Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)(smithsonianmag.com)
smithsonianmag.com
Forests around Chernobyl aren’t decaying properly (2014)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/forests-around-chernobyl-arent-decaying-properly-180950075/
167 comments
That didn't sound too right for me (but my biology knowledge is dated at this point) so I read the relevant section from that page. It concludes wiht:
"""The delayed fungal evolution hypothesis is controversial, however, and has been challenged by other researchers, who conclude that a combination of vast depositional systems present on the continents during the formation of Pangaea and widespread humid, tropical conditions were responsible for the high rate of coal formation."""
It's interesting to think just how much went on before trees with lignin showed up. Flowers are also relatively recent - 150mya.
"""The delayed fungal evolution hypothesis is controversial, however, and has been challenged by other researchers, who conclude that a combination of vast depositional systems present on the continents during the formation of Pangaea and widespread humid, tropical conditions were responsible for the high rate of coal formation."""
It's interesting to think just how much went on before trees with lignin showed up. Flowers are also relatively recent - 150mya.
Yeah the snippet of the wikipedia page that you link is citing the paper that put the final blow to the fungal lignin breakdown hypothesis. It points out (the last point is particularly strong):
* there is evidence for partial lignin breakdown in existing deposits, so we know it was a thing back then
* if it were just lignin breakdown, then we'd see orders of magnitude more deposits. that is, if you look at the per year deposit rate, you'll see only a small fraction of lignin being deposited.
* a large fraction of deposits doesn't even contain lignin, often below or above deposits with lignin, but without there being a different rate of depositions between them.
(copying my earlier comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34654837 )
* there is evidence for partial lignin breakdown in existing deposits, so we know it was a thing back then
* if it were just lignin breakdown, then we'd see orders of magnitude more deposits. that is, if you look at the per year deposit rate, you'll see only a small fraction of lignin being deposited.
* a large fraction of deposits doesn't even contain lignin, often below or above deposits with lignin, but without there being a different rate of depositions between them.
(copying my earlier comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34654837 )
[deleted]
In general, it's mind-blowing to travel back in Earth's history and realize there were tens or hundreds of millions of years where strategies that are commonplace today had never been tried before (or they'd tried too early and failed). It makes one wonder, what will be the strategies of future life which no creature has yet evolved? Can we even imagine it?
I think it's almost guaranteed that bacteria eating plastics will proliferate globally at some point, we've put so much of this stuff in the environment and it's just free energy ready to be consumed if your digestive system knows how.
And suddenly plastics won't be the sterile, durable wonders that they are. We are living in The golden age of plastics, folks.
Things degrade wood too, doesn't make it useless.
Wood in today's society needs chemical treatment or physical isolation before we use it a construction material.
Only because we use a lot of pine wood with low density (because cheap&fast). Not all wood is like that: Red cedar, douglas, larch, acacia and more... Where I live, chestnut is even used for roof tiling.
And then there is cork
Indeed... still used for wine bottles. I can't say I'm too happy with it though, given the amount of bottles spoiled by bad cork.
The screw top for wine bottles, one of the best inventions in recent decades.
Yes... easy to open, easy to close, needs no tool, preserves the wine. No drawbacks, unless you're into nostalgia.
Wood is useless for sterile applications because it harbors bacteria and such. Think dentist, doctor, chemistry labs, industrial processes, food manufacturing and packaging, chemical storage, etc etc. All Plastic.
I don't think they'll get through metal and certainly not glass for a long time.
I think metal is already a target of microbial corrosion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_corrosion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_corrosion
Rusticals are eating the Titanic.
Check out cronenberg's recent movie, crimes of the future, seems relevant haha
Where did the Tupperware go?!
Will we have to develop antibacterial plastics to combat this for stuff we don’t want eaten, yet?
Will we have to develop antibacterial plastics to combat this for stuff we don’t want eaten, yet?
Funny. Just the other day I read an article about where Tupperware has gone.
https://text.npr.org/2023/06/01/1178876648/tupperware-busine...
https://text.npr.org/2023/06/01/1178876648/tupperware-busine...
Maybe we can just add some broad-spectrum antibiotics into the standard plastic mix.
And make all bacteria known to men immune?
I used to entertain this idea but I'm somewhat skeptical such a thing could proliferate, there is just not that much plastic relative to the other sources of energy an animal can evolve towards. I'd be interested to hear otherwise though.
There is tons if it some places though
You don't need a ton everywhere. You just need enough in a few places for long enough.
I've definitely already heard of plastic-eating bacteria. They already have bugs eating it now too
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/14/bugs-acr...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/14/bugs-acr...
it's also mind blowing to know that there are things which really haven't changed in over a billion years, yet still do just fine. How did my bio prof say it? "Bacteria are like the race cars of the biological world. They don't win by having the best strategy, they win by rate of duplication and acquisition."
Are there species of bacteria that are substantially unchanged in a billion years?
Morphologies of cyanobacteria show that fossils from billion+ years ago show little change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolite
No way to know for sure. But many bacteria today look very similar to what little bit of maybe fossils we might have.
Natural selection are now slower than artificial ones except on the microbial levels.
So maybe extinctions after extinctions for animals that are visible to us, and then bunch of new superbugs.
So maybe extinctions after extinctions for animals that are visible to us, and then bunch of new superbugs.
And grass is even younger - just ~100-65mya! (depending on the source - not sure if it's narrowed down in papers)
This is good news. The idea of the delayed fungal evolution hypothesis was this:
"Before trees grew wood that was unable to rot and so became coal but after fungus came now wood is ruined and it's impossible to make coal again."
Understanding that coal formation is a reversible process and that a new agent didn't permanently ruin the process, is a sigh of relief.
"Before trees grew wood that was unable to rot and so became coal but after fungus came now wood is ruined and it's impossible to make coal again."
Understanding that coal formation is a reversible process and that a new agent didn't permanently ruin the process, is a sigh of relief.
You know it would be very cool if someone made an UE5 demo that was just a forest with a dozen or so options to change the date and see which types of vegetation appear and disappear.
Presumably flowers proliferated due to insect pollinators?
Did they make big fallen tree piles? What a time that could have been for any species interested in burrows, bushwhacking, or forts.
My brain loves to pretend that this is what happened for millions of years, but the truth is that it turns into dust and "dirt." Things still weather and get broken. Even stone turns to sand. But it takes longer than we're currently used to and the particles don't get processed. But this same event that the parent linked led to all our coal as well as an important niche that modern fungi hold today (they existed back then, but couldn't process the lignin. Interesting thing, there's a term called "evolutionary radiation" and this was one of the largest periods of time for this, but it is not related to the radiation in the context of Chernobyl.
Isn't that the major origin of coal deposits?
And when that huge pile of trees finally started to burn, we got our first case of rapid global warming from burned carbon. The second one is done by humans right now.
Actually, burning of trees helped reduce CO2 over the long term. That's because burning is incomplete and produces charcoal. Charcoal doesn't decay, so when it is buried it semi-permanently takes carbon out of the biosphere. Over extended time, this would draw down atmospheric CO2. Some coal deposits from that period have a significant fraction of charcoal in them.
IIRC, that's lignite coal?
I don't think so? The charcoal would remain identifiable as the coal is matured by burial and heating (perhaps not all the way to anthracite).
Ah true. It'd be more of a structural thing I guess.
This doesn’t sound right. Iirc there have been many periods in earth’s history warmer than today, and carbon was part of the climate feedback for all of them, but this is the first time that warming is coming from direct forcing via co2.
This is definitely not the first time temperatures have risen due to direct co2 levels. Last time was only about 3 million years ago.
Are you sure? Because my understanding is, in the past what has happened is that some other force causes a bit of warming, and then the oceans heat up, which causes co2 to bubble out, which then causes more warming, which causes more co2 to bubble out, and so on. So co2 is an active part of the picture but it wasn’t the independent variable, so to speak. Whereas now we’re mining fossil carbon and squirting it directly into the atmosphere, which is new.
And climate scientists are very smart and have worked out how much the added co2 amplified the original warming, and have been able to work out how much warming you would get by doubling co2 levels, which appears to be around 3 degrees C.
And climate scientists are very smart and have worked out how much the added co2 amplified the original warming, and have been able to work out how much warming you would get by doubling co2 levels, which appears to be around 3 degrees C.
It’s very similar. We’re just the ‘other force’ that is kicking it off this time, and we’re a bit more efficient than most.
Hmm, I don’t think you read what I wrote very carefully. I’m making a very specific and rather technical point about the feedback loops in the climate.
Basically the amount of co2 that the ocean can have dissolved in it is a function of temperature and the relative co2 concentration of the air. When the temperature of the water increases it can hold less co2. Just like when soda gets warm and isn’t pressurized, it gets flat.
Basically the amount of co2 that the ocean can have dissolved in it is a function of temperature and the relative co2 concentration of the air. When the temperature of the water increases it can hold less co2. Just like when soda gets warm and isn’t pressurized, it gets flat.
Yes, that is part of the (theorized) feedback loop that has happened many times.
What is your point exactly?
What is your point exactly?
Because you wrote "This is definitely not the first time temperatures have risen due to direct co2 levels. "
Strictly speaking that's not true. Listen man I don't really want to hold your hand and walk you through this.
Strictly speaking that's not true. Listen man I don't really want to hold your hand and walk you through this.
It is definitely not the first time temperatures have risen due to direct co2 levels.
Maybe you should actually read some of those studies?
[https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2013.009...]
Some of the recent ones (< 1 million years), co2 seems likely to be a feedback, not a forcing method - but there have been many times in the past where that is not a plausible explanation at all, with levels in the 2000 ppm range.
Maybe you should actually read some of those studies?
[https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2013.009...]
Some of the recent ones (< 1 million years), co2 seems likely to be a feedback, not a forcing method - but there have been many times in the past where that is not a plausible explanation at all, with levels in the 2000 ppm range.
> including some [wild boar] bagged as far away as Germany—continue to show abnormal and dangerous levels of radiation.
This really needs to stop. I remember doing the calculation a few years back due to another HN post (and the German obsession around boar) and you'd need to eat roughly 0.55lbs (0.25kg) of the most radioactive boar you could find every day or 3lbs (1.4kg) of the median. That is to just hit EU radiation limits, not to hit a level where you're at risk. This also doesn't include that you'll heal over that period. The problem here is that if you're eating this much pork every day you're going to be at far higher health risks for heart disease than radiation sickness. Recommended is not more than 50g/day or 0.05kg/0.11lbs. For reference, Germans eat about 55kg of meat a year, so you'd be eating 220x the average German if you had a craving for the most radioactive boar and ate it exclusively. Germans used to eat more meat, and especially pork, and these stories have just done wild damage to the population. Especially because farm pigs aren't affected. But a side benefit is that less Germans are dying of heart disease, so I guess that's nice.
