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Nuked Coral Reef Bounces Back
sm62704 writes "I found this New Scientist article interesting, as I was actually alive (albeit very small) when Bikini Atoll was H-bombed. The article says that the reason the reefs are now flourishing is because they are mostly undisturbed by humans, who are afraid of the radiation. Background levels there are now 'similar to that at any Australian city,' while nearby islands haven't been so lucky.'When I put the Geiger counter near a coconut, which accumulates radioactive material from the soil, it went berserk,' says Maria Beger of the University of Queensland in Australia."
Maybe we should nuke all the worlds hypoxic dead zones! That would certainly remove the waste accumulated there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)
Were there lots/little/none ? Oh, come on - that would be one of the most interesting things to tell us. We are all so worried about ''nuclear power fading your genes'' - we now have a 60 year experiment that could tell us about long term effects but they are silent.
"occasional forays of illegal shark, tuna and Napoleon Wrasse fishing"
Couldn't the criminals find a less radioactive region to illegally fish? Who wants to eat radioactive fish anyway? I know the article says that "ambient radiation is low", but I doubt the fish would be rated A-grade.
Insert self-referential sig here.
For those of you who are anthropologists as well as zoologists, it should be mentioned that there were native inhabitants of these islands that were forced to move before the tests.
We did it to Native Americans on the continental United States as well but it really bears mentioning that there was a pretty gross injustice paid to these peaceful peoples in the name of atomic testing. I remember watching this footage on an ABC special as a kid and I luckily recorded it so I could watch it over and over again. When watching project Baker, I kept thinking "Wow, that's impressive, that was somebody's home."
I suppose I'll be called a self-hating liberal but I believe we should never forget the price we pay for the weapons we hold. These weapons that were supposed to be the end of war aren't and any future horror developed to stop war won't be the end to war either.
Just imagine what the look on your face would be if someone showed up and told you to evacuate your state because it was now going to be used for nuclear testing. You probably wouldn't be very happy to leave your home in the name of warfare.
My work here is dung.
I was rather stunned when, planning my trip to AU a few years ago, I realized that ONE nuclear sub could take out the whole country!
Or at least send it to Mad Max-land.
Physically AU is huge. Roughly the size of the US. Superimposing a map of one on the other gives fairly accurate driving times and distance calculations.
Demographically it is very very small.
I also figured out the real problem is water. While the US, EU, and CN have large navigable rivers running deep into their continents, AU has nothing to bring water to the center of the country (or more accurately there isn't enough rain in the center to drain and form navigable rivers).
AU could be a super-power if it had enough water to support a population of 300 million. Instead it is so dry they are lucky to have 1/10 of that at about 22 million.
I once heard something fascinating. After the Chernobyk accident, the radioactive cloud that contaminated (mainly) the north of Norway caused allot of fear in people, and for people's health. The gouvernment continued to slaughter and burn massive amounts of raindeer and livestock.
A friend later told me that the meat was actually fully usable, and that it's destruction may have been unnecessary. She suggested we should have fed it to the elderly population, which did not have time to develop cancer from the meat anyhow.
There will be allot of talk in this discussion about the fear of radiation, and that is why this discussion is so good. Life does well with increased radiation! Humans don't however, by virtue of the way we look at human society and human worth. What it does say however, is that fear of nuclear energy, a power source that may have dramatically less consequence for life on this planet than most other energy sources, prevents us from progressing in the energy debate! (and maybe also in space exploration, given worries of launching nuclear-powered space craft)
Check this news item for a similar case to the coral reef in the article.
"People in the first world have convinced themselves that chemicals and radiation stand in the way of their personal immortality"
- James Lovelock
Even without husk-gripping, coconuts move... they're supposed to, thats how they get from island to island...
I think this is a note to self: do NOT eat coconuts that you find on the seashore. I wonder if anyone's realized that little issue...
