those containers inside thick (I mean meters thick) concrete vaults.


      "That would be incorrect. It's no safer than the current alternative of temporary storage, but when (not if) the waste gets loose, it only affects Nevada."


      May not be safer (it seems much safer to me), but what is harder to watch and keep secure, 50+ sites or 1 site?


      "No new nuclear power plants have been commissioned since 1979. All orders for nuclear power plants since 1973 have been cancelled. You're ill informed."


      See my previous post in this thread, you are the ill informed person here, so much so that you lose quite a bit a credibility, since the facts are so easily checked.


      "Countries around the world are halting the use of nuclear power. France, who gets most of its power from nukes, has cancelled all new projects."


      Because they are quite happy with the reserve margins they currently have in their generation, not from some irrational fear of nuclear waste.


      "There are several better ways of going about this - I won't go into detail, but they are: shoot it into the sun (bad idea), put it under the ice caps (bad idea), store it in the Pacific muck (good idea), put it in a subduction zone (no one knows if it's a good idea), or store it under the water table of a large city (bad idea) - oh, wait, that last one is already being done."


      Yeah, all of these methods of final disposal can be accomplished even if Yucca mountain is filled. Yucca mountain is a storage site fer cripes sake! This stuff isn't going to be "dumped" off the back of a truck and buried. By the very nature of the design of these cannisters, they can be moved again at a later date if a more safe storage idea is agreed upon. Also, you left out our best (from an engineering point of view - never the one chosen of course) and that is MOX fuel reburning and reprocessing fuel. But that is a whole different argument.

    6. Re:US & Nukes by leucadiadude · · Score: 2

      "So forget the radiation, a more immediate effect than radiation is 'thermal pollution' - eg all that heat has to go somewhere, and in coastal areas, putting it back in the ocean basically kills the ecosystem deader than the radiation ever could."

      Well I know of at least two studies that lasted over a decade and they both show mixed effects to thermal pollution. I.e., some species populations exploded in the 15 - 25F warmer area near the plant outfall pipes, and some species populations fell. As to the effects on marine plants, the noise level in the data was too high to really conclude anything at all (the variations observed were within the parameters of natural variations in plant growth).

      There is a definite effect, but is the effect of sufficient widespread damage to warrant shutdowns? I don't think so.

    7. Re:US & Nukes by Mr.Ned · · Score: 1

      I don't know much about the alternatives, just that there are ones.

      As I understand, subduction zone dumping goes like this: an area is picked around a subduction zone (like the coast of California, if I remember my geography correctly - not the transform fault). The waste would be buried/dropped as close as humanly (or robotically) possible. Hopefully in a short period of time (this could be a long period of time, don't know exactly how long), they'll be subducted, melted, etc.

      The major problem is with volcanoes. If those long half-life isotopes stick around for the next Mt. St. Helens, a lot of people won't be happy. No one really knows if this could happen or not. Certainly not me.

    8. Re:US & Nukes by Komodo · · Score: 1

      I don't think we should be shutting any plants down, either. All I'm saying is, let's not react first to the threat of 'radiation' because it's a big scary word. The bottom line is that everyone wants the benefits of cheap energy but nobody wants the waste products in their own back yard, and it's not as simple as 'Where do we put the fuel rods?'

  9. I stand corrected! by fm6 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Right, it was just a comic book with lots of fancy spin offs and tie ins. Obviously a comic book is far superior to a movie as a touch point for life and death issues like this one! After all, a comic book is literature!

  10. Our precious bodily fluids by Caractacus+Potts · · Score: 1


    "Mr. President, we must not allow a mutation gap!"

    Sorry, anything concerning the cold war makes me think of Dr. Strangelove!

  11. Re:Yet you feel free to use electricity by Mr.Ned · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nukes are more expensive than just about any fuels.

    Right now, world-wide, nukes and solar cost $.10-.20 per KWH. Solar is so expensive because there just hasn't been enough research into it. Nukes are expensive because, again, using subatomic particles to heat water is really quite inefficient. Coal is about $.08-.09 per KWH. It's in pretty good supply, and will last beyond my lifetime.

