Nuked Coral Reef Bounces Back 332
sm62704 writes "I found this New Scientist article interesting, as I was actually alive (albeit very small) when Bikini Atoll was H-bombed. The article says that the reason the reefs are now flourishing is because they are mostly undisturbed by humans, who are afraid of the radiation. Background levels there are now 'similar to that at any Australian city,' while nearby islands haven't been so lucky.'When I put the Geiger counter near a coconut, which accumulates radioactive material from the soil, it went berserk,' says Maria Beger of the University of Queensland in Australia."
Nuke the hypoxic dead zones! (Score:2, Interesting)
Radiation induced changes to coconuts (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? (Score:1, Interesting)
Couldn't the criminals find a less radioactive region to illegally fish? Who wants to eat radioactive fish anyway? I know the article says that "ambient radiation is low", but I doubt the fish would be rated A-grade.
Anthropologists As Well As Zoologists (Score:5, Interesting)
We did it to Native Americans on the continental United States as well but it really bears mentioning that there was a pretty gross injustice paid to these peaceful peoples in the name of atomic testing. I remember watching this footage on an ABC special as a kid and I luckily recorded it so I could watch it over and over again. When watching project Baker, I kept thinking "Wow, that's impressive, that was somebody's home."
I suppose I'll be called a self-hating liberal but I believe we should never forget the price we pay for the weapons we hold. These weapons that were supposed to be the end of war aren't and any future horror developed to stop war won't be the end to war either.
Just imagine what the look on your face would be if someone showed up and told you to evacuate your state because it was now going to be used for nuclear testing. You probably wouldn't be very happy to leave your home in the name of warfare.
You joke, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or at least send it to Mad Max-land.
Physically AU is huge. Roughly the size of the US. Superimposing a map of one on the other gives fairly accurate driving times and distance calculations.
Demographically it is very very small.
I also figured out the real problem is water. While the US, EU, and CN have large navigable rivers running deep into their continents, AU has nothing to bring water to the center of the country (or more accurately there isn't enough rain in the center to drain and form navigable rivers).
AU could be a super-power if it had enough water to support a population of 300 million. Instead it is so dry they are lucky to have 1/10 of that at about 22 million.
Re:Radiation induced changes to coconuts (Score:5, Interesting)
Radiation and life (Score:5, Interesting)
I once heard something fascinating. After the Chernobyk accident, the radioactive cloud that contaminated (mainly) the north of Norway caused allot of fear in people, and for people's health. The gouvernment continued to slaughter and burn massive amounts of raindeer and livestock.
A friend later told me that the meat was actually fully usable, and that it's destruction may have been unnecessary. She suggested we should have fed it to the elderly population, which did not have time to develop cancer from the meat anyhow.
There will be allot of talk in this discussion about the fear of radiation, and that is why this discussion is so good. Life does well with increased radiation! Humans don't however, by virtue of the way we look at human society and human worth. What it does say however, is that fear of nuclear energy, a power source that may have dramatically less consequence for life on this planet than most other energy sources, prevents us from progressing in the energy debate! (and maybe also in space exploration, given worries of launching nuclear-powered space craft)
Check this news item [nationalgeographic.com] for a similar case to the coral reef in the article.
"People in the first world have convinced themselves that chemicals and radiation stand in the way of their personal immortality"
- James Lovelock
Coconuts migrate on their own... (Score:5, Interesting)
Even without husk-gripping, coconuts move... they're supposed to, thats how they get from island to island...
I think this is a note to self: do NOT eat coconuts that you find on the seashore. I wonder if anyone's realized that little issue...
Re:vacation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nuke em all (Score:5, Interesting)
That has actually been a "jokingly serious" suggestion. Increasing the background radiation in an area so humans don't dare to use it or any products from that area. Works great with Chernobyl for example, the forest around the area has a lot more animal life now than before the incident.
That may happen (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Radiation induced changes to coconuts (Score:4, Interesting)
Terence Boylen - Yeah!
Well, yes and no (Score:2, Interesting)
The real problem is the recent round of nuclear build-out. These countries do not have the maturity to handle these. Basically, Turkey and Pakistan. This can be blamed soley on a number of top pubs who sold our nuke secrets for a few gold coins (relatively speaking). [justacitizen.org] People like RichardPerle, douglas feith, EricEdelman, and Marc Grossman. These guys, and others, sold it to Turkey and Pakistan. This action really could start a war. Pakistan supposedly passed on their knowledge to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, etc. Hopefully the next president will go after these guys for the treason that they committed.
