Viewing Fukushima in the Cold Light of Chernobyl

[bananas]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130821124556.htm

Viewing Fukushima in the Cold Light of Chernobyl

Aug. 21, 2013 — The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster spread significant radioactive contamination over more than 3500 square miles of the Japanese mainland in the spring of 2011. Now several recently published studies of Chernobyl, directed by Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina and Anders Møller of the Université Paris-Sud, are bringing a new focus on just how extensive the long-term effects on Japanese wildlife might be.

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Mousseau and Møller have with their collaborators just published three studies detailing the effects of ionizing radiation on pine trees and birds in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. "When you look for these effects, you find them," said Mousseau, a biologist in USC's College of Arts and Sciences.

In the journal Mutation Research, they showed that birds in Chernobyl had high frequencies of albino feathering and tumors. In PlosOne, they demonstrated that birds there had significant rates of cataracts, which likely impacted their fitness in the wild. And in the journal Trees, they showed that tree growth was suppressed by radiation near Chernobyl, particularly in smaller trees, even decades after the original accident.

Given previous work by scientists in former Soviet bloc nations, the results were not unexpected to Mousseau and Møller. "There's extensive literature from Eastern Europe about the effects of the release of radionuclides in Chernobyl," Mousseau said. "Unfortunately, very little of it was translated into English, and many of the papers -- which were printed on paper, not centrally stored, and never digitized -- became very hard to find because many of the publishers went belly up in the 1990s with the economic recession that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union."

A large body of this work finally came to the attention of Western scientists in 2009 with the publication of "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment" as a monograph in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of South Carolina.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
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Journal References:

1. A.P. Møller, A. Bonisoli-Alquati, T.A. Mousseau. High frequency of albinism and tumours in free-living birds around Chernobyl. Mutation Research/Genetic Toxicology and Environmental Mutagenesis, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.mrgentox.2013.04.019

2. Timothy A. Mousseau, Shane M. Welch, Igor Chizhevsky, Oleg Bondarenko, Gennadi Milinevsky, David J. Tedeschi, Andrea Bonisoli-Alquati, Anders Pape Møller. Tree rings reveal extent of exposure to ionizing radiation in Scots pine Pinus sylvestris. Trees, 2013; DOI: 10.1007/s00468-013-0891-z
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University of South Carolina (2013, August 21). Viewing Fukushima in the cold light of Chernobyl. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 23, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130821124556.htm

MLA
University of South Carolina. "Viewing Fukushima in the cold light of Chernobyl." ScienceDaily, 21 Aug. 2013. Web. 23 Aug. 2013.

[kristopher]

1. Kick and a huge Rec.

This is welcome independent research that is long overdue. The nuclear industry has rigged the game on getting good data from the accidents and it is about time that their stranglehold was broken.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. K&R! Off to The Greatest Page! Really important information here!

Thanks for posting!