A little radiation for health...

[macdoc]

Some Birds Thrive in Chernobyl's Radioactive Glow
25 April 2014 2:00 pm

Alex Kühni/Flickr/Creative Commons; (inset) T.A. Mousseau and A.P. Møller (2011)
Nearly 28 years after the worst nuclear accident in history, several bird species are doing the seemingly impossible: flourishing inside the radioactive Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine. Due to lingering radiation from the 1986 meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, humans aren’t allowed to live there—but the region has become an accidental ecological testing ground for scientists interested in studying the effects of radiation on wild animals. Ionizing radiation damages living cells by producing free radicals, leading to genetic damage and, eventually, death. An animal’s only hope is to neutralize those free radicals by upping its production of antioxidants. And that’s exactly what most birds in Chernobyl seem to be doing—with even better results than scientists expected. A team of ecologists used nets to capture 152 birds from 16 species inside and around the 2600-square-kilometer exclusion zone. After assessing the birds’ antioxidant levels, amount of DNA damage, and body condition, the researchers were surprised to find that most of the birds, like the hawfinch pictured above, seemed to benefit from the chronic exposure to radiation.[HILITE] Birds found in areas with higher radiation levels had more antioxidants and better overall body condition, the team reports online this week in Functional Ecology[/HILITE]

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http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014 ... ctive-glow

[rainbow]

Without radiation, we'd be dead.

[macdoc]

try telling that to anti-nuclear power idjits

[cronus]

Moderation in all things.

[JimC]

Moderation in all things.

It's true, the mod team are omnipresent...

[macdoc]

yes - don't pull the mod rods...

[Hermit]

Moderation in all things.

...including moderation itself.

[klr]

Radiation good for you? The Edwardians would have lapped it up.

[mistermack]

If I remember rightly, it killed Marie Curie, and her husband.

Or something like that. Killed one of em, any way. Over time.

[pErvinalia]

Radiation is a conspiracy. Like global warming.

[mistermack]

Radiation is a conspiracy. Like global warming.

Radiation is well understood, and can be accurately predicted.

[pErvinalia]

Follow the money, MM. That's what radiation priests want you to believe.

[cronus]

Radiation goes right through you

Ghosts go right through you

Therefore radiation must be ghosts.

[JimC]

If I remember rightly, it killed Marie Curie, and her husband.

Or something like that. Killed one of em, any way. Over time.

Back then, they had no idea of the dangers of radiation. They would have faced, fairly continuously, much higher radiation levels than animals wandering around the wildlands surrounding Chernobyl...

The clean-up crew who went into Chernobyl in the days immediately after the accident suffered very badly, IIRC...

[MiM]

There are houses in Finland, where the dwellers get yearly radiation doses from indoor radon comparable to the doses you would get living in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Even the Soviets put those limits rather conservatively.