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Scientists disagree over radiation effects

Scientists disagree over radiation effects
Abnormalities are found in Chernobyl’s wildlife 22 years after meltdown. Mother Nature Network by Victoria Schlesinger.By all visual accounts, the area surrounding Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant is a 19-mile haven flush with wildlife and greenery. Scientists note moose, boar, wolf, eagle, and river otter sightings, all signs of a thriving ecosystem. So fecund is the infamous and irradiated land, the Ukrainian government designated it a wildlife sanctuary in 2000. 

 

But looks can be deceiving………………………….

“Of all the small mammals out there, the voles are getting the highest internal dose,” says biologist Robert Baker, who studies bank voles (Clethrionomys glareolus) in Chernobyl. “They eat lichens and things that perpetuate the radioactivity, so when they eat it they become ‘screamers’ themselves. That’s our slang for highly radioactive because it makes the Geiger Counter scream.”……………………..an ongoing study of Chernobyl barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) by two scientists at the University of South Carolina and Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, say they’ve found significant effects.

 

The study (PDF) of 7,700 barn swallows by biologists Tim Mousseau and Anders Møller published last year concluded there is “an elevated diversity and frequency of abnormalities in barn swallows from Chernobyl compared with control populations in Ukraine and elsewhere.”

They identified abnormalities ranging from albinism, abnormal coloring, tumors, deformed toes, beaks, tail feathers, eyelids, and air sacks occurring more frequently or uniquely as compared to control groups. Most importantly, they concluded these deformities are the result of radiation exposure and are affecting the swallows’ survival…………………………..
Baker’s group, which openly supports nuclear power as a clean, safe source of electricity and receives research funding from the Department of Energy (DOE), says in his most recent bank vole research  that while they found as increase in DNA mutations, it is not due to radiation exposure at Chernobyl.

 

Scientists disagree over radiation effects | MNN – Mother Nature Network

May 8, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized