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Fukushima's Biological Legacy
An anonymous reader sends this report from Eurekalert:
Scientists began gathering biological information only a few months after the disastrous 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima power plant in Japan. Results of these studies are now beginning to reveal serious biological effects of the Fukushima radiation on non-human organisms ranging from plants to butterflies to birds. A series of articles summarizing these studies has been published in the Journal of Heredity describing impacts ranging from population declines to genetic damage (abstract 1, abstract 2, abstract 3, abstract 4). Most importantly, these studies supply a baseline for future research on the effects of ionizing radiation exposure to the environment. Common to all of the published studies is the hypothesis that chronic (low-dose) exposure to ionizing radiation results in genetic damage and increased mutation rates in reproductive and non-reproductive cells.
Meanwhile, efforts to restart Japan's nuclear power program are dead in the water.
How soon can we expect Mothra to attack?
overlords that is. Sorry they were chasing me and didn't have time to finish.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
There was a major tsunami that washed the shoreline and beyond. I wonder how you actually separate population declines due to the radioactivity from the declines due to the tsunami.
Achille Talon
Hop!
If for somereason all the humans in NY city were to just up and leave there would be a huge biological impact. rats, cats, dogs, birds, trees, and butterflies would be disrupted by lack of food, changes in water, reduction of the temperature island, heated underground spaces, lack of trash. Predators formerly finding the human habitation uninviting would swarm into the area.
Likewise formerly unfit mutants on some species, such as cockroaches in bright colors that were out in the daytime might appear
I'm somewhat skeptical that every observed change in Fukashima is casued by radition, even the new appearance of mutations. the departure of the human population might well be a catalyst as well.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Did the AC submitter read the abstracts? Did they understand them? .."
* The papers on chronic (low-dose rate) exposures focussed on the DNA repair and other healthy mechanisms in the exposed organisms.
* Some of the butterfly exposures were done as high-dose rate simulations in the lab, not env exposures.
* The monkey blood-count study was mentioned in the Eurekalert article, but NOT in any of the *journal* (of heredity) papers that I could see; it has been widely criticized on several bases (improbably-low causative dose and insufficient statistical power).
* Look at the refutations at the bottom of this sensational Guardian article:
http://t.co/LuPJHv2Js9
“Unfortunately yet another paper with insufficient power to distinguish real effects and relevance to human health”
"correlations between the caesium and low blood counts in the Fukushima study were not statistically strong."
"monkeys are about the same as those found in sheep in some parts of the **UK** following the Chernobyl accident, i.e. extremely low
"in terms of damage to the animals themselves. I think it much more likely that the apparently low blood cell counts are caused by something other than radiation"
-- Mike Greaves
We will be flooded with posts from mainly americans about:
o how few people died in Fukushima
o how harmless radioactivity/radiation is
o that no one died to fallout in the atomic bombings, as it where air bursts
o that no one died in Nagasaki or Hiroshima 'after' the fallout, as the ground level radiation was neglegtible
o that we have no clue and mix up Bequerels with Sieverts
And then we have the discussion about: cutting corners, it would work if people would adhere to the rules, waste, oh, reprocessing, more waste, no: reprocessing does not cause more waste ... depositing the waste, the waste that does not exist ... oh, and it is impossible to do base load with wind and solar ... erm, wind or solar, and then they finally say: coal,kills more than nuclear, because they mix up mining with power production, then they claim coal ash is more dangerous than nuclear waste ...
Ah, have to see if there is a good movie to night on TV.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
beautiful blood sucking butterflies.
How cool would that be? A butterfly lands on a bird and suddenly the bird goes flat like an empty balloon! The butterfly belches and has a hard time taking off...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Ignoring the politics of this discussion for a moment, what we are seeing here is the process of bio-accumulation expressed in nature. These are the radiological effects on small species at the bottom of the foodchain and what we are observing is the amount of time it takes these radionuclides to be moved through the food chain whilst affecting these creatures.
This is because radio isotopes present to a metabolism like a micro-nutrient that can be utilized in the body, for example pu-239 analogues iron so to a metabolism, it is used like iron would be. The creatures that consume it are themselves consumed by their predators.
Once ingested, radiation emitters are move somewhere in the body where that nutrient (analogue) is required. Alpha, beta and gamma radiation is emitted at various energetic levels as the radionuclide decays inside the body. The surrounding tissue absorbs the radiation and the gestation period for cancer, lasting roughly six years in humans, begins as a direct effect of exposure to the radio isotope. The indirect effect is on the genome and the DNA which is what I suspect we are observing now.
The affect of radionuclide contamination on humans is inevitable and the simple fact here is that the longer the radionuclides are release into the environment, the more there will be increasing the effects and variation.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.