As for the forest, you may notice if you google it you'll see this story limited to 2014 and maybe a BBC article from 2019 as a result of the HBO series. [0] You may be interested to know that wildlife flourishes in Chernobyl and this is almost an accidental nature preserve. Life is shorter, yes, but life is flourishing and wildlife populations are far higher now than they were prior to the disaster. Population levels are similar to uncontaminated regions. It is really a fascinating area to understand from a biological perspective (same with Fukushima, which has similar results). When you dig into these they really challenge your preconceived notions of radiation damage. There is danger, don't get me wrong, and I don't think people should go inhabit these places just yet. But neither are these places dying. They're more like the post-apocalyptic movie scenes where animals and plants take over. There's far more nuance and interesting things happening in these regions and I wish we'd discuss these from a more holistic perspective.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190701-why-plants-survi...
This really needs to stop. I remember doing the calculation a few years back due to another HN post (and the German obsession around boar) and you'd need to eat roughly 0.55lbs (0.25kg) of the most radioactive boar you could find every day or 3lbs (1.4kg) of the median. That is to just hit EU radiation limits, not to hit a level where you're at risk. This also doesn't include that you'll heal over that period. The problem here is that if you're eating this much pork every day you're going to be at far higher health risks for heart disease than radiation sickness. Recommended is not more than 50g/day or 0.05kg/0.11lbs. For reference, Germans eat about 55kg of meat a year, so you'd be eating 220x the average German if you had a craving for the most radioactive boar and ate it exclusively. Germans used to eat more meat, and especially pork, and these stories have just done wild damage to the population. Especially because farm pigs aren't affected. But a side benefit is that less Germans are dying of heart disease, so I guess that's nice.
As for the forest, you may notice if you google it you'll see this story limited to 2014 and maybe a BBC article from 2019 as a result of the HBO series. [0] You may be interested to know that wildlife flourishes in Chernobyl and this is almost an accidental nature preserve. Life is shorter, yes, but life is flourishing and wildlife populations are far higher now than they were prior to the disaster. Population levels are similar to uncontaminated regions. It is really a fascinating area to understand from a biological perspective (same with Fukushima, which has similar results). When you dig into these they really challenge your preconceived notions of radiation damage. There is danger, don't get me wrong, and I don't think people should go inhabit these places just yet. But neither are these places dying. They're more like the post-apocalyptic movie scenes where animals and plants take over. There's far more nuance and interesting things happening in these regions and I wish we'd discuss these from a more holistic perspective.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190701-why-plants-survi...
That might be an argument humans aren't endangered by contaminated boar, but is not an argument that the ecosystem isn't threatened. Presumably predators and scavengers are eating a significant amount of boar and other contaminated meat relative to their body weight.
If you read the second paragraph, this is addressed. If you follow the links in the BBC article you'll find data on the wildlife. The only thing abnormal about population sizes in the area is that there are a larger number of wolves than compared to non-contaminated regions. But we also need to consider that due to the size of this area, that it in essence is akin to the largest nature preserve and has far fewer human visitors. Probably important to remember that humans are a big reason for the decrease in wolf populations in most regions.
Fwiw, I did mention that the animal lives are possibly lower quality and definitely shorter lived. So I'm not quite sure what you're rebutting from my comment. It appears that you're just rephrasing part of it but without any source and clear suppositions from a misunderstanding of the data in the first paragraph I wrote.
Fwiw, I did mention that the animal lives are possibly lower quality and definitely shorter lived. So I'm not quite sure what you're rebutting from my comment. It appears that you're just rephrasing part of it but without any source and clear suppositions from a misunderstanding of the data in the first paragraph I wrote.
Your claim is that bioaccumulation is not a problem because a.) It has not reached a level dangerous to humans (through direct consumption) and b.) Life is thriving in Pripyat. a.) is orthogonal, and b.) is encouraging but doesn't establish that there _isn't_ a problem here.
Mostly what I take issue to is that you're saying people need to stop being concerned about something, but the reasons you gave didn't really support that conclusion. I dunno if there's a problem here or not really, but I don't think we should dismiss it in this manner. It's sort of like the inverse of fear mongering, though fear mongering is probably more dangerous, so I only mean that directionally and not proportionally (eg I don't take issue nearly as strongly as I would a fear mongering comment, I think your comment is largely fine, but that's what I find objectionable).
Mostly what I take issue to is that you're saying people need to stop being concerned about something, but the reasons you gave didn't really support that conclusion. I dunno if there's a problem here or not really, but I don't think we should dismiss it in this manner. It's sort of like the inverse of fear mongering, though fear mongering is probably more dangerous, so I only mean that directionally and not proportionally (eg I don't take issue nearly as strongly as I would a fear mongering comment, I think your comment is largely fine, but that's what I find objectionable).
If bioaccumulation hasn't posed a problem yet, it doesn't seem to be too much of a concern.
The dose rate near Chernobyl has fallen 2 orders of magnitude. Further, now the vast majority of the activity is Cs-137, which is excreted pretty quickly. Further, the waste is getting buried and further removed from the food chain (though Russia recently stirred up soil there, which isn't ideal).
The dose rate near Chernobyl has fallen 2 orders of magnitude. Further, now the vast majority of the activity is Cs-137, which is excreted pretty quickly. Further, the waste is getting buried and further removed from the food chain (though Russia recently stirred up soil there, which isn't ideal).
> Your claim is that bioaccumulation is not a problem because
We have decades of living with the results (event was 1986), decades of scientific research (not just reactors, but medicine and space), and high political motivation to demonstrate harm (as it shows the failure of the USSR and communism). That in all this time and with all this money and motivation, we have not gathered data that conclusively says that the bioaccumulation is a problem. That is the basis of my claim: almost 40 years of analysis of the exact event and 80 years of health physics (the study of radiation on humans).
Mostly what I take issue to is that you're saying science doesn't matter. At least this is how it comes off. I actually agree that point a and b are orthogonal. The second paragraph is written to address a second point. I have a complaint about a common false fear mongering claim by the article and I also add some information that is about the article's main topic. They don't become a singular argument due to proximity. Paragraph 2's only mention of humans is that they probably shouldn't live there, which is difficult to confuse with "it is safe to live in Chernobyl because bavarian boar, hunted a thousand kilometers away, is safe to eat despite their radiation levels." Forgive me, but it is difficult to not feel frustrated and interpret you as not actually reading what I wrote. Definitely not in good faith.
We have decades of living with the results (event was 1986), decades of scientific research (not just reactors, but medicine and space), and high political motivation to demonstrate harm (as it shows the failure of the USSR and communism). That in all this time and with all this money and motivation, we have not gathered data that conclusively says that the bioaccumulation is a problem. That is the basis of my claim: almost 40 years of analysis of the exact event and 80 years of health physics (the study of radiation on humans).
Mostly what I take issue to is that you're saying science doesn't matter. At least this is how it comes off. I actually agree that point a and b are orthogonal. The second paragraph is written to address a second point. I have a complaint about a common false fear mongering claim by the article and I also add some information that is about the article's main topic. They don't become a singular argument due to proximity. Paragraph 2's only mention of humans is that they probably shouldn't live there, which is difficult to confuse with "it is safe to live in Chernobyl because bavarian boar, hunted a thousand kilometers away, is safe to eat despite their radiation levels." Forgive me, but it is difficult to not feel frustrated and interpret you as not actually reading what I wrote. Definitely not in good faith.
ETA: Looking around the thread a bit, I'm wondering if maybe you're experiencing something I've experienced on this site, where a thread gets really big and some of the people are rude and genuinely in bad faith, and it all becomes so frustrating and overwhelming that it blends together and you can't tell who is just disagreeing with you and who has arbitrarily decided you're everything that's wrong with the world and it's okay to treat you like a punching bag?
I have nothing but sympathy for that, it's bullshit. And if I had any role in causing it to happen by being the first person to reply to you, I apologize. All I have to say on it, and this is from a place of being a hypocrite who struggles with this myself, is that he who fights monsters must take care he does not become one - don't let the internet poison your ideas about how conversation works, and put you on the defensive in every interaction. It's so difficult to find common ground and explore disagreement from that position.
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Sorry it's taken me a while to respond, I got busy.
I think you should recalibrate your sense of what it means for something to be in good or bad faith. You deemed both of the subthreads[1] here to be bad faith, but in my reading, neither of them are. The other subthread was snarky, which is different from being in bad faith.
If you don't feel I read you as closely as I should have it wasn't sufficiently respectful, I can understand that being frustrating, but that isn't actually what bad faith is - I didn't misrepresent your views or the facts, I didn't employ manipulative language or sophistry to try and trap you in a rhetorical cage, et cetera.
If you don't feel sufficiently respected, well, you don't owe us anything, you don't have to engage, but throwing around accusations of bad faith because you don't feel like people are reading you closely enough is - well, not great faith.
What I took issue with is you closing the book on something and telling people the debate was over, not even because you had new evidence but because you didn't personally feel moved by the evidence. It's kinda rich for you to then lecture me about being unscientific.
My contributions to science have thus far been negligible (the company I was going to continue my lab tech career with froze hiring during the pandemic, so I had to change lanes to software engineering, c'est la vie), but when I was a lab technician, I actively practiced being comfortable with ambiguity, acknowledging what I do and don't know, and separating observation from interpretation. If I had told my PI that we didn't need to look into boars for the reasons you gave, I would have gotten clowned on.
That's not to say every discussion needs to be scientifically rigorous (I consider myself an empiricist but not a scientist because I don't regular use the scientific method, I operate with a fairly loose level of rigor as software engineer), but I rolled my eyes pretty hard when you tried to come at me for being unscientific.
[1] Oh boy, this thread got a lot bigger. I meant this one. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36205287
I have nothing but sympathy for that, it's bullshit. And if I had any role in causing it to happen by being the first person to reply to you, I apologize. All I have to say on it, and this is from a place of being a hypocrite who struggles with this myself, is that he who fights monsters must take care he does not become one - don't let the internet poison your ideas about how conversation works, and put you on the defensive in every interaction. It's so difficult to find common ground and explore disagreement from that position.
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Sorry it's taken me a while to respond, I got busy.
I think you should recalibrate your sense of what it means for something to be in good or bad faith. You deemed both of the subthreads[1] here to be bad faith, but in my reading, neither of them are. The other subthread was snarky, which is different from being in bad faith.
If you don't feel I read you as closely as I should have it wasn't sufficiently respectful, I can understand that being frustrating, but that isn't actually what bad faith is - I didn't misrepresent your views or the facts, I didn't employ manipulative language or sophistry to try and trap you in a rhetorical cage, et cetera.
If you don't feel sufficiently respected, well, you don't owe us anything, you don't have to engage, but throwing around accusations of bad faith because you don't feel like people are reading you closely enough is - well, not great faith.
What I took issue with is you closing the book on something and telling people the debate was over, not even because you had new evidence but because you didn't personally feel moved by the evidence. It's kinda rich for you to then lecture me about being unscientific.
