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mrbluze writes:
"Rachel Nuwer from the Smithsonian Mag gives a good summary around a paper entitled "Highly reduced mass loss rates and increased litter layer in radioactively contaminated areas" (Oecologia, March 2014):
In the areas with no radiation, 70 to 90 percent of the leaves were gone after a year. But in places where more radiation was present, the leaves retained around 60 percent of their original weight.
... the Chernobyl area is at risk of fire, and 27 years' worth of leaf litter, (researcher) Mousseau and his colleagues think, would likely make a good fuel source for such a forest fire. This poses a more worrying problem than just environmental destruction: Fires can potentially redistribute radioactive contaminants to places outside of the exclusion zone, Mousseau says. 'There is growing concern that there could be a catastrophic fire in the coming years.'
A forest fire burning radioactive plant debris could be catastrophic. The Fukushima disaster is likely to have the same problems locally, but it poses additional risks because radioactive water continues to flow into the sea at an alarming rate, which will likely affect oceanic bacterial levels in a similar way."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Dunbal on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:04PM
There's just one problem - it's not bacteria that do most of the decomposing, it's fungi.
(Score: 4, Informative) by pe1rxq on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:19PM
On land yes, but not in the ocean, which is were the bacteria were mentioned.
(Score: 4, Informative) by wantkitteh on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:25PM
Er, that's what the article says, microbes and fungi.
An option would be to expose a range of fungi to the conditions in the exclusion zone and it's surroundings, see which ones are resilient enough to continue operating to some degree and try and reintroduce those species to replace the fungi species that seem to have been wiped out.
Hey, I never said it was a very good option. It's that or sending work parties in to clear the areas of all the combustable material manually before safely disposing of it.
Alright, alright, I'll shut up.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:33PM
How about secretely sending cheap labour clear the areas of the combustible material and dispose of it wherever we can without getting caugh and stop worrying the public?
It might also require to dispose of the cheap labour which would make it even cheaper.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Alphatool on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:40PM
Before anyone attempts to deal with the results of the paper, they should try to verify the results. This paper is not backed up by theory, is not repeatable in the lab (and it's a very easy thing to check in a lab - expose identical leaf matter to different levels of radiation and see what happens) and is not consistent with the observations of other scientists. It would be a complete and utter waste of time and money to base any actions on this paper's findings without significant further evidence, and this evidence just doesn't exist.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Tuesday March 18 2014, @03:38PM
By the scientific method, you are completely correct - these results have not been duplicated. In many ways, I'm very glad there isn't another nuclear wasteland of this scale to compare it to.
However, you've misunderstood the experiment here. It's not exposing leaf matter to radiation, it's exposing the naturally occurring biological decomposition agents that should have processed the leaf matter to radiation and seeing if they lose efficacy for any reason.
Your assertion that it would be a waste of time and money to take any action based on the evidence thus far observed is scientifically correct; back in the real world it doesn't matter what the root cause of the accumulation of flammable radioactive vegetation is if it's already on fire, which is one spark / carelessly discarded cigarette end / lightning strike away from reality.
(Score: 3, Funny) by wantkitteh on Tuesday March 18 2014, @03:45PM
Speak of the devil, see threads below for exactly the kind of scientific duplication we were looking for. Case closed, get the undesirables*AHEM*Russian volunteer labour force in here to clear the place asap.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Alphatool on Tuesday March 18 2014, @09:15PM
The experiments at BNL don't really have anything to do with the experiments at Chernobyl. BNL used a massive sealed gamma source to irradiate a forest with huge radiation doses, up to several sieverts per day. This is thousands to millions of times more radiation exposure than in the area around Chernobyl which makes it a very different kind of thing - people can live in contaminated areas near Chernobyl for decades without obvious signs of negative effects, but a person would get acute radiation syndrome and die after a day or two in the BNL experimental area, so it's not surprising that there is a difference for plants too.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Wednesday March 19 2014, @10:42AM
That's a good point. My original train of thought was that fungus colonies in both areas had internally accumulated emitting material that had rendered the entire colony incapable of performing it's decomposition function, maybe by partially/completely sterilizing the colony and preventing it from emitting spores on the surface. It's still a valid hypothesis at this point but would rely on the high gamma exposure at BNL and the peak-and-tail direct/indirect exposure in The Zone both causing the same sterilization effect over different time periods and I'm not conversant with the biology of fungus reproduction to a sufficient degree to evaluate that possibility.
