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Nuclear power radiation shown to cause damaging insect mutations

“Such a low but long-lasting dose of radiation can be far more damaging than a short-term high dose,”

Nuclear Power Critter Mutations, 13 May 2010, Natural Resonance Revolution Conventional wisdom holds that nuclear power stations don’t leak enough radiation to create malformed organisms. But in some locations, Hesse-Honegger discovered mutations — curtailed feelers, misshapen legs, asymmetrical wings — in as many as 30 percent of the bugs she gathered. That’s 10 times the overall rate of about 3 percent for insects found in the wild. “For me, the mutated bugs were like prototypes of a future nature,” she says. A selection of Hesse-Honegger’s work will be shown this fall in Berlin………..

The 64-year-old artist, who has been painting biological specimens for more than 30 years, had come to regard the irradiated mutant insects she drew as “physically rendered prototypes of our destructive behavior.” She thought nuclear radiation boded ill for all creatures, great or small, two legs or six. She set out to find some scientific proof.

Over the next two decades, Hesse-Honegger collected more than 16,000 insect specimens, primarily true bugs, an order of insects (Heteroptera) consisting of roughly 40,000 known species, from cicadas and leafhoppers to aphids and shield bugs.

Hesse-Honegger gathered these insects at sites throughout Europe and from every continent except Australia, visiting fields and forests, homes and gardens near working nuclear plants and waste sites, including Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the decommissioned nuclear production facility near Hanford, Wash.
Then, she drew what she found, producing more than 300 watercolor illustrations depicting various types of malformations, some pictured here. The insects were drawn true to scale, each detail precisely measured with a microscope. To reproduce the insects’ colors fully and accurately, Hesse-Honegger painted them without any shadowing effects. The results are meticulously rendered, vibrant and almost photographic in detail.
“Such a low but long-lasting dose of radiation can be far more damaging than a short-term high dose,” Hesse-Honegger writes. “In addition, hot alpha and beta particles are significantly more dangerous than gamma radiation because they are absorbed by the body and essentially irradiate it from within. True bugs seem to be particularly sensitive to this.”…………….
Natural Resonance Revolution: Nuclear Power Critter Mutations

May 14, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, environment | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, reactors