My contributions to science have thus far been negligible (the company I was going to continue my lab tech career with froze hiring during the pandemic, so I had to change lanes to software engineering, c'est la vie), but when I was a lab technician, I actively practiced being comfortable with ambiguity, acknowledging what I do and don't know, and separating observation from interpretation. If I had told my PI that we didn't need to look into boars for the reasons you gave, I would have gotten clowned on.
That's not to say every discussion needs to be scientifically rigorous (I consider myself an empiricist but not a scientist because I don't regular use the scientific method, I operate with a fairly loose level of rigor as software engineer), but I rolled my eyes pretty hard when you tried to come at me for being unscientific.
[1] Oh boy, this thread got a lot bigger. I meant this one. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36205287
> ETA: ... treat you like a punching bag?
This is definitely something I picked up on and did apologize in one case where I realized there was a clear disconnect. I find that this is extremely common on the internet and it often just pushes me to stop talking (but some days I'm pulled back into the old addiction).
I'll also say that this comment has made me gain a lot of respect to you. And I must also apologize to you for being antagonistic and escalating it. You're not alone in that struggle. I do think it has become the norm of internet discussions and that at times we need to take a step back and "reset". I really do appreciate that you have taken the initiative to do so.
Maybe I can suggest a strategy I try (but clearly am not consistent in implementing). If I'm adding something to someone's comment (additional information instead of rebutting) I try to make the first line of the comment indicate this or have a positive response like "Good point! In addition..." Sometimes I find agreeing comments turn to fights. Easier to see as a third party. I also try to internalize that the way language works is: there's what one intends to say (what's in their head), what is said (how that thought is lossy encoded into speech), and what is heard (what is lossy decoded into listener's head). We all need to try to do a better job at trying to hear what the other person is trying to say, rather than what is said. But emotions get the best of us and our lazy/lossy decoders fill in a lot of info that may not be intended.
The best strategy I found is to just log off. But considering your comment, I'm going to respond and I'll do so in detail. And if you got other strategies I'm also open. It is a learning process
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> Bad faith
I think this has to do with our decoders. It also seems that we have different definitions for bad faith. Snarky would be included in mine as the setting is about discussion accurate information rather than the joking that may happen when sitting around with friends having beers or whatever. Additionally, self-deception is included in my definition, and one does not need to intentionally misrepresent an argument or do an active form of deception. An example of this is actually all too common on the internet (and especially around discussions of nuclear technologies) is to argue strongly about an area one has little to no domain expertise in. This is common on the internet as many do watch educational videos that give a high level overview of a subject (often with bad information) and the viewer convinces themselves (self-deception) that they are qualified to expertly educate others on this subject matter (fwiw, I should mention that I have a degree in physics and have directly worked on nuclear shielding technologies and have extensive experience with radiation simulating, Both physical and computational). Another common one is the "just asking questions" version, which is just sealioning. It is hard to tell if this is used intentionally to cause disruption/confusion (e.g. Koch brothers on Global Warming) or innocent. Regardless, it does have the same result. I want to point this out because considering our above dash discussion, we should recognize that a lot of internet speech looks like we've just normalized behavior out of the CIA's disruption manual [0,1]. I do think a lot of bad faith conversations have been normalized and we do it unintentionally (myself included).
> ... closing the book ... didn't personally feel moved by the evidence
It is not that, it is that bio-accumulation was already considered. The boar are accumulating Cesium-137, typically through the ingestion of mushrooms, which grab it from the soil. Biological half-life (how long for half to be expelled from the body) is 70 days[2]. The reason this was not directly discussed is that there was already a large margin of safety in place and that this does not disrupt the thesis of my argument: You have to eat so much red meat that you'd be at a high risk of adverse health effects (heart attack, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer) before you reach a level where you should be concerned with the effects of radiation. The radiation target used was the EU guidelines for yearly protracted dosages (20mSv/yr) which already has a built in margin of safety as we typically don't see measurable increases of lifetime cancer risk until at least double that (and a low risk at that level). The frustration with many of those that responded to me is that one side of this argument was clearly ignored: the meat consumption. We are talking about health risks after all. If I said that the drinking water is poisonous, but did not note that you had to consume 100 liters in a single sitting, you would have every right to call me out and mock me as water toxicity kicks in at 6 liters. You would die from the water consumption long before you'd die of the poison. Your PI should clown on you if you did this. This is what I am doing with the boar narrative, it is the same scenario. You'll notice that every story that reports these boars state that they are over the legal limit and not a safe limit. The legal limit varies drastically by region. The EU has 600Bq/kg, Japan with 1kBq/kg, and Australia with 100Bq/kg. All three of these regions have radioactive boar btw. A 200Bq/kg boar in Australia is not more dangerous than a 200Bq/kg boar in Germany.
Similarly, bio-accumulation can happen with that poisonous water but we need to consider that the water is both difficult to obtain (it would be difficult to have an exclusive diet of wild board; radioactive or not) and that your body rids itself of poison (meaning that differential matters). I purposefully placed exceptionally large safety margins on the calculation (normal for radiation safety btw) as a means to simplify the argument (like you said, not everything has to be rigorous science) and even account for a wide variety of factors that would happen in real life (such as variance between boar, intravariance between cuts, and even factors like differing background radiation. The eater might be a Concord pilot). I would not expect someone with expertise in radiation safety (which there are plenty of HN users that are) to take issue with my claim.
I'm not sure what science you do, what is it? I'm assuming it doesn't have to do with particle physics?
[0] https://www.authenticcomms.co.uk/blog/the-1944-cia-guide-to-...
[1] https://www.hsdl.org/c/abstract/?docid=750070
[2] https://dec.alaska.gov/eh/radiation/half-lives-explained/
This is definitely something I picked up on and did apologize in one case where I realized there was a clear disconnect. I find that this is extremely common on the internet and it often just pushes me to stop talking (but some days I'm pulled back into the old addiction).
I'll also say that this comment has made me gain a lot of respect to you. And I must also apologize to you for being antagonistic and escalating it. You're not alone in that struggle. I do think it has become the norm of internet discussions and that at times we need to take a step back and "reset". I really do appreciate that you have taken the initiative to do so.
Maybe I can suggest a strategy I try (but clearly am not consistent in implementing). If I'm adding something to someone's comment (additional information instead of rebutting) I try to make the first line of the comment indicate this or have a positive response like "Good point! In addition..." Sometimes I find agreeing comments turn to fights. Easier to see as a third party. I also try to internalize that the way language works is: there's what one intends to say (what's in their head), what is said (how that thought is lossy encoded into speech), and what is heard (what is lossy decoded into listener's head). We all need to try to do a better job at trying to hear what the other person is trying to say, rather than what is said. But emotions get the best of us and our lazy/lossy decoders fill in a lot of info that may not be intended.
The best strategy I found is to just log off. But considering your comment, I'm going to respond and I'll do so in detail. And if you got other strategies I'm also open. It is a learning process
--
> Bad faith
I think this has to do with our decoders. It also seems that we have different definitions for bad faith. Snarky would be included in mine as the setting is about discussion accurate information rather than the joking that may happen when sitting around with friends having beers or whatever. Additionally, self-deception is included in my definition, and one does not need to intentionally misrepresent an argument or do an active form of deception. An example of this is actually all too common on the internet (and especially around discussions of nuclear technologies) is to argue strongly about an area one has little to no domain expertise in. This is common on the internet as many do watch educational videos that give a high level overview of a subject (often with bad information) and the viewer convinces themselves (self-deception) that they are qualified to expertly educate others on this subject matter (fwiw, I should mention that I have a degree in physics and have directly worked on nuclear shielding technologies and have extensive experience with radiation simulating, Both physical and computational). Another common one is the "just asking questions" version, which is just sealioning. It is hard to tell if this is used intentionally to cause disruption/confusion (e.g. Koch brothers on Global Warming) or innocent. Regardless, it does have the same result. I want to point this out because considering our above dash discussion, we should recognize that a lot of internet speech looks like we've just normalized behavior out of the CIA's disruption manual [0,1]. I do think a lot of bad faith conversations have been normalized and we do it unintentionally (myself included).
> ... closing the book ... didn't personally feel moved by the evidence
It is not that, it is that bio-accumulation was already considered. The boar are accumulating Cesium-137, typically through the ingestion of mushrooms, which grab it from the soil. Biological half-life (how long for half to be expelled from the body) is 70 days[2]. The reason this was not directly discussed is that there was already a large margin of safety in place and that this does not disrupt the thesis of my argument: You have to eat so much red meat that you'd be at a high risk of adverse health effects (heart attack, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer) before you reach a level where you should be concerned with the effects of radiation. The radiation target used was the EU guidelines for yearly protracted dosages (20mSv/yr) which already has a built in margin of safety as we typically don't see measurable increases of lifetime cancer risk until at least double that (and a low risk at that level). The frustration with many of those that responded to me is that one side of this argument was clearly ignored: the meat consumption. We are talking about health risks after all. If I said that the drinking water is poisonous, but did not note that you had to consume 100 liters in a single sitting, you would have every right to call me out and mock me as water toxicity kicks in at 6 liters. You would die from the water consumption long before you'd die of the poison. Your PI should clown on you if you did this. This is what I am doing with the boar narrative, it is the same scenario. You'll notice that every story that reports these boars state that they are over the legal limit and not a safe limit. The legal limit varies drastically by region. The EU has 600Bq/kg, Japan with 1kBq/kg, and Australia with 100Bq/kg. All three of these regions have radioactive boar btw. A 200Bq/kg boar in Australia is not more dangerous than a 200Bq/kg boar in Germany.
Similarly, bio-accumulation can happen with that poisonous water but we need to consider that the water is both difficult to obtain (it would be difficult to have an exclusive diet of wild board; radioactive or not) and that your body rids itself of poison (meaning that differential matters). I purposefully placed exceptionally large safety margins on the calculation (normal for radiation safety btw) as a means to simplify the argument (like you said, not everything has to be rigorous science) and even account for a wide variety of factors that would happen in real life (such as variance between boar, intravariance between cuts, and even factors like differing background radiation. The eater might be a Concord pilot). I would not expect someone with expertise in radiation safety (which there are plenty of HN users that are) to take issue with my claim.
I'm not sure what science you do, what is it? I'm assuming it doesn't have to do with particle physics?
[0] https://www.authenticcomms.co.uk/blog/the-1944-cia-guide-to-...
[1] https://www.hsdl.org/c/abstract/?docid=750070
[2] https://dec.alaska.gov/eh/radiation/half-lives-explained/
Thank you for this response and for the advice. I really appreciate both. It's very difficult to keep faith in the discourse, and when we win little victories over our own worse natures together it helps a lot. And I genuinely appreciate the advice.