(Score: 1) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:43PM
Before anyone attempts to deal with the results of the paper, they should try to verify the results. This paper is not backed up by theory, is not repeatable in the lab (and it's a very easy thing to check in a lab - expose identical leaf matter to different levels of radiation and see what happens) and is not consistent with the observations of other scientists.
Have you actually looked at the abstract? The experiment seems pretty straightforward to me. The observed physical effect supports their hypothesis.
Abstract is Here: [springer.com]
The effects of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl on decomposition of plant material still remain unknown. We predicted that decomposition rate would be reduced in the most contaminated sites due to an absence or reduced densities of soil invertebrates. If microorganisms were the main agents responsible for decomposition, exclusion of large soil invertebrates should not affect decomposition. In September 2007 we deposited 572 bags with uncontaminated dry leaf litter from four species of trees in the leaf litter layer at 20 forest sites around Chernobyl that varied in background radiation by more than a factor 2,600. Approximately one quarter of these bags were made of a fine mesh that prevented access to litter by soil invertebrates. These bags were retrieved in June 2008, dried and weighed to estimate litter mass loss. Litter mass loss was 40 % lower in the most contaminated sites relative to sites with a normal background radiation level for Ukraine. Similar reductions in litter mass loss were estimated for individual litter bags, litter bags at different sites, and differences between litter bags at pairs of neighboring sites differing in level of radioactive contamination. Litter mass loss was slightly greater in the presence of large soil invertebrates than in their absence. The thickness of the forest floor increased with the level of radiation and decreased with proportional loss of mass from all litter bags. These findings suggest that radioactive contamination has reduced the rate of litter mass loss, increased accumulation of litter, and affected growth conditions for plants.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Alphatool on Tuesday March 18 2014, @09:21PM
I've not only read the abstract, I have read the paper too. Once you get into the details the statistics don't stand up, and neither do the claims of a dose response. The statements in the abstract massively overstate the results that were found, particularly any link between radiation exposure and any effects. It did find a link between the thickness of the forest floor and decrease in mass loss from the bags, but there are lots of better explanations (such as variations in sunlight and wind) to explain this than radiation, and these weren't investigated. Instead, radiation was blamed without any evidence. It's very shoddy work.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Alphatool on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:30PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mrbluze on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:55PM
This deserves up-moderation. Until know my understanding of the effect of low-ish level radiation (not enough to kill plants etc) is that it promotes faster mutations in microbes which does not equate to failure of an ecosystem but more rapid change, sometimes not adaptive, but considering that bacterial replication is rapid, niches which are exposed are usually quickly filled.
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:55PM
Mousseau may have done some shoddy work in the past, I don't know about that but what I can see is
your link is from 2013
the article is from 2014
so unless the good Dr. Patrick L. Walden has a time machine this is not a rebuttal to the article.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Alphatool on Tuesday March 18 2014, @09:23PM
I'll just point out that the experiments were mostly conducted in 2008.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by bluefoxicy on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:09PM
Also radioactive fukushima shit in water isn't really harmful. I mean let's be honest: it's a lot of ocean.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bucc5062 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:00PM
Curious, let's take a bucket of water. Next we'll put a couple of drops of urine in the water. Now I will take a cup a water from the bucket and ask you to drink it. Would you?