Would be interesting to look at how long expected development time for the cancers you could get from these coconuts would be. Maybe for people over 65-70, the food is perfectly safe to eat! (:
That has actually been a "jokingly serious" suggestion. Increasing the background radiation in an area so humans don't dare to use it or any products from that area. Works great with Chernobyl for example, the forest around the area has a lot more animal life now than before the incident.
c++;
Coconuts tend to be blown off of trees during storms. Then they float a LONG distance. Somebody COULD pick one up and eat it. I am surprised that the feds has not decided to use plant remediation to pull the radiation off the island. All they need to do is harvest the grass and even trees every so often. Of course, if it still has high radiation, put a number of animals back there. This is the time to see how humans will do in space.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
These weapons that were supposed to be the end of war aren't and any future horror developed to stop war won't be the end to war either. First, we developed the weapons and these kept USSR and America from going to war. The simple fact is, that both side were terrified of using these. We all knew what would happen. So, it really did accomplish what we wanted. And later, other nations aquired the knowledge. Some by their own work, and others by stealing it. The ones who developed it on their own had an advanced enough form of gov. that they are not real threats to those around them. Of course, until recently, Israel was probably the only one who had any real chance of using theirs.
The real problem is the recent round of nuclear build-out. These countries do not have the maturity to handle these. Basically, Turkey and Pakistan. This can be blamed soley on a number of top pubs who sold our nuke secrets for a few gold coins (relatively speaking). People like RichardPerle, douglas feith, EricEdelman, and Marc Grossman. These guys, and others, sold it to Turkey and Pakistan. This action really could start a war. Pakistan supposedly passed on their knowledge to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, etc. Hopefully the next president will go after these guys for the treason that they committed.
In the end, I suspect that it will not matter. There are so many other easy ways to attack other ppl. Groups like Al Qaeda could easily mutate the avian flu and then spread it quickly in the west (and all for less than a dozen of their ppl; thank god that they are religious; the mullahs do not want to kill the innocent). Plenty of ways for us to kill each other.
And if could stop a world war, yeah, I would allow the feds to move me to another place, pay for a new home, and provide me with a nice new job, schooling for my children, etc, which IIRC, is what we did.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
All of life has the same problem. That is the radiation induces faster changes in all. Some on birth defects. The vast majority are simply miscarried (most ppl never realize that many women suffer at least 1 miscarriage and it is due to a fatal defect). But of course, some make it to the world. The recent Indian girl who was born with a duplicated face (probably the best place that she could be born was in northern India; there she is a goddess; elsewhere she would be considered a freak) was possibly induced via radiation or pollution. For the living, it means loads of cancer. No doubt that animal life in any of these radioactive areas are suffering shortened lives due to such. In fact, I am amazed that we (USA and Russia) are not tagging these animals to see how long and what they look like at end of life. These are all living labs. Heck, I am more amazed that Hollywood has not made some interesting movies based on just these areas.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
All these countries that you speak of would put their entire population (and some have) into disgusting poverty in order to get their hands on nuclear weapons. The real problem is the recent round of nuclear build-out. I don't get it, how do other countries getting the bomb change your logic any further? I mean, the U.S. was religious enough an the U.S.S.R. was so anti-religion it was worse than being religious. You say these countries could really start a war because they lack maturity
Biological warfare would just be the new horror, we'd get strains of all our favorite diseases and so would Russia, China, all the countries you listed. There'd still be conventional war, we'd still dump half our resources into developing these strains and everyone everywhere would still be thinking that it's a good thing we'll never use them. Until the day we do.
This is an endless cycle, we're doomed to repeat this forever. If you want to get a Large Hadron Collider operating in the United States, convince congress it can create black holes that would easily be used as weapons against anyone. And if could stop a world war, yeah, I would allow the feds to move me to another place, pay for a new home, and provide me with a nice new job, schooling for my children, etc, which IIRC, is what we did. Money solves everything, does it? I would wager some of these people (as the same special interviewed the older ones) didn't really care about that.
My work here is dung.
Did we want to use nukes? Well, to the point of testing them. And we did. We did all sorts of tests. But other then first use of these, we never used on ppl again. Just because we have these weapons does not mean that we will use them. We have sarin and VX in our arsenal (as do a number of western countries). We also have a number of biologicals that have been weaponized. And of course, we have our nukes. All of these same items are possessed by Russia, China, and a number of western countries. Can we use ever these? ABout the only way is if we are in a world war again. No other time would we use such horrors. In fact, just about any country that uses these will be ostracized unless they were attack by such first. Have you ever taken any of the martial arts, learned to shoot a gun, or archery? If you know these things, do you really feel the need to use these against others? Nope. You just want to be prepared.