I don't want to take the time to respond in depth now (I will try to later), but just to answer your direct question, I studied and worked with algae, and in particular it's use in the remediation of water contaminated by uranium mining via bioaccumulation. I didn't bring this up to establish my credentials because I don't feel I'm any more qualified on this subject than a stranger on the internet with an interest in it (remember, I was a technician, I didn't get a bachelor's in biochemistry or anything like that), and I wasn't interested in anything bigger than a pillbug (let alone a boar), but there you go.
(I'm worried this will come off like a "gotcha": I don't mean it or see it that way, like I said, my experience is not definitive, I just want to answer since it's a direct question and think it's ha-ha funny not point-and-laugh funny.)
ETA: And if I'm perfectly honest, I too have become defensive and anticipate a high rate of discussions going poorly, and contribute to this self fulfilling prophecy. My language also raised the temperature needlessly, but more to the point, I didn't present this as a credential because I didn't have the emotional energy to defend it. It wasn't so long ago but feels like a lifetime, and it's taxing to reexamine the plans and passions that hit the cutting room floor one faithful day in March of 2020.
And that's why it stuck in my craw when you said I acted as of science didn't matter, because it cast a stone towards a place of nostalgia. And I overreacted and was pretty snarky in response, which is my bad.
I don't want to take the time to respond in depth now (I will try to later), but just to answer your direct question, I studied and worked with algae, and in particular it's use in the remediation of water contaminated by uranium mining via bioaccumulation. I didn't bring this up to establish my credentials because I don't feel I'm any more qualified on this subject than a stranger on the internet with an interest in it (remember, I was a technician, I didn't get a bachelor's in biochemistry or anything like that), and I wasn't interested in anything bigger than a pillbug (let alone a boar), but there you go.
(I'm worried this will come off like a "gotcha": I don't mean it or see it that way, like I said, my experience is not definitive, I just want to answer since it's a direct question and think it's ha-ha funny not point-and-laugh funny.)
ETA: And if I'm perfectly honest, I too have become defensive and anticipate a high rate of discussions going poorly, and contribute to this self fulfilling prophecy. My language also raised the temperature needlessly, but more to the point, I didn't present this as a credential because I didn't have the emotional energy to defend it. It wasn't so long ago but feels like a lifetime, and it's taxing to reexamine the plans and passions that hit the cutting room floor one faithful day in March of 2020.
And that's why it stuck in my craw when you said I acted as of science didn't matter, because it cast a stone towards a place of nostalgia. And I overreacted and was pretty snarky in response, which is my bad.
Oh that definitely makes sense as to why this specific thing was brought up. To me it felt out of nowhere and reaching. This makes a ton more sense now and I can definitely see how your comment reads differently once I rebase myself. A lot of my frustration really has been about how people responding are ignoring the quantities of meat that need to be ingested.
I tend to not bring up my credentials because I feel like that shouldn't matter to the discussion. Plus, a lot of people have experience without credentials and I don't want to rub that in their face and argue from a place of authority. Just leads to credential bashing. One thing I would like to add about science, though, is that it is important to challenge the status quo. This is part of why I don't want credentials being at the forefront. Challenging should be encouraged. Of course, there's a right way and wrong way to do this. You have to do science and come up with a hypothesis/answer that has better explainability than the current consensus answer (if one exists). It is honestly one of the best learning tools you have. Every grad student spends a significant amount of time trying to reproduce works, as this is a way to learn. Either you verify the result (which is an unappreciated science win that we need more of) or you got a great new research direction (I'm no longer in physics). Many spend far too much time spinning their wheels as they fail to reproduce the results but are too self-critical to think that they might be right and the original work is wrong. It is an extremely important process and does teach you how to differentiate good works from bad works.
I figure you may be interested in some studies. I'd also encourage you to search some too. But you may find that there is far more work on tracing the radioactivity in the boar and other wildlife and far less on the actual health effects to the animals or populations. Again, we're pinned to government defined safety levels rather than risk of cancer[note]:
- Radiocesium accumulation and germline mutations in chronically exposed wild boar from Fukushima, with radiation doses to human consumers of contaminated meat[0]
> Hypothetical consumption of contaminated wild boar meat from radioactively contaminated areas in Fukushima, at the per capita pork consumption rate (12.9 kg y^−1), would result in an average effective annual dose of 0.9 mSv y^−1, which is below the annual ingestion limit of 1 mSv y^−1. Additionally, a consumption rate of about 1.4 kg y^−1 of the most contaminated meat in this study would not exceed annual ingestion limits.
This paper makes very similar conclusions as I do, just through a different point of view. They calculated dosage by predicting the consumption whereas I sought to find the amount you'd need to eat to reach the limit. But two things to note: first, the Japanese public dosage limit is much lower than that in the EU (1mSv/yr vs 20mSv/yr), and second, the dosage limit decreased post Fukushima[1]
- Evaluation of DNA damage and stress in wildlife chronically exposed to low-dose, low-dose rate radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident[2]
Paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34120002/
> Our results suggest that wild boar and snakes chronically exposed to LD-LDR radiation sufficient to prohibit human occupancy were not experiencing significant adverse health effects as assessed by biomarkers of DNA damage and stress.
- Exemplifying the “wild boar paradox”: dynamics of cesium-137 contaminations in wild boars in Germany and Japan[3]
Linking this one because there is a weird phenomena to be aware of (I just learned this too! I knew of a difference but not that it was almost 3x)
> The effective half-life of 137Cs in wild boar meat was much longer in Germany (7.3 y) than in Japan (2.6 y), respectively.
[note] A big reason for excessive safety factors is that you want to account for vulnerable people. This can be pregnant women, children, babies being breast fed, or even people with disabilities. My analysis and [0] account for this in one way, but not in a different. Nuance matters and shit is complicated. But here's some background.
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026974912...
[1] https://www.env.go.jp/en/chemi/rhm/basic-info/1st/pdf/basic-...
[2] https://cvmbs.source.colostate.edu/researchers-find-few-adve...
[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10967-022-08528-2
I tend to not bring up my credentials because I feel like that shouldn't matter to the discussion. Plus, a lot of people have experience without credentials and I don't want to rub that in their face and argue from a place of authority. Just leads to credential bashing. One thing I would like to add about science, though, is that it is important to challenge the status quo. This is part of why I don't want credentials being at the forefront. Challenging should be encouraged. Of course, there's a right way and wrong way to do this. You have to do science and come up with a hypothesis/answer that has better explainability than the current consensus answer (if one exists). It is honestly one of the best learning tools you have. Every grad student spends a significant amount of time trying to reproduce works, as this is a way to learn. Either you verify the result (which is an unappreciated science win that we need more of) or you got a great new research direction (I'm no longer in physics). Many spend far too much time spinning their wheels as they fail to reproduce the results but are too self-critical to think that they might be right and the original work is wrong. It is an extremely important process and does teach you how to differentiate good works from bad works.
I figure you may be interested in some studies. I'd also encourage you to search some too. But you may find that there is far more work on tracing the radioactivity in the boar and other wildlife and far less on the actual health effects to the animals or populations. Again, we're pinned to government defined safety levels rather than risk of cancer[note]:
- Radiocesium accumulation and germline mutations in chronically exposed wild boar from Fukushima, with radiation doses to human consumers of contaminated meat[0]
> Hypothetical consumption of contaminated wild boar meat from radioactively contaminated areas in Fukushima, at the per capita pork consumption rate (12.9 kg y^−1), would result in an average effective annual dose of 0.9 mSv y^−1, which is below the annual ingestion limit of 1 mSv y^−1. Additionally, a consumption rate of about 1.4 kg y^−1 of the most contaminated meat in this study would not exceed annual ingestion limits.
This paper makes very similar conclusions as I do, just through a different point of view. They calculated dosage by predicting the consumption whereas I sought to find the amount you'd need to eat to reach the limit. But two things to note: first, the Japanese public dosage limit is much lower than that in the EU (1mSv/yr vs 20mSv/yr), and second, the dosage limit decreased post Fukushima[1]
- Evaluation of DNA damage and stress in wildlife chronically exposed to low-dose, low-dose rate radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident[2]
Paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34120002/
> Our results suggest that wild boar and snakes chronically exposed to LD-LDR radiation sufficient to prohibit human occupancy were not experiencing significant adverse health effects as assessed by biomarkers of DNA damage and stress.
- Exemplifying the “wild boar paradox”: dynamics of cesium-137 contaminations in wild boars in Germany and Japan[3]
Linking this one because there is a weird phenomena to be aware of (I just learned this too! I knew of a difference but not that it was almost 3x)
> The effective half-life of 137Cs in wild boar meat was much longer in Germany (7.3 y) than in Japan (2.6 y), respectively.
[note] A big reason for excessive safety factors is that you want to account for vulnerable people. This can be pregnant women, children, babies being breast fed, or even people with disabilities. My analysis and [0] account for this in one way, but not in a different. Nuance matters and shit is complicated. But here's some background.
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026974912...
[1] https://www.env.go.jp/en/chemi/rhm/basic-info/1st/pdf/basic-...
[2] https://cvmbs.source.colostate.edu/researchers-find-few-adve...
[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10967-022-08528-2
You have the political thing backwards. In fact, everybody, from the Soviets over IAEA to European governments did everything they could to down play the impact. Measures covered things like not following up the health of liquidators, nor asking for it. Excluding radiation related health issues from work sicknisses and injuries. Publicly drinking potentially contaminated water on live TV to shownit is save after the public raised concerns. Murking the waters around cancer rate research. The list is incredibly long.
The only party that did push against Nuclear were the Greens. And it took them over 20 years to finally get a nuclear exit through in Germany.
And as far as thresholds are concerned: we have those for everything, from lead to small dust. Being above it doesn't outright kill people, but it defenitely doesn't improve longterm health. And yes, Bavarian boar has a tendency, in some regions, to be above radiation thresholds. That can be dorectly traced back to Chernobyl. You are trying to deny that by attacking the validity of those thresholds, thresholds that are coming from a ruling party in Bavaria that is in power sonce the 50s, is as pro-nuclear power as they come. I call that a straw man argument if there ever was one.
What that means for the safety of the exclusive zone is a different stroy, isn't it?
And no, as pointed out above, the health impact of Chernobyl, on everyone from Minsk and Pripyat to the liquidators and half of Western Europe was never really studied.
The only party that did push against Nuclear were the Greens. And it took them over 20 years to finally get a nuclear exit through in Germany.
And as far as thresholds are concerned: we have those for everything, from lead to small dust. Being above it doesn't outright kill people, but it defenitely doesn't improve longterm health. And yes, Bavarian boar has a tendency, in some regions, to be above radiation thresholds. That can be dorectly traced back to Chernobyl. You are trying to deny that by attacking the validity of those thresholds, thresholds that are coming from a ruling party in Bavaria that is in power sonce the 50s, is as pro-nuclear power as they come. I call that a straw man argument if there ever was one.
What that means for the safety of the exclusive zone is a different stroy, isn't it?
