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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."
Feed me, Seymour!
Trolling is a art,
in "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind"?
Adapt or die.
...they are nuclear plants? [ducks]
From TFA - "Scientists had to wear masks, goggles and gloves to work in the area"
Meanwhile the remainder of their body was burnt to a crisp by the radioactivity. Masks, goggles and gloves? This experiment was presumably organised by someone from the Simpsons... (My eyes - the goggles do nothing!)
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
A rod of applause to you.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Now eat that plant... See what happens. Maybe you get 'immune' maybe you don't :P
Yes, evolution is alive and well. A species of bacteria evolved in the early 70s that can digest nylon.
I think this news is a nice reality check on that annoying but vocal cadre of environmentalists that are always predicting some kind of terrible apocalypse within the next couple of decades. Global cooling, for example. Not to mention a nifty "myth busted" moment for that old Hollywood trope of a post-nuclear wasteland.
I'm definitely not saying we shouldn't take care of our environment, by the way, and I'm certainly not an AGW denialist. The specific way things are now matters a lot to us fickle and fragile humans. If the sea level rises by another yard, the crabs will just move. The Venetians are the ones that would be screwed.
I'm just saying that nature is more resilient than people usually imagine.
Scientist: Wow! They're thriving!
Plant: (Yeah, that's right b*tch. You better believe it.)
*weeks pass*
Plant: (Eat me. Go on, you know you want to? Look at my lovely leaves, my beautiful drupes. I'm tasty. You KNOW I am. Eat me, human.)
Scientist: Hmmmm...I wonder...
Plant: (That's right, baby. Oh yesssss...verrry good.)
[End Of Line]
Amazing how mother nature always seems to adapt to whatever man throws at it. And people still continue to say we can blow up the world. Earth took hits from asteroids, wiped out the critters, adapted, evolved and moved on. Same thing with any pollution.
Troll Alert : It boggles my mind why people still don't accept evolution as being a close approximation of the truth. I say "close approximation" because even physics is an abstract collection of ideas meant to help our human minds approximate physical laws of our Universe. As a species have had numerous examples of evidence be observed or deduced which support evolution. There is observed evidence, as in this case of plants near Chernobyl as well as others like the peppered moth, and qualitative evidence paired with analysis such as in the case of the varied forms of archaeology. These plants represent a micro-evolutionary step, as some people refer to it. Macroevolution(tau) = Microevolution(100000*t) . Differentiation within a species given enough time diverges the species into parts. Simply put, give it enough time and micro-evolution becomes macro-evolution. If you have some math background you will also deduce my other point; no matter what you call it its evolution.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Under the right circumstances, evolution can be quite fast. The geological history of the earth shows many massive die-offs followed by a tremendous flowering of new life forms. If there is an ecological niche available, something will adapt/evolve to fill it.
Naturally, simpler life forms evolve faster than complex ones. Germs evolve in months. Humans evolve in tens of millennia. Plants are somewhere between the two.
This is how the BBC reports online - single sentence 'paragraphs' under headings that are closer to where you'd really divide paragraphs. I'm not sure why you're so outraged, news reports in general use short paragraphs and fragments. The NY Times, for example, frequently uses single sentence paragraphs.
It makes articles easier to skim and ensures a consistent style between journalists, I'm not sure what your issue with it is.
Read their method.
They first observe that plants start to spontaneously grow again in contamination sites despite the high radioactivity. Then they brought in seeds from uncontaminated origin. One batch goes to the contamination site, and another batch (the controlled group) goes to a decontaminated area near the site. Seeds grow fine in both batches, showing that seeds from uncontaminated origin is able to survive the radioactivity in the very first generation. The study is about the mechanism how plants naturally resist radioactivity. No evolution is taking place here.
I once had a signature.
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."
Could it be that whatever fauna that survived, adapted and/or now thrives might do so under conditions perhaps harsher due to radiation, yet plausibly improved by a potentially reduced presence of any predator species, whom may not have fared as well, or may have been displaced?
They were all active that day, talking about the weather, gossiping, and walking around. And right before the scientists and researchers drove in to the site, one of the plants yelled "CAR!" and they all stood still.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
There aren't many natural sources of substantial radiation, unless you go digging up and concentrating the relevant elements or go far enough back in earth's history that plants hadn't been invented yet. There is virtually no call for the adaptation of radiation resistance, outside of a few man made regions.
However, as it happens, the biochemical adaptations required to survive severe dessication or extreme heat(which, like radiation, pretty much go all bull-in-a-china-shop on your genome and metabolically important molecules) happen to, in a number of cases, be pretty useful in radiation resistance as well. Bacteria like d. radiodurans, t. gammatolerans, and organisms like tardigrades are extremely radiation resistant; but as a side effect of their adaptations to heat and dessication.
Given the survival value, particularly for seeds, of being able to survive hard times and then germinate, or aggressively seize territory(and light) left open by forest fires, it wouldn't be a total surprise if plants had picked up a few adaptations in the same vein...
"What does not kill me, makes me stronger."
"I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection"
Nietzsche, Darwin, what's the difference.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Did all the plants die off after Chernobyl?
In some areas, yes. See Red Forest. But that doesn't stop plants and animals from making their way back in, however slowly. Sounds like an extreme environment ripe for adaptation/evolution.
ok let's cut your legs, it will make you stronger
Plants are very primitive compared to animals, and localized mutations of their cells have nearly no effect on them, so why would they be significantly affected by radioactive contamination in the first place? The whole problem with radioactive contamination and plants is that they can accumulate radioactive isotopes over their lifetime and become dangerous for humans and animals to consume.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
As the earlier commenter pointed out, the plants might be poisonous as crops if they aggregate the radioactive materials, so maybe the health of the plants is nothing to be overjoyed about. However, one of the points is that the forests around Chernobyl never died off. There wasn't a period when the area around the reactor completely died. The plants didn't "adapt" to the radiation; they were already adapted to tolerate quite a bit of it.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?