In the end, I suspect that it will not matter. There are so many other easy ways to attack other ppl. Groups like Al Qaeda could easily mutate the avian flu and then spread it quickly in the west (and all for less than a dozen of their ppl; thank god that they are religious; the mullahs do not want to kill the innocent). Plenty of ways for us to kill each other.
And if could stop a world war, yeah, I would allow the feds to move me to another place, pay for a new home, and provide me with a nice new job, schooling for my children, etc, which IIRC, is what we did.
Actually, it is not anymore a deteriment to us (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't Forget the Price (Score:3, Interesting)
All these countries that you speak of would put their entire population (and some have) into disgusting poverty in order to get their hands on nuclear weapons.
Biological warfare would just be the new horror, we'd get strains of all our favorite diseases and so would Russia, China, all the countries you listed. There'd still be conventional war, we'd still dump half our resources into developing these strains and everyone everywhere would still be thinking that it's a good thing we'll never use them. Until the day we do.
This is an endless cycle, we're doomed to repeat this forever. If you want to get a Large Hadron Collider operating in the United States, convince congress it can create black holes that would easily be used as weapons against anyone.
SIGH (Score:3, Interesting)
Did we want to use nukes? Well, to the point of testing them. And we did. We did all sorts of tests. But other then first use of these, we never used on ppl again. Just because we have these weapons does not mean that we will use them. We have sarin and VX in our arsenal (as do a number of western countries). We also have a number of biologicals that have been weaponized. And of course, we have our nukes. All of these same items are possessed by Russia, China, and a number of western countries. Can we use ever these? ABout the only way is if we are in a world war again. No other time would we use such horrors. In fact, just about any country that uses these will be ostracized unless they were attack by such first. Have you ever taken any of the martial arts, learned to shoot a gun, or archery? If you know these things, do you really feel the need to use these against others? Nope. You just want to be prepared.
Maturity in a gov. is the ability to recognize that some of your actions are NOT in your citizen's best interest and then acting that way. Many leaders act in their own personal interest and that is considered immature. In a mature gov, their will be enough safe guards to prevent 1 or several ppl from being able to carry out such policies. That is the idea of congress, which is to reign in control on the president (or that is what they are suppose to do). Nearly all democracies/republics operate in such fashion. But even totalitarian states such as china can do so. China is controlled by a relatively small group of ppl, but they have controls on each other. Would I call them mature? Well, lets just say that I would not call them immature. They are in a massive build up of their military (esp on nukes and ICBMs), but I think that overall they will handle themselves well. Is maturity about hating somebody? Nope. USSR was mature. They actually had controls in place. OTH, what kind of controls does Musharraf have? Relatively little (hence relatively immature), though he would have to explain himself. Likewise, if North Korea's Kim Jong-il acquires this and decides to use this, will he have controls placed on him? NONE.
As I mentioned in my first post, AQ has controls in place by their view of religion. That control has stopped them from taking the next step. So, you want me to tell you how to weaponize Avian Flu? The funny thing is that I have thought about writting a book about this (as in a drama ). Here is the recipe.
Now, before you get your panty's all in a bunch and rant and scream that I have just told
Re:Bikini (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike [wikipedia.org]
Correction (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo [wikipedia.org]
Re:That may happen (Score:5, Interesting)
I would. Coconuts have evolved in such a way that their thick, outer hull keeps it afloat should it happen to fall into water. Coconuts can float for hundreds (thousands?) of miles to distant beaches without incident. The tough, inner object that we find in stores is kept completely dry during this time. The white insides and milk are perfectly safe to eat.
Except for the radiation.
Re:vacation (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially if they smoke cigarettes. Ever notice that whenever someone does of lung cancer, cigarettes are always to blame whether they smoke or not, even if they worked at the Hanford Nuclear Facility [wikipedia.org]?
I can remember one winter when I was a kid and they had open air nuclear tests in Nevada. A couple of days later we had a thindersnowstorm, and they said the snow was radioactive and you shouldn't let your kids play in it. Of course we did.