And no, as pointed out above, the health impact of Chernobyl, on everyone from Minsk and Pripyat to the liquidators and half of Western Europe was never really studied.
This doesn't appear to be accurate unless you're talking about East Germany[0]. In west Germany citizens were told to stay inside, not drink milk, and not eat mushrooms. Many articles are written each year on the "dangers" of eating mushrooms in Germany, due to radiation, such that just googling "German mushrooms" will turn up results about radiation. This is strong evidence counter to downplaying the event. Such obsession wouldn't exist if that were the case and we wouldn't even be having these discussions if this was true. I'd never have to write a comment about how 600Bq Bavarian boar pose a multiple magnitude higher risk of heart disease than radiation sickness.
We can dig up hundreds of articles from the late 80's and early 90's of Germany being concerned with the radiation of Chernobyl. The articles are still being written to this day.
> And yes, Bavarian boar has a tendency, in some regions, to be above radiation thresholds
And you'll find that my calculation is based on the most radioactive boar found, which was about 4x higher than the median. Don't change my argument. We were dealing with the worst case scenario, not the average, not the best, but the worst. Nor am I denying that boar surpass thresholds. Who made such a claim? I sure didn't. I only wrote about the dosage you'd get and how much you'd have to eat to achieve the EU public dosage limit (20mSv/yr), which itself is well below the measurable threshold for developing cancer within your lifetime. That is purposefully set with margins of safety. Just like my argument is that no reasonable person is going to consume that much radioactive boar meat and if somehow they did, radiation is far from their biggest concern.
Your heart will explode before you can eat the most radioactive bavarian boar money can buy. That's all I said, don't put words in my mouth. I find it incredibly offensive that you so blatantly misconstrue my argument and with absolutely no shame.
[0] https://www.dw.com/en/east-west-germany-dealt-differently-wi...
We can dig up hundreds of articles from the late 80's and early 90's of Germany being concerned with the radiation of Chernobyl. The articles are still being written to this day.
> And yes, Bavarian boar has a tendency, in some regions, to be above radiation thresholds
And you'll find that my calculation is based on the most radioactive boar found, which was about 4x higher than the median. Don't change my argument. We were dealing with the worst case scenario, not the average, not the best, but the worst. Nor am I denying that boar surpass thresholds. Who made such a claim? I sure didn't. I only wrote about the dosage you'd get and how much you'd have to eat to achieve the EU public dosage limit (20mSv/yr), which itself is well below the measurable threshold for developing cancer within your lifetime. That is purposefully set with margins of safety. Just like my argument is that no reasonable person is going to consume that much radioactive boar meat and if somehow they did, radiation is far from their biggest concern.
Your heart will explode before you can eat the most radioactive bavarian boar money can buy. That's all I said, don't put words in my mouth. I find it incredibly offensive that you so blatantly misconstrue my argument and with absolutely no shame.
[0] https://www.dw.com/en/east-west-germany-dealt-differently-wi...
Yeah, all true about West Germany. In the immediate aftermaths. And then you had whole trains of Ukrainian milk powder "vanishing" before analysis cpuld be done. You had said French politian drinking water on live TV. You had the Swedes, the first realizing something bad happened, waiting to anounce it just to be sure it wasn't them.
Long term, everybody silently agreed to just not look too closely anymore. And blame it all on bad Soviet tech. Until Fukushima happened, that was when things really changed across the political spectrum in Germany, other countries either stucknwith nuclear anyway (France), never got into it (Austria) or had a far easier time getting out of it.
Long term, everybody silently agreed to just not look too closely anymore. And blame it all on bad Soviet tech. Until Fukushima happened, that was when things really changed across the political spectrum in Germany, other countries either stucknwith nuclear anyway (France), never got into it (Austria) or had a far easier time getting out of it.
I just had an exchange with a local hunter who claims that 60% of the shot boars are discarded and deposited for being over the radiation limits for food. If you feel happy eating them, please contact some Bavarian hunters to get some cheap meat.
I need to clarify, the calculations I used are based on 2,857 Bq/kg. The threshold for Germany is 600 Bq/kg. I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised that the German government sets high levels of safety. Japan put limits as 100 Bq/kg. The limits don't change the danger levels.
Here's a study you may be interested in[0]
> The minimum and maximum radiocesium concentrations were 87.1 Bq/kg FM and 8,120 Bq/kg FM, respectively, with a median concentration of 450 Bq/kg
> If the residents consume the wild boar meat as a meat source once, the median committed effective dose was in the range of 0.062 to 0.30 μSv/day, with a maximum value of 5.4 μSv/day. In Japan, the natural effective dose from food ingestion was estimated to be 99 µSv/y, which was 0.27 µSv/day
> The committed effective dose for one-time ingestion of wild boar meat could be considered extremely low for residents in Tomioka.
You can use this information to calculate risk. Let's combine based on these numbers instead of mine. EU dosage limit = 20mSv/yr. We'll subtract 2.1mSv for average German dosage[1], leaving us 17.9. Taking the higher dosage from this study (13.5x German thresholds) giving us 3314.8 "meat sources" to reach the limit (defined at the bottom by median pork consumption, maximum ~50g/day). Let's then say they eat 3 servings per meal, eat 3 meals a day, and do so for an entire year. Their dosage will be 19.84mSv/yr (17.739 from the 8,120 Bq/kg boar). Your relative increase in lifetime chance of cancer at 20mSv protracted radiation exposure is approximately 0%. It is approximately 0% even at 40mSv protracted. Your risk of getting cancer due to eating that much meat is well above 0, since a single source here is roughly 50g (the recommended limit for daily consumption of red meat) and you're eating 9x that (450g/day). Your risk of cardiovascular issues are even higher.
Were I to live in Germany, I'd appreciate the cheap pork.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7283223/
[1] https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/natural-radiati...
Here's a study you may be interested in[0]
> The minimum and maximum radiocesium concentrations were 87.1 Bq/kg FM and 8,120 Bq/kg FM, respectively, with a median concentration of 450 Bq/kg
> If the residents consume the wild boar meat as a meat source once, the median committed effective dose was in the range of 0.062 to 0.30 μSv/day, with a maximum value of 5.4 μSv/day. In Japan, the natural effective dose from food ingestion was estimated to be 99 µSv/y, which was 0.27 µSv/day
> The committed effective dose for one-time ingestion of wild boar meat could be considered extremely low for residents in Tomioka.
You can use this information to calculate risk. Let's combine based on these numbers instead of mine. EU dosage limit = 20mSv/yr. We'll subtract 2.1mSv for average German dosage[1], leaving us 17.9. Taking the higher dosage from this study (13.5x German thresholds) giving us 3314.8 "meat sources" to reach the limit (defined at the bottom by median pork consumption, maximum ~50g/day). Let's then say they eat 3 servings per meal, eat 3 meals a day, and do so for an entire year. Their dosage will be 19.84mSv/yr (17.739 from the 8,120 Bq/kg boar). Your relative increase in lifetime chance of cancer at 20mSv protracted radiation exposure is approximately 0%. It is approximately 0% even at 40mSv protracted. Your risk of getting cancer due to eating that much meat is well above 0, since a single source here is roughly 50g (the recommended limit for daily consumption of red meat) and you're eating 9x that (450g/day). Your risk of cardiovascular issues are even higher.
Were I to live in Germany, I'd appreciate the cheap pork.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7283223/
[1] https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/natural-radiati...
Please stop spamming this thread.
It's my thread, that's not spam. People replied to me first
That sounds about right. Some reagions just a few kilometers north of where I live are fine, close by hunter ask to be paid to hunt boar, otherwise it is just not economically viable due to test and recycling requirements.
> you'd need to eat roughly 0.55lbs (0.25kg) of the most radioactive boar you could find every day or 3lbs (1.4kg) of the median.
You'd need to eat that much for what to happen? Radiation sickness (since you mention that afterwards)? I'm pretty sure people are more concerned with increased cancer risk than that. Not saying that this is a valid concern here either, just that radiation sickness is on the far end of a spectrum of dangers.
You'd need to eat that much for what to happen? Radiation sickness (since you mention that afterwards)? I'm pretty sure people are more concerned with increased cancer risk than that. Not saying that this is a valid concern here either, just that radiation sickness is on the far end of a spectrum of dangers.
> You'd need to eat that much for what to happen? Radiation sickness?
No, to hit EU dosage limits (20mSv). Which still is below actual risk of cancer. This is a small risk if taken all at once (acute exposure) but not found when protracted. For example, UK workers who consistently got 30-40mSv/yr had no statistical increase of cancer. So the number is 0% increase in cancer risk due to radiation exposure.
But again, we're talking about eating an __absurd__ amount of HIGHLY RADIOACTIVE boar you can find (well above thresholds), DAILY, and for an entire year. Do you know what 3lbs of pork looks like? The volume is 9 x 5 x 4 inches and is 24 servings. You're eating that daily, and it is the most radioactive boar you can find. It is not only an absurd amount of food, but also unrealistic to even source with high levels of effort (*most* radioactive, not average).
But here's the thing, consuming that meat DOES result in a multiple percent increase in risk of getting cancer. The problem is that this is due to eating red meat and the risk would be the same if you were sourcing non-radioactive boar. You're focusing on the wrong thing if you're concerned about your health and safety.
What part of "eating 3lbs of pork a day is going to cause your heart to explode" is not being understood here? You're clearly not the only one that is missing this. I'm not sure how I'm being unclear.
No, to hit EU dosage limits (20mSv). Which still is below actual risk of cancer. This is a small risk if taken all at once (acute exposure) but not found when protracted. For example, UK workers who consistently got 30-40mSv/yr had no statistical increase of cancer. So the number is 0% increase in cancer risk due to radiation exposure.
But again, we're talking about eating an __absurd__ amount of HIGHLY RADIOACTIVE boar you can find (well above thresholds), DAILY, and for an entire year. Do you know what 3lbs of pork looks like? The volume is 9 x 5 x 4 inches and is 24 servings. You're eating that daily, and it is the most radioactive boar you can find. It is not only an absurd amount of food, but also unrealistic to even source with high levels of effort (*most* radioactive, not average).
But here's the thing, consuming that meat DOES result in a multiple percent increase in risk of getting cancer. The problem is that this is due to eating red meat and the risk would be the same if you were sourcing non-radioactive boar. You're focusing on the wrong thing if you're concerned about your health and safety.
What part of "eating 3lbs of pork a day is going to cause your heart to explode" is not being understood here? You're clearly not the only one that is missing this. I'm not sure how I'm being unclear.
The thing that is unclear in your original comment is exactly what I was mentioning in mine. You didn't write what kind of threshold you were calculating here (which together with the bottom part of the comment made me think it was about actual radiation sickness).
Now that you've made clear it's about the EU dosage limits I can easily follow.
As I've said, there is a world of difference between where cancer risk begins, and where you can expect acute radiation sickness, and if you'd been calculating the latter there could potentially still be a significant (cancer) risk with much less ridiculous consumption numbers.
