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Plants Near Chernobyl Adapt To Contaminated Soil
lbalbalba writes "In April 1986, a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine exploded and sent radioactive particles flying through the air, infiltrating the surrounding soil. Despite the colossal disaster, some plants in the area seem to have adapted well, flourishing in the contaminated soil."
Probably the point is not so much to shield radiation, but to reduce / prevent direct contact, or (worse) ingestion of radioactive material. Depending on conditions & duration of the job, masks, goggles & gloves may just be adequate.
Key point : Pollution affects Humans too. If you are interested in there being human beings around in the future you need to either, A) Get us off planet to other colonies or B) preserve the "colony" we have. There may be some other creature that evolves with our capacity for abstraction and application of abstraction (i.e. engineering) on Earth. However if you believe that intelligence like ours is rare in the Universe and also believe it is worthwhile, then we need to handle Earth a little better or start funding Nasa with our cigarette and booze money. Budget Comparison to Consumer Expenditures and SpaceReview.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Coupl'a things -
1) Chernobyl is not over, and not contained. The "sarcophagus" was temporary at best, is crumbling now, and it's permanent replacement has been beset by budgetary, engineering and political issues that seem irresolvable.
2) Apart from 6' trout and 10' catfish, wildlife around Chernobyl and Pripyat is absolutely not doing well. Excepting a few migratory songbirds, the place is eerily silent.
3) But it's OK, because a few plant species turn out to be radiation-tolerant?
No, not OK. I'm not against nuclear power wholesale, but maybe we should be taking a long, hard look at pebble-bed, 4S and thorium reactors?
"And Humans will adapt by dying out."
The many survivors of atomic testing and nuclear attack suggest otherwise.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
My understanding was that the point of this article was that this was not evolution, or at most an evolutionary switch-on of a feature that evolved long ago.
When plants reach for the light, it's not because they are evolving into a new organism on the spot. Rather, they have long ago evolved to dynamically adapt to lighting conditions. What TFA is proposing is that plants dynamically adapt to ionizing radiation as well, and they have had that capability for some time, it's just that we haven't been in a position to observe it.
As to the rest of your comment: If you think "environmentalists are always predicting some kind of terrible apocalypse withing the next couple of decades" and cite "global cooling" as an example - maybe you're not an AGW denialist, but you have apparently picked up some of their rhetoric style.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.