You can use every argument that the parts per whatever dilute the urine so much that you would not even notice, but it is not just the numbers, it is the idea of drinking tainted water that is the anathema to humans. Sure, we are taking about an ocean which is large, however those that live near Japan could be effected from that radioactive shit somewhere down the line. How much is too much? How much is acceptable? Why is our position (s humans), "What's a little radioactive shit in our big pool?" instead of outrage that anyone is allowed to continue to dump radioactive material into our oceans. The scene in the movie Erin Brokovich was priceless when she poured a glass of water for the lawyers from the chemical company then told them it came from the town they polluted. All of a sudden they weren't so thirsty. It may be a scene from a movie, but I doubt the CEO of the plant in WV that dumped some chemical in ther river would want to take a shower with water that smells; but those po' folk...fuck em.
I just do not understand how our species seems okay to shit on the floor of the house we live in. One day we will run out of rooms to destroy.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hatta on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:09PM
Curious, let's take a bucket of water. Next we'll put a couple of drops of urine in the water. Now I will take a cup a water from the bucket and ask you to drink it. Would you?
Yes. Urine is sterile when it comes out of the tap, and a couple drops in a bucket is too dilute to taste. No problem. Though I'd hem and haw to get the biggest wager I could. Easy money.
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @06:34PM
then you'd be a good contestant on Fear Factor /grin. Most would not. Either way, should we accept such a condition or strive to have the cleanest environment we can live in. Perhaps there is an argument for "acceptable" pollution, but the OP's comment smacked more of "who cares, its a big ocean" without considering that enough companies take that position, then the ocean's not that big any more.
So a couple of drops, drink away. a cup, or maybe two? Even sterile it starts to get funky. Drink it all the time (not a one off)? then perhaps even you'd not take the bet.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2, Funny) by Fluffeh on Tuesday March 18 2014, @08:57PM
Sorry, I'm going to have to Bear Grylls [youtube.com] this conversation with some pee-drinking-goodness.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by bluefoxicy on Wednesday March 19 2014, @03:44PM
How does my comment get moderated troll, the "oh but boo hoo I mean look, it's not a big deal but it's REALLY FUCKING CREEPING PEOPLE OUT so it's actually important!" emotional whinery comment get "Insightful", and your comment get "Interesting"? The moderation system is not rational.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 09 2014, @08:20PM
Z1sGoR http://www.qs3pe5zgdxc9iovktapt2dbyppkmkqfz.com/ [qs3pe5zgdx...kmkqfz.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by bluefoxicy on Tuesday March 18 2014, @09:31PM
The problem is you're making an emotional appeal. In Portland, they routinely fish dead raccoons and geese out of their open reservoirs, rotting bloated shit. Birds shit in that water. But then one day a human pissed in it, and they flushed the whole thing at a cost of like $60,000.
We know, rationally, that dead birds in the water are worse than some dude taking a leak. But it's just gross, so we cry about it and dump the water.
People are talking about the impact of all this radioactive water pouring into the ocean. Well, the impact is: Nothing. We have sunken active nuclear cores in the water, and they're contributing way more radioactive material than this stuff. That's right: the equivalent of simply dumping Fukushima's spent fuel rods into the sea has happened, and they're still down there.
I don't much care that you want to draw a big scary face and say "RADIATION" in a dark and foreboding force. A brick of spent uranium or a bunch of radioactive iodine pumped into the air is serious business; the long-term effects of lots and lots of Fukushima's water dumping into the sea is just the Bogie Man.
Engineers allow this kind of thing to happen because they have far worse problems to deal with, things that will actually be bad in real life if they're not attended to. For example: they would rather flood more water into the pool and have it continue to dump into the ocean than let the pool run dry, the rods melt down, and the radioactive material bore itself into the water table where it can leech in high concentrations FOREVER. Their primary concerns then become to somehow stop the need for constant flooding (fix cracks in the pool? Might be hard), somehow contain the rods (hasn't been done yet for a reason), and so on. With no way to prevent catastrophic events in the interim, flooding the pool is the best idea they have, and the real long-term damage is negligible.