I apologize, I thought you were being snarky. There's a few people in here that are not asking serious questions. I sourced a study on boar in Fukushima and ran similar calculations on that if you're interested. The conclusion is still similar: you need to eat an amount of pork that puts you at serious risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer from red meat before you have an increased risk of cancer due to the radiation content of the pork.
Acute radiation sickness is pretty difficult to acquire through protracted exposure, as by definition acute radiation sickness is acute: short term. 10mSv in a millisecond (acute) is dangerous, 10mSv over a year is perfectly safe.
Acute radiation sickness is pretty difficult to acquire through protracted exposure, as by definition acute radiation sickness is acute: short term. 10mSv in a millisecond (acute) is dangerous, 10mSv over a year is perfectly safe.
No worries. Re-reading your original comment I also realized that the quote you begin with talks about "dangerous levels" of radiation, which I suppose should prime one for the fact that you were talking about unsafe exposure levels.
Regarding the "acute", I think I mixed up my previous "actual radiation sickness" with the "acute" in ARS there. You're right of course about it normally being used for short-term effects. So that would be another hint that what you were calculating was not the threshold for radiation sickness.
You do realize that all those radiation doses do add up? I mean it is not as if boar is the only radioactive source, is it? You really seem to struggle to understand how limits for harmful sunstances are defined, and how those substances affect us and the environment.
> radiation doses do add up
Yes and no. Acute exposure is not the same as protracted exposure. 10mSv in a microsecond is a vastly different risk than 10mSv over a year.
Before you make such bold and obtuse claims, you may consider that this 20mSv safety limit includes radiation workers, who we haven't measured as having increased risk of cancer (even when the limits were higher). The relative risk starts around 50mSv but is still exceptionally low.
Stop assuming things that you can't be bothered to verify. If you're going to chase me around comments you should at least make a reasonable attempt to be somewhat accurate. Just stop pulling stuff out of your ass.
Yes and no. Acute exposure is not the same as protracted exposure. 10mSv in a microsecond is a vastly different risk than 10mSv over a year.
Before you make such bold and obtuse claims, you may consider that this 20mSv safety limit includes radiation workers, who we haven't measured as having increased risk of cancer (even when the limits were higher). The relative risk starts around 50mSv but is still exceptionally low.
Stop assuming things that you can't be bothered to verify. If you're going to chase me around comments you should at least make a reasonable attempt to be somewhat accurate. Just stop pulling stuff out of your ass.
I am not assuming anything. Facts so far: boar in Bavaria is exceeding radiation limits for nutrition and can thus not be used (differs through out Bavaria of course), these limits have been put in place for good reason (I do not open a discission about the validity of safe thresholds for potetially dangerous stuff) and that this problem is directly linked to Chernobyl.
Your argument was, I summarize, that is not bad, the thresholds are way to low anyway and don't hurt. In short, we should increase safe thresholds and move on, right? That's how stuff works so, and it is a repetition of the arguments all the VW apologists used to downplay the scandal. That line of argument is dishonest, IMHO.
We can continue to discuss all those other points I raised, or the official investigation reports. Otherwise we turn im circles, and I don't have time for that.
Your argument was, I summarize, that is not bad, the thresholds are way to low anyway and don't hurt. In short, we should increase safe thresholds and move on, right? That's how stuff works so, and it is a repetition of the arguments all the VW apologists used to downplay the scandal. That line of argument is dishonest, IMHO.
We can continue to discuss all those other points I raised, or the official investigation reports. Otherwise we turn im circles, and I don't have time for that.
> Your argument was, I summarize, that is not bad, the thresholds are way to low anyway and don't hurt
Yes
> we should increase safe thresholds and move on, right?
Words you put in my mouth
Yes
> we should increase safe thresholds and move on, right?
Words you put in my mouth
It's a good point that the radioactive fallout is less bad (in some ways) for certain concepts of nature than sharing the space with modern people.
Oh, a nature reserve...
Never mind the 200,000 people that had to be relocated...
It doesn't matter how we perceive as nature coping with this disaster. The fact that it shouldn't have happened, the fact that there are still other reactors in operation of the same type, the fact that billions of tax payer dollars went into preventing more severe consequences should be a warning sign that this madness we call nuclear power needs to stop.
What's one thing the engineers of Fukushima and Chernobyl had in common: They all thought the reactor would be safe.
It doesn't matter how we perceive as nature coping with this disaster. The fact that it shouldn't have happened, the fact that there are still other reactors in operation of the same type, the fact that billions of tax payer dollars went into preventing more severe consequences should be a warning sign that this madness we call nuclear power needs to stop.
What's one thing the engineers of Fukushima and Chernobyl had in common: They all thought the reactor would be safe.
> Never mind the 200,000 people that had to be relocated...
This is definitely a traumatic event. I'm not going to downplay this or the harm done at Fukushima. But I also don't think it is helpful to exaggerate the damage. The context of the discussion here was about nature and wildlife, so that's what I talked about. If you want to bring people into the conversation then I think that's a different matter. The cost of disruption to people's lives is large, both economic, mentally, and physically. But we also need to be clear that these costs are not because of radiation. It is important because we have these same costs when it comes to matters like oil spills, ground water contamination, and other such events that are far more common but do not receive yearly articles on (despite these events happening yearly).
> What's one thing the engineers of Fukushima and Chernobyl had in common: They all thought the reactor would be safe.
This is not a good faith argument here and not actually accurate. If you would like to engage in good faith I'm more than happy to. But if you want to just vocalize your non-expertise opinions and berate anyone who doesn't agree, then that's not a conversation, that's a hostage situation and violates HN rules.
This is definitely a traumatic event. I'm not going to downplay this or the harm done at Fukushima. But I also don't think it is helpful to exaggerate the damage. The context of the discussion here was about nature and wildlife, so that's what I talked about. If you want to bring people into the conversation then I think that's a different matter. The cost of disruption to people's lives is large, both economic, mentally, and physically. But we also need to be clear that these costs are not because of radiation. It is important because we have these same costs when it comes to matters like oil spills, ground water contamination, and other such events that are far more common but do not receive yearly articles on (despite these events happening yearly).
> What's one thing the engineers of Fukushima and Chernobyl had in common: They all thought the reactor would be safe.
This is not a good faith argument here and not actually accurate. If you would like to engage in good faith I'm more than happy to. But if you want to just vocalize your non-expertise opinions and berate anyone who doesn't agree, then that's not a conversation, that's a hostage situation and violates HN rules.
Surely the engineers didn't think the plants would be unsafe, right? I'm not sure what's so bad faith about that particular argument.
Because it is a non-argument. The implication is that engineers are incompetent and will never gain competence. There's much more detailed arguments to be made, but I'll give you two things to consider that will give you context and help you track down those arguments if you are interested
1) RBMK reactors (like Chernobyl) have a positive void coefficient, which leads to an increase in radiation as steam pressure increases. At the time of the of the disaster, this was generally considered "not a good idea" due to the ability for these reactors to explode and release high amounts of radiation. This was even known by Soviet Scientists and was even a plotline in the HBO miniseries (people seemed to miss this, but maybe a priori knowledge made it more significant to me).
2) Concerning Fukushima, the region was hit with the largest tsunami ever seen in recorded history for the area and one of the largest ever recorded anywhere. Meaning the largest to hit Japan in at least 1000 year. With the reactor being built in a time where scientific knowledge did not know that this magnitude of an earthquake was possible in such a fault. The comment implies that such lack of knowledge, and thus potential for danger, will always exist. But the knowledge even advanced before the quake happened, but was still relatively new at the time (btw, this also applies to the Cascadia subduction zone off of Washington and Oregon).
These were due to two completely different causes, with 25 years of experience between them, and with the latter being caused by an extremely rare natural disaster. It is improper to characterize risk by black swan events (or gray swan events, which may be more accurate concerning Fukushima). Additionally, the results and causes are not even remotely similar. The connections are simply that both involve nuclear power. It is literally comparing apples to oranges, which both happen to be round fruit that grow on trees. The argument is setting an impossible standard and using a false narrative. It is posting with high confidence but low expertise. In the end, it only confuses and makes it more difficult for anyone reading to acquire accurate knowledge about the events and actual risks of nuclear energy.
1) RBMK reactors (like Chernobyl) have a positive void coefficient, which leads to an increase in radiation as steam pressure increases. At the time of the of the disaster, this was generally considered "not a good idea" due to the ability for these reactors to explode and release high amounts of radiation. This was even known by Soviet Scientists and was even a plotline in the HBO miniseries (people seemed to miss this, but maybe a priori knowledge made it more significant to me).
2) Concerning Fukushima, the region was hit with the largest tsunami ever seen in recorded history for the area and one of the largest ever recorded anywhere. Meaning the largest to hit Japan in at least 1000 year. With the reactor being built in a time where scientific knowledge did not know that this magnitude of an earthquake was possible in such a fault. The comment implies that such lack of knowledge, and thus potential for danger, will always exist. But the knowledge even advanced before the quake happened, but was still relatively new at the time (btw, this also applies to the Cascadia subduction zone off of Washington and Oregon).
These were due to two completely different causes, with 25 years of experience between them, and with the latter being caused by an extremely rare natural disaster. It is improper to characterize risk by black swan events (or gray swan events, which may be more accurate concerning Fukushima). Additionally, the results and causes are not even remotely similar. The connections are simply that both involve nuclear power. It is literally comparing apples to oranges, which both happen to be round fruit that grow on trees. The argument is setting an impossible standard and using a false narrative. It is posting with high confidence but low expertise. In the end, it only confuses and makes it more difficult for anyone reading to acquire accurate knowledge about the events and actual risks of nuclear energy.
> Concerning Fukushima
Concerning Fukushima the problem would have been averted, if managers actually did what they were told by engineers:
>> All three of the generators added in the late 1990s were fully operational after the tsunami. If the switching stations had been moved to the interior of the reactor buildings or to other flood-proof locations, power would have been provided by these generators to the reactors' cooling systems and thus the catastrophe would have been averted.[59]
Concerning Fukushima the problem would have been averted, if managers actually did what they were told by engineers:
>> All three of the generators added in the late 1990s were fully operational after the tsunami. If the switching stations had been moved to the interior of the reactor buildings or to other flood-proof locations, power would have been provided by these generators to the reactors' cooling systems and thus the catastrophe would have been averted.[59]
You can turn every technical argument on its head by arbitarily setting system bounderies. Well, systems engineering explicitly includes the managerial and regulating systems affecting the purely technical aspects. And as both, Chernobyl and Fukushima, showed those two aspects are usually pretty far up the list in every disaster. E.g. Soviet investigations into Chernobyl showed that applicable regulations were ignored, starting during construction of the plant and ending with the botched test that caused the accident.
