Flax thrives around Chernobyl
The proteomics of Chernobyl: The area immediately surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant has been deemed unfit for human habitation, but plants and animals don’t pay attention to safety officials, and have happily taken advantage of the fact that they can go about their business undisturbed in the exclusion zone. Researchers have checked whether one plant that’s thriving in the area (flax) has acquired any specific adaptations to deal with the radiation. The answer, apparently, is no. When the seeds of a plant grown with contaminated soil were checked using proteomes, only 35 proteins showed significant changes, and these performed a broad range of functions.
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Holte Ender
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I saw a story on PBS about the birds around Chernobyl, they have different colored feathers, misshapen beaks, tumors and mutated sperm. So while plants may cope, it seems anything higher up the food chain may be in trouble.
I recently watched a special that addressed how nature has taken over Chernobyl, much like what happened in I am Legend, but without the cannibals.
I might mention one thing that I find completely absurd on the subject of Chernobyl. The hypocrisy of the U.S. complaining about the Soviets not revealing the incident for 3 days when we had spent over a decade of above ground testing in our country and in the Pacific. We were setting off “Chernobyl’s” all the time in the deserts and islands.
The Atomic Energy Commission had absolutely no problems in sacrificing people in the surrounding areas and doing everything in their power to keep it quiet during the above ground testing. They ABSOLUTELY knew about the effects since around 1946. Everybody in the country was made into a “DownWinder” with that stupid program. With tests like “Castle Bravo” in the Pacific, the whole world’s milk supplied became contaminated. The fallout circled the Earth 3 times before becoming unmeasurable.
An absolutely heartbreaking book, “American Ground Zero”, consists of excellent photographs and short stories of people in Utah and Nevada and how they were sacrificed.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0262071460
What a tragedy Chernobyl was. There are countless stories of brave men and women that battled that catastrophe that will never be heard about.
Lot of brave souls that gave their lives to fight that one!
Things like “you have just 5 minutes to run in there and pour this bucket of sand on that mess. By the way, you aren’t planning on having kids for 2 reasons. You are going to be sterile when you go home today. Also you aren’t going to be living much longer”
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Michael Scott, Holte Ender. Holte Ender said: RT @madmike1 Flax thrives around Chernobyl http://bit.ly/bhhZPi […]
Yup. Nature finds a way and here’s a perfect example. Fascinating post.
A student of mine has a pal who’s dad was part of the ‘clean up’ at Chernobyl. The dad’s dead now.
Perhaps being a plant is advantageous if the apocalypse ever comes…
Nature finds a way old bean….and quite right too!
Have they found any Lovcraftian nightmare insects that have changed into horrible blasphemies against all that is sane? Flax is self-pollinating. I wonder how the insect-reliant plants are doing there.