    However, hydro power is only $.03-.05 per KWH. That's cheap. And it's renewable. Wind is also about $.05 per KWH. Geothermal is $.10 per KWH. Those are cheap! However, the US government is not putting any money into these projects, as they suggest a distributed micropower solution instead of the current centralized macropower gig - that won't sit well with the commercial energy industry.

    Also, you say 'right now' in your post - it's right now and looking like forever. There haven't been any new nuke plants commissioned since 1979. All orders after 1973 have been cancelled. Nuclear power is on its way out as a consumer power supply.

  12. Cedar City! by wiredog · · Score: 2

    I lived there from 89 to 2000! Graduated from Southern Utah University in 1993. The local paper sucks. Read the Trib instead.

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
  13. Delitted by fm6 · · Score: 2

    Hey, I'm a fan of Alita and Sexylosers.com myself. I consider the whole literature-versus-junk thing pretty bogus. It's just that mass-market fantasies about radiation turning teenagers into superheroes is not the first thing that comes to mind when I read about A-bomb survivors in Siberia and Utah.

  14. Radioactive Water by Chibi+Merrow · · Score: 1

    I can't remember the exact number, but your average beer has something like 10-100 times the radiation than that of nuclear plant water. And yet people have no problem drinking beer...
    Talk to a Nuclear Physicist sometime, we live bathed in radiation our entire lives. All joking aside, we all glow in the dark on some wavelength. =P

    --
    Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
    Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
  15. Delitted by fm6 · · Score: 2

    Hey--, I'm a fan of Alita and Sexylosers.com myself. I consider the whole literature-versus-junk thing pretty bogus. It's just that mass-market fantasies about radiation turning teenagers into superheroes is not the first thing that comes to mind when I read about A-bomb survivors in Siberia and Utah.

  16. Semipalatinsk by ^_^x · · Score: 1

    Interesting that they called it a "nuclear testing facility." Semipalatinsk was an inhabited area. There were also belowground tests according to accounts of people who lived there. (Detonations in abandoned mines.) Basically it was an area used to test the effects of extreme doses of radiation on an average community.

    Having seen the environment there, I'm surprised that there's still life there in any form. It's a fairly barren-looking area, and at certain places (such as the lake,) Geiger counters essentially let out a steady buzz even all these years later. There is also a lab filled with stillborn, mutated fetuses.

    I have seen many shocking instances of how depraved humanity can be. Public executions, nazi concentration camps, and similar things, but none stood out in my mind as boldly as Semipalatinsk. If nothing else makes it remarkable, it's the fact that this was done to their own people.

    Here are some info sites:
    http://www.isar.org/isar/archive/ST/Semipalatins k. html
    http://www.well.com/user/fine/journalism/kazakh. ht ml (Select all text if you find it unreadable on the laft side)
    http://www.newtimes.ru/eng/detail.asp?art_id=221

  17. Funny... by DarkRecluse · · Score: 2

    It appears that a small group of scientists who studied the area found that the ecosystem surrounding the site appears to be better off than when it wasn't radioactive.

    It seems that, at least in the short term, the animals and plants are better off with nuclear waste because humans have moved from these areas...kind of sad knowing your species is worse than cancer causing nuclear radiation isn't it?

    http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/chernobyl/wildlifepreser ve .htm

    --
    --"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"
  18. Re:Yet you feel free to use electricity by leucadiadude · · Score: 2

    "Also, you say 'right now' in your post - it's right now and looking like forever. There haven't been any new nuke plants commissioned since 1979. All orders after 1973 have been cancelled. Nuclear power is on its way out as a consumer power supply."

    Wrong wrong wrong! No new nuclear plants have been ordered since 1979. There were several plants that completed construction and low power testing and received full power licenses all through the 1980's and even the first part of the 1990's! Look up the Seabrook Station (1990) in NH and check out it's entering commercial service date. Also ANO2 (1980), San Onofre (1984), Diablo Canyon (1985), Commanche Peak (1993), Watts Bar (1996). I could go on and on. But facts aren't going to dissuade you obviously, never mind.