At Fukushima, the flood barrier was too low. Saying it was the highest tsunami in recoded history would be an argument, if that was something nobody considered (that would indicate defficiencies in the regulatory aspects), but regulations actually had provisions for such Tsunami. Meaning, the managerial system of nuclear power screwed up.
And finally, there is the risk assessment aspect. People usually get that wrong. Risk is calculated by evaluating the detectability of an issue, the propability of an issue, the effectiveness of counter-measures and the impact of an issue. And as history has shown twice, the likelyhood of a nuclear disaster is rather low, the one for smaller accidents is significantly higher so. We also had to learn the hard way, that there is only so much we can do to mitigate those risks on the technical side (physical and cost limits, managerial and regulatory defficiencies and so on). And we also saw that the impact of a nuclear disaster can, and has been, huge. Not doing a proper risk analysis allows you to pretend everything is fine, an attitude explicitly called out by the Soviet investigation, the second report is much better than first one and both are available im English online, into the Chernobyl disaster. No idea why people interested in nuclear energy don't read those, or the IAEA report. Those reports, and Chernobyl itself, should be mandatory reading, and teaching, for every engineering program, there is so much to learn here!
At Fukushima, the flood barrier was too low. Saying it was the highest tsunami in recoded history would be an argument, if that was something nobody considered (that would indicate defficiencies in the regulatory aspects), but regulations actually had provisions for such Tsunami. Meaning, the managerial system of nuclear power screwed up.
And finally, there is the risk assessment aspect. People usually get that wrong. Risk is calculated by evaluating the detectability of an issue, the propability of an issue, the effectiveness of counter-measures and the impact of an issue. And as history has shown twice, the likelyhood of a nuclear disaster is rather low, the one for smaller accidents is significantly higher so. We also had to learn the hard way, that there is only so much we can do to mitigate those risks on the technical side (physical and cost limits, managerial and regulatory defficiencies and so on). And we also saw that the impact of a nuclear disaster can, and has been, huge. Not doing a proper risk analysis allows you to pretend everything is fine, an attitude explicitly called out by the Soviet investigation, the second report is much better than first one and both are available im English online, into the Chernobyl disaster. No idea why people interested in nuclear energy don't read those, or the IAEA report. Those reports, and Chernobyl itself, should be mandatory reading, and teaching, for every engineering program, there is so much to learn here!
> Concerning Fukushima the problem would have been averted, if managers actually did what they were told by engineers:
This is an often cited claim with no realistic value. TEPCO did run simulations in 2008 that showed that the current safety measures were not sufficient were an 8.4 magnitude earthquake to happen that management ignored. But we have to be careful here and ask the appropriate followup question. Why did they ignore it? Easy to say money, and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't part of it. After all, we can always build bigger and better, there's no end to this. The reason management felt comfortable ignoring this simulation is because there was no evidence that such an earthquake could actually happen. I can simulate a magnitude 15 earthquakes all day, but that doesn't mean you should prepare for them, since there's no mechanism to explain how this could happen and no historical data to suggest it. This was the situation. You have to remember that the Tohoku earthquake was the 4th largest ever recorded. EVER. The simulation was based on an 8.4M 1933 earthquake (the 20th largest ever recorded) and in a different region of Japan. There was good reason to not act quickly on this simulation. Now, there were scientific advancements during that time and it was learned that the potential for such an earthquake that large could happen, before it did, but I'm also not sure how quick you expect people to react. Even when it was learned it was clearly known to be an unlikely event.
For your fun, here's the list of the strongest earthquakes since 1500s[0], which still puts Fukushima as #6. There's <20 that are >9M and you'll notice that Japan only shows up on that list twice.
There's a danger to this kind of thinking that is concerning to me and appears like it should be concerning to you as your concerns are safety. This narrative encourages companies to not run such hypothetical scenarios because if they do and the situation turns from imagination to reality blame arises and we create a narrative of how we should have acted. But this isn't a Shell/Exon situation where they were measuring and modeling realistic data. Do not conflate the two. I understand the frustration, we want to know things could have been different. But this is also why we want entities to run hypothetical scenarios, because if knowledge updates then some of the work to improve systems already exist. It is a hedge. But we need to be careful to not put unrealistic expectations on others or to move the bar based on post hoc understanding. Don't be captain hindsight. It'll just discourage performing such hypothetical scenarios in the future. Post hoc blaming is counter to your actual goals.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes#Largest_e...
This is an often cited claim with no realistic value. TEPCO did run simulations in 2008 that showed that the current safety measures were not sufficient were an 8.4 magnitude earthquake to happen that management ignored. But we have to be careful here and ask the appropriate followup question. Why did they ignore it? Easy to say money, and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't part of it. After all, we can always build bigger and better, there's no end to this. The reason management felt comfortable ignoring this simulation is because there was no evidence that such an earthquake could actually happen. I can simulate a magnitude 15 earthquakes all day, but that doesn't mean you should prepare for them, since there's no mechanism to explain how this could happen and no historical data to suggest it. This was the situation. You have to remember that the Tohoku earthquake was the 4th largest ever recorded. EVER. The simulation was based on an 8.4M 1933 earthquake (the 20th largest ever recorded) and in a different region of Japan. There was good reason to not act quickly on this simulation. Now, there were scientific advancements during that time and it was learned that the potential for such an earthquake that large could happen, before it did, but I'm also not sure how quick you expect people to react. Even when it was learned it was clearly known to be an unlikely event.
For your fun, here's the list of the strongest earthquakes since 1500s[0], which still puts Fukushima as #6. There's <20 that are >9M and you'll notice that Japan only shows up on that list twice.
There's a danger to this kind of thinking that is concerning to me and appears like it should be concerning to you as your concerns are safety. This narrative encourages companies to not run such hypothetical scenarios because if they do and the situation turns from imagination to reality blame arises and we create a narrative of how we should have acted. But this isn't a Shell/Exon situation where they were measuring and modeling realistic data. Do not conflate the two. I understand the frustration, we want to know things could have been different. But this is also why we want entities to run hypothetical scenarios, because if knowledge updates then some of the work to improve systems already exist. It is a hedge. But we need to be careful to not put unrealistic expectations on others or to move the bar based on post hoc understanding. Don't be captain hindsight. It'll just discourage performing such hypothetical scenarios in the future. Post hoc blaming is counter to your actual goals.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes#Largest_e...
Radiation has a notable sterilizing effect - this is why the speed of a natural decomposition is diminished. Fewer microbes leads to a slower decomposition.
The average US background radiation dose ranges from 1.5-3.5mSv/yr, or 0.25-0.6uSv/hr. This guy went into the exclusion zone and took various measurements [1] and outside of hotspots, the radiation level there seems to be just at or above the average US background radiation level.
Now I'm sure if you go digging in the Red Forest like the Russians did at the start of the war you're going to have a bad time, but the exclusion zone has settled down significantly. Most of the highly radioactive isotopes have by definition a very short half-life.
Are you confident there are fewer microbes?
[1] http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/radiation...
Now I'm sure if you go digging in the Red Forest like the Russians did at the start of the war you're going to have a bad time, but the exclusion zone has settled down significantly. Most of the highly radioactive isotopes have by definition a very short half-life.
Are you confident there are fewer microbes?
[1] http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/radiation...
He took surface measurements. Is the same true below the surface? Bugs and microbes live deep in the soil
Most of the exclusion zone is pretty low levels of radiation so I'm not sure how effective those are other than that they're an elevated background level. The FDA says <2 kGy delays sprouting of vegatables and fruit aging 1-10 kGy decreases the levels of bacteria and >10 kGy is used for actual sterilization. Most of the zone is <1 Sv/h so you need 10k hours or more to get above the 10 kGy used for sterilization.
https://www.fda.gov/food/irradiation-food-packaging/overview....
https://www.fda.gov/food/irradiation-food-packaging/overview....
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There are 365×24 = 8760 hours in a year. So after 1 year and 52 days, we've crossed this threshold - at current levels.
So: thoroughly sterilised, if the FDA isn't totally off.
So: thoroughly sterilised, if the FDA isn't totally off.
There's a significant difference between acute and chronic doses, the FDA are for acute dosing and there's not really numbers out there for chronic doses over that long of a timeframe with respect to food safety because it's not used. Also bacteria reproduce much faster than a year so maybe it keeps the numbers down by killing older generations sooner but it's not going to sterilize.
No, that dose needs to happen in a short amount of time to apply.
[deleted]
But that to me just says that radiation definitely delays growth and a little radiation already affects a much larger organism like a plant, it’s probably hurting smaller organisms much more.
Why would it hurt smaller organisms more?
Intrinsically, smaller organisms have fewer recovery mechanisms when compared to multicellular organisms. So, it kind of makes sense for them to be more susceptible to radiation.
At the low level, it boils down to the amount of energy an organism has at its disposal: prokaryotes have no mitochondria and thus cannot usually form multicellular organisms. If radiation hits an prokaryotic organism (i.e. a single cell) - it's alone by itself and probably well gone after the hit.
If radiation hits an eukaryotic (multicellular) organism, it still is able to compensate for that (to some degree) and still remains in the breeding pool for some time after the event.
The key difference between the two is the ability to reproduce itself after the damage.
At the low level, it boils down to the amount of energy an organism has at its disposal: prokaryotes have no mitochondria and thus cannot usually form multicellular organisms. If radiation hits an prokaryotic organism (i.e. a single cell) - it's alone by itself and probably well gone after the hit.
If radiation hits an eukaryotic (multicellular) organism, it still is able to compensate for that (to some degree) and still remains in the breeding pool for some time after the event.
The key difference between the two is the ability to reproduce itself after the damage.
The other option is they reproduce before the damage happens, bacteria multiply quickly and being small it's less likely any one individual will get struck and killed. The FDA numbers are for acute doses so you can kill everything in a package at one time, a chronic dose of the same overall amount spread out won't sterilize because you're not going to destroy every bacteria at once.
[deleted]
It's probably a good thing that the exclusion zone hasn't become a breeding ground for mutant radiation-resistant bacteria.
I was wondering why that would be a bad idea and how much radiation sterilization is used today.
Apparently about 40-50% of medical single use products are sterilized beforehand using radiation.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/goronzy2/
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/goronzy2/
See if you can find numbers for food irradiation. Depending on country o ly a small number of foods is permitted to get that treatment but they're usually the large volume ones like wheat or flour.
Now could this be solution for large scale carbon capture? Seed massive amounts of forested areas with radioactive material? So we could prevent large mass of bio material from decomposing and thus releasing carbondioxide?
There's a scifi or apocolyptic story in here.
Environmental extremists come to the conclusion that irradiating large patches of Earth to make it unlivable for humans but is a net benefit to the non human ecosystem because the damage from human habitation far exceeds the damage from radiation. And of course, life evolves and adapts to the radiation. Then they start seeding dirty bombs to intentionally create more and more of these no go zones that become nature sanctuaries.
I suppose "The 100" is partially playing into this concept.