Maturity in a gov. is the ability to recognize that some of your actions are NOT in your citizen's best interest and then acting that way. Many leaders act in their own personal interest and that is considered immature. In a mature gov, their will be enough safe guards to prevent 1 or several ppl from being able to carry out such policies. That is the idea of congress, which is to reign in control on the president (or that is what they are suppose to do). Nearly all democracies/republics operate in such fashion. But even totalitarian states such as china can do so. China is controlled by a relatively small group of ppl, but they have controls on each other. Would I call them mature? Well, lets just say that I would not call them immature. They are in a massive build up of their military (esp on nukes and ICBMs), but I think that overall they will handle themselves well. Is maturity about hating somebody? Nope. USSR was mature. They actually had controls in place. OTH, what kind of controls does Musharraf have? Relatively little (hence relatively immature), though he would have to explain himself. Likewise, if North Korea's Kim Jong-il acquires this and decides to use this, will he have controls placed on him? NONE.
As I mentioned in my first post, AQ has controls in place by their view of religion. That control has stopped them from taking the next step. So, you want me to tell you how to weaponize Avian Flu? The funny thing is that I have thought about writting a book about this (as in a drama ). Here is the recipe.
Now, before you get your panty's all in a bunch and rant and scream that I have just told
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Maybe for people over 65-70, the food is perfectly safe to eat! (:
Especially if they smoke cigarettes. Ever notice that whenever someone does of lung cancer, cigarettes are always to blame whether they smoke or not, even if they worked at the Hanford Nuclear Facility?
I can remember one winter when I was a kid and they had open air nuclear tests in Nevada. A couple of days later we had a thindersnowstorm, and they said the snow was radioactive and you shouldn't let your kids play in it. Of course we did.
You young people only have terrorists to worry about, we had the USSR with thousands of atom bombs aimed at us.
The world is a much safer place than it was when I was a kid.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The effects of lower levels of radiation is not so terrible for short-lived creatures. When a human takes a low-level radiation dose, the consequences are of cancers that start to show up years afterwards. But for a coral polyp or a small fish with a life expectancy of just a few years - cancer is a non-problem, it won't happen until long after the animal would have died of natural causes anyway.
There may be a small number of birth deformities - but again, these animals produce a bazillion offspring which have a low probability of survival anyway - the few unfortunate deformed ones are merely the first to get picked off by predators - so again, no big deal.
The biggest issues are of biological concentration of radioactivity. So radioactive contaminants tend to accumulate in the creatures at the head of the food chain - but the absence of those higher predators helps in the reef recovery process.
It's amazing how quickly nature rebounds when you get people out of the picture.
Ha. Ha. Here's the deal on Bikini: 1) You can't live there. You can visit on a dive excursion. Everything is brought with you. There are bunks in the buildings, but that's all 2) The radiation is in the form of cesium, which is extremely water soluble. As a result, it is present above the waterline in the sand and soil (but not at the surface, as rainwater constantly washes it away). In addition, since cesium is SO soluble, all traces away from the shore are long gone. So it's safe to dive the wrecks, which are spectacular. 3) Previous attempts to get the cesium to bond to other elements, e.g. iodine, did not succeed as planned, and the vegetation continues to suck it up. 4) In 1946 there were around 150 residents that were relocated to Kili Island and to Ejit, so they'd like to get home some time, too. 5) If you ever get the chance, cough up the cash, learn how to dive, and GO. Most of the wrecks are deep, but the water in the lagoon is as clear as you are going to see, and the wrecks are pristine. I've done diving at a military-controlled atoll, where there is very little traffic, fewer tourists, and an active SCUBA community. It may be the best diving I have ever done.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
About 3 years ago there was a TV special on Bikini Atoll and how the wildlife there has exploded due to lack of all human intervention (read harvesting). All of the shipwrecks are now beautiful artificial reefs teeming with life of all kinds and on all levels of the food chain. (The shark population alone is staggering)
The background radiation levels underwater are zero, so the entire area is now open for private SCUBA charters, with dive packages including boat dives on many of the largest ships sunk there. (The Saratoga, The Nagato, etc)
As for the coconuts, that's true of any radioactively contaminated area. Living things absorb radioactive material. Especially plants. Plant life and soil are the most radioactive things surrounding Chernobyl. (Unless you're inside the sarcophagus staring at the "elephant's foot" http://youtube.com/watch?v=u5EAS5PT7Q8)
This begs the question: Could you seed a contaminated area with plants which are good at absorbing radioactive isotopes and harvest/dispose of them to clean up an area? Could we clean Bikini over time by going through several years of coconut harvesting?
I had forgotten that song. Thanks for reminding me of it; good tune. Also, I would assume that knowledge of the history the term bikini would be more prevalent among people who lived through the cold war in the USA than others.