pongo Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 Mutant Butterflies Found in Japan After Fukushima Nuclear Disaster During early stages of the fallout, Japanese officials insisted that radioactive contamination did not pose a serious danger to humans or the environment, but in the months that followed, evidence has suggested otherwise. A study published recently in the journal Nature provides evidence that the collapse of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant released a huge amount of radioactive materials into the environment. According to the research, this contamination is already causing physiological and genetic damage to a species of butterfly that used to be common in the region. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lxxx Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 It's quite clear the severity and consequences of it are beyond what we have been led to believe and we'll not know the true fallout and damage done to the planet for years to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeliX Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 Sorry to burst your drama bubble, it's a bullshit survey with a tiny sample size. Here you go: http://www.nucleardi...terflies-really And here: http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120809/srep00570/full/srep00570.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quilp Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 Sorry to burst your drama bubble, it's a bullshit survey with a tiny sample size. Here you go: http://www.nucleardi...terflies-really And here: http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120809/srep00570/full/srep00570.html Lucid. Thread-stopper.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slinkydevil Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pongo Posted August 16, 2012 Author Share Posted August 16, 2012 Lucid. Thread-stopper.... Not at all. Read the paper. Read the counter. Have a think about it - and then read the comments and counter comments that people are posting. Read the comments under the article which Helix linked to. The story is very definitely still on - going. The paper *might* be flawed or need further refinement. Certainly it is much too early to put the issue to bed. And even if the methodology were found to be flawed that would not necessarily mean that the findings are wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeliX Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 It's still a reasonable hypothesis, but no conclusion can be drawn from that study, there simply isn't enough data. However, with the speed the study has spread, no doubt other scientists will pick it up and get more data Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coroner Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 This was featured on Material World on BBC 4 yesterday afternoon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballaughbiker Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 It's quite clear the severity and consequences of it are beyond what we have been led to believe and we'll not know the true fallout and damage done to the planet for years to come. I agree that the true amount of damage will not be know for some time but only someone wanting to bang a particular drum would say at this stage "it is quite clear etc etc" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Wright Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 The same sort of theories, about the effect on fish and other marine life, caused by Sellafield and Heysham, in the Irish sea have been propounded for years, but never scientifically proven. These things hapen in nature. I'm not sayingbe complacent, just that it is too soon to tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quilp Posted August 19, 2012 Share Posted August 19, 2012 Mutated farm animals and fish, amongst significant others, have been around a lot longer than man-made radiation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbie Bobster Posted August 19, 2012 Share Posted August 19, 2012 Wall Street Journal The Panic Over Fukushima Richard Muller (professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Source: Wikipedia. Sorry) "A recent study of butterflies near Fukushima confirms the well-known fact that radiation leads to mutations in insects and other simple life-forms. Research on those exposed to the atomic bombs shows, however, no similar mutations in higher species such as humans." Eta: Hmmm, regarding the expected surplus deaths from the incident, the article seems not to consider the difference between the effects of background radiation and the effects of ingested or inhaled radioactive particles. Interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbie Bobster Posted August 19, 2012 Share Posted August 19, 2012 And obllgatory xkcd. "If you're basing radioactive safery procedures on an internet PNG image and things go wrong, you have no one to blame but yourself" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pongo Posted August 19, 2012 Author Share Posted August 19, 2012 Radiation - yes indeed. Half baked, goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you! .... pernicious nonsense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballaughbiker Posted August 19, 2012 Share Posted August 19, 2012 They didn't tell me the dose of a head CT scan before it was done. I'd have thought twice if they had..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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