Environmental extremists come to the conclusion that irradiating large patches of Earth to make it unlivable for humans but is a net benefit to the non human ecosystem because the damage from human habitation far exceeds the damage from radiation. And of course, life evolves and adapts to the radiation. Then they start seeding dirty bombs to intentionally create more and more of these no go zones that become nature sanctuaries.
I suppose "The 100" is partially playing into this concept.
[deleted]
No, because water in all dead material will dry out and then lightening strikes will start a fire and turn it all into CO2 again.
If you want to make a difference make sure that you start a forest and grassland fire every single year - the regular fires ensure the resulting fires are small and leave a lot of carbon behind some of which will get incorporated into the forest floor and forever stored away. Plus forests depend on those fires to clean up all the under brush.
Note, the above applies to most forests in North America, but you need to check with a local expert in forests to understand the details and where it doesn't apply. Every location/climate has different forests with different needs. There is no blanket statement that is right for everything.
If you want to make a difference make sure that you start a forest and grassland fire every single year - the regular fires ensure the resulting fires are small and leave a lot of carbon behind some of which will get incorporated into the forest floor and forever stored away. Plus forests depend on those fires to clean up all the under brush.
Note, the above applies to most forests in North America, but you need to check with a local expert in forests to understand the details and where it doesn't apply. Every location/climate has different forests with different needs. There is no blanket statement that is right for everything.
Sealife sanctuaries are causing commercial fish populations to bounce back. We just need rules that are simple enough that animals understand them, and we can fix a whole shitload of problems.
Poe's law strikes again; I came here to make the same comment sarcastically.
Just deforest the land and dump the logs onto the North/South Pole, reforest, and repeat. No radiation necessary.
I have read a similar proposal that you can just drop biomass into deep oceanic trenches. The cold, pressure, etc mean that decomposition is significantly slower than would happen on the surface.
“Just” move a zillion tons of wood halfway across the earth.
Wood floats the same way rocks don't. It's not an energy problem, it's a time problem.
That model only works in an ocean without currents, or with exclusively favorable currents. The weaker claim of, "we can expend minimal energy by taking a very long time to get there," perhaps even wind energy, might work though. I think we'd have to answer that empirically.
Wood floats, so that doesn't sound impossible.
Fascinating but needs a '2014' marker, I wonder what the situation is nearly another decade on?
> The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it has been unable to independently verify reporting that suggested Russian forces have received “high doses of radiation.”
All you need to know from the article.
All you need to know from the article.
Discussed at the time (of the article):
Forests Around Chernobyl Aren’t Decaying Properly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404345 - March 2014 (121 comments)
Forests Around Chernobyl Aren’t Decaying Properly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404345 - March 2014 (121 comments)
If this shows something crystal clear is that if the litter is let alone it doesn't burn necessarily. Just accumulates and made deep soil. The only wildfires in Chernobyl since 2014 were those provoked by soldiers. No men messing around + no cattle or farmers = no big wildfires.
Of course we want this litter to remain just where it is as many decades as we can, but under each rock there is always an idiot, so the healing process is never guaranteed.
Of course we want this litter to remain just where it is as many decades as we can, but under each rock there is always an idiot, so the healing process is never guaranteed.
It's also worth noting that Ukraine gets 5-10 days of rain per month year around (or snow or other precipitation), and the driest month is comparable with San Francisco's October in terms of total precipitation.
No humans messing around plays a big role, but everything being wet most of the time certainly helps.
No humans messing around plays a big role, but everything being wet most of the time certainly helps.
It seems the forest conditions/fuel load are very different in Ukraine from places like California, the Rockies, or Turkey. Lightning starts wildfires completely free of human intervention.
> The only wildfires in Chernobyl since 2014 were those provoked by soldiers
Not exactly true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone_...
Not exactly true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone_...
Thanks for the update. This proves my theory
> "At least one suspect was arrested for alleged arson".
> "the local young man has confessed to starting fires for fun"
Ok. Lets change "soldiers" by a more generic "human pieces of s*t".
I wonder if any fossil were radioactive before to became a fossil. That would made the process much easier.
> "At least one suspect was arrested for alleged arson".
> "the local young man has confessed to starting fires for fun"
Ok. Lets change "soldiers" by a more generic "human pieces of s*t".
I wonder if any fossil were radioactive before to became a fossil. That would made the process much easier.
At one time there were natural nuclear reactors. Veins of uranium rich enough to fission.
One hypothesis is that the moon was basically spat out by a supercritical natural fission reactor inside earth at a time when the earth was still rotating much faster. Basically slinging a part of itself into space to form the moon.
I love that hypothesis.
I love that hypothesis.
Sadly the current most popular hypothesis in the scientific community is the collision of a smaller version of the Earth with another planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Moon
Oddly enough, that article doesn't mention the name 'Theia' or even link to the larger page on the collision theory that searching for 'Theia' brings...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_(planet)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_(planet)
Apples and oranges. I believe this area in Ukraine is considerably wetter vs. many Western US forests that typically see large scale wildfires.
All forests in the planet follow basically the same rule. The more time left undisturbed, the more water will fix in the area. Top ecosystems in the chain have typically plenty of water. Lower forms have less and less water and are more unstable.
"There are huge wildfires because no water in the area".
This is a lie that we tell ourselves. There is not water in the area because wildfires. Many of this fires were deliberated crimes and would have burn with or without water. The lack of water is a scar of a previous attack.
Somebody should build a forest Matrioska with a tiny cow cranium in the inner figure. Maybe this way the people would finally understand the obvious rule. After a few thousand years untouched, all forests became "rainforests".
"There are huge wildfires because no water in the area".
This is a lie that we tell ourselves. There is not water in the area because wildfires. Many of this fires were deliberated crimes and would have burn with or without water. The lack of water is a scar of a previous attack.
Somebody should build a forest Matrioska with a tiny cow cranium in the inner figure. Maybe this way the people would finally understand the obvious rule. After a few thousand years untouched, all forests became "rainforests".
There are a number of species whose seeds don't germinate without wildfire. Not all regional climates are equal.
Of course, but they will not appear, or be residual in the climax of the ecosystems. Its strategy is live fast and leave a beautiful charred corpse. The normal trend in this planet is to replace this opportunists by other species when the ecosystems mature. See "theory of stress" in ecology.
In short a little stress is good, for both ecosystems and humans, (it develops a better immune system). But too much stress is catastrofic, and this is the current situation with the "clean forest" mantra.
In short a little stress is good, for both ecosystems and humans, (it develops a better immune system). But too much stress is catastrofic, and this is the current situation with the "clean forest" mantra.
> After a few thousand years untouched, all forests became "rainforests".
Yea… I’m pretty sure this isn’t true.
There are many remote forests in Canada for example that haven’t been logged maybe ever and those areas still experience occasional large scale wildfires.
Yea… I’m pretty sure this isn’t true.
There are many remote forests in Canada for example that haven’t been logged maybe ever and those areas still experience occasional large scale wildfires.
I was living in Kyiv during the last Chernobyl fires (2020) - they were BIG.
There have been others - it's a very dry place in summer.
There have been others - it's a very dry place in summer.
The Red Forest is highly contaminated, such that surface level microroentgens per hour are at least 10X than what's considered maximum safe level for humans, and likely a good deal higher in the soil.
There are other tests that could have been done, such as measuring the ability of soil suspensions taken from the Red Forest to breakdown cellulose in a test tube (studies that would probably require a lot of care in a radiation-safe lab), but the kind of study described in the article (leaving bags of leaves around to see what happens to them) seems to be enough to prove the point; fungal/insect breakdown of plant matter is inhibited in the most severely contaminated areas of the exclusion zone.
Looking around, here's a study on the contamination of fish in surrounding lakes (still an issue). Some fish are more genetically sensitive to it than others, but you probably wouldn't want to eat any of them:
"Impact of Environmental Radiation on the Health and Reproductive Status of Fish from Chernobyl" (2018)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b02378
There are other tests that could have been done, such as measuring the ability of soil suspensions taken from the Red Forest to breakdown cellulose in a test tube (studies that would probably require a lot of care in a radiation-safe lab), but the kind of study described in the article (leaving bags of leaves around to see what happens to them) seems to be enough to prove the point; fungal/insect breakdown of plant matter is inhibited in the most severely contaminated areas of the exclusion zone.
Looking around, here's a study on the contamination of fish in surrounding lakes (still an issue). Some fish are more genetically sensitive to it than others, but you probably wouldn't want to eat any of them:
"Impact of Environmental Radiation on the Health and Reproductive Status of Fish from Chernobyl" (2018)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b02378
I wonder if any studies have looked at potential positives. For example the Red Forest is applying a selection pressure towards radiation-hardened Fungi, insects, and even potentially wildlife. This seems pretty important given the ongoing risk of nuclear war.
I keep looking at the word "properly" and thinking that is implying some negative judgment. I'm all for using radiation to preserve food from decay — as we do already, and should do more of. But I suppose it may be considered proper to preserve food meant for storage, transfer, and human consumption, while considering leaves in the woods not decaying to be improper.
Pripyat seems like an excellent place to look for genes and organisms that will help us grow food (and recycle air) on the moon / mars.
So you are telling me that I may be able to slow down aging if I receive a huge dose of radiation from time to time? /Just-kidding
Unfortunately, Russia is sub-threatening to make an even better "test example" using the the Ukranian Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant which they currently occupy, saying "no threat for now" [0].
They just blew a major dam in Kakhovka, Ukraine, with tens of thousands being evacuated.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-no-threat-f...
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/live-updates-ukraine-accuses-russia-of...
They just blew a major dam in Kakhovka, Ukraine, with tens of thousands being evacuated.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-no-threat-f...
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/live-updates-ukraine-accuses-russia-of...
I think it would be reasonable to assume the accident killed a lot of stuff at the time and one factor is it's not being reintroduced in part because it is a zone of exclusion.
They should experiment with bringing in decay promoters to try to prevent a devastating fire from making things worse. (Assuming they haven't done so already, which may be wrong given the age of the article.)
They should experiment with bringing in decay promoters to try to prevent a devastating fire from making things worse. (Assuming they haven't done so already, which may be wrong given the age of the article.)
[deleted]
Does this mean that a full blown nuclear reset could create conditions that would allow coal to form again?
My house is full of woodworm and Chernobyl is welcome to take the timbers.
The Russian takeover of the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has pushed it to the edge of another catastrophe.
And they may create another catastrophe in order to try to halt the current Ukrainian offensive.
Didn't they safely shut it down?
It still needs to be staffed to continue shutting down
Presumably the exclusion zone shrinks a bit each year as previously unsafe areas become safe to live again?
[deleted]
And still people going on saying Chernobyl only caused a handful of human deaths.. That's not the only problem with nuclear disasters.
...oh boy
During the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago trees just fell over and lay there because nothing had evolved to decay them yet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous