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Worms at Chernobyl Appear Mysteriously Unscathed by Radiation
- ggm 2y agoHelen Caldecott has a very hard time explaining how "unsafe at any level" actually works in practice against evident Radiation Hormesis. She is on a mission and I laud the mission for the outer goals, but mis-using science to get there? hard to feel ok about this.
- gnabgib 2y agoStrange, the number of recent stories about Chornobyl (Chernobyl) worms (4+3 points, 10 months ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39633148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39633148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39610932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39610932 (+recent) frogs (6 points, 1 month ago, 1 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42086035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42086035 wolves (6 points, 10 months ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39323364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39323364 dogs (166 points, 2 years ago, 49 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35024160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35024160 (+recent)
- Qem 2y agoI suspect being fully surrounded by earth most of the time helps shielding against radiation a lot.
- defrost 2y agoOr water, or the guts of other animals - these are nematodes being discussed, a broad largely microscopic phylum. Not earthworms. In the case of the Chernobyl exclusion zone it's the surface and now subsurface soils that pose the greatest risk, especially if ingested, breathed in, etc. The radioactive plumes spread through the air and settled as dust, now turned into the soil by the activity of animals .. such as the earthworms and nemotodes which can number in the million per square metre (being microscopic and all). They live fully surrounded by the fallout dust, they eat and pass out the fallout dust.