You young people only have terrorists to worry about, we had the USSR with thousands of atom bombs aimed at us.
The world is a much safer place than it was when I was a kid.
-mcgrew
Radiation is not so terrible... (Score:1, Interesting)
There may be a small number of birth deformities - but again, these animals produce a bazillion offspring which have a low probability of survival anyway - the few unfortunate deformed ones are merely the first to get picked off by predators - so again, no big deal.
The biggest issues are of biological concentration of radioactivity. So radioactive contaminants tend to accumulate in the creatures at the head of the food chain - but the absence of those higher predators helps in the reef recovery process.
It's amazing how quickly nature rebounds when you get people out of the picture.
Re:You joke, but ... (Score:4, Interesting)
AU could be a super-power if it had enough water to support a population of 300 million. Instead it is so dry they are lucky to have 1/10 of that at about 22 million.
The crazy thing is that it isn't just ocean evaporation and the winds that help bring water to a territory, the vegetation has so much to do with it as well. It brings up ground water, breathes it into the air, and can create rain.
There's a theory that says the Amazon Rain Forest is a human artifact.
Terra preta is characterized by the presence of low-temperature charcoal in high concentrations; of high quantities of pottery shards; of organic matter such as plant residues, animal faeces, fish and animal bones and other material; and of nutrients such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), calcium (Ca), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn).[1] It also shows high levels of microorganic activities and other specific characteristics within its particular ecosystem. It is less prone to leaching than surrounding soils. Terra preta zones are generally surrounded by terra comum, or "common soil"; these are infertile soils, mainly Acrisols,[1] but also Ferralsols, and Arenosols.[2]
Terra preta soils are of pre-Colombian nature and were created by man between 7000[3] and 500 BP ("Before Present"). Thousands of years after its creation it is so well known by local farmers and caboclos in Brazil's Amazonian basin, that they seek it out for use and for sale as compost (see Pedology). Its depth can reach 2 metres (6 feet). It is reputedly known by the locals as self-regenerating at the rate of 1 centimetre per year.[4]
Just imagine what we could do if we turned our minds to the greater good instead of the quickest buck.
Re:vacation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Radiation induced changes to coconuts (Score:5, Interesting)
If anyone wants to know where the #1 source of airborne, man-made radiation is, they need go no further than a lump of coal. Nuclear power plants require employees to wear film strips, much like those we see in cameras. The strips change chemistry and appearance with radiation. Ask a nuke worker how their rad levels are. They know. Oh, and if such a worker ever gets a medical treatment involving radioactive material, be it a barium enema (whee!) or chemotherapy, they would set off all the safety sensors in the facility if they went onsite, and trigger an immediate shutdown (unless you're from Soviet Russia, and you disabled the safety features because you wanted to try an exciting experiment in Chernobyl, which didn't work 4 months ago, because those safety triggers shut you down, but this time, you turned them off!).
Back to the lump of coal. The average coal plant, say 1000 MW, produces 5.2 tons of uranium (6% fissile), and 12.8 tons of thorium. Where does it go? Up into the atmosphere, as soot. Where does it come from? It is a rock. It comes from a dark hole in the ground, maybe W. Virginia. Nuclear power plants are closed systems. They don't combust materials and breathe oxygen. Every once in a while, the control rods need to be replaced, along with some pipes and such. The equivalent nuclear plant to said coal plant produces one standard shipping container full of rad "waste" per year. All reactors designed in N. America and many in Europe and Japan are planned with storage space for the rad waste, on-site.
One thing we could do, is once every 10 years, fill up a small freighter with the rad waste containers of the world's reactors, ship it to the Bikini Atoll, and drop the load 30 feet offshore. The metal will corrode eventually, but before that it will be covered with coral.
You know, I don't care a hoot about carbon dioxide, it has never done me much harm. Ozone is produced en masse by lightning strikes in the troposphere, and nobody can beat the mess made by a single, violent volcanic eruption. I do want to see the end of combustive power systems, because we don't need competition for oxygen. Living where I do, I can vouch for my corner of the planet and say it ain't getting any warmer. I do care about airborne radioactive particulates (aka soot) and rad waste. The coconut trees and oceanic coral have proven their value to society, I think we should reward them with a higher status in our world culture by making them the guardians of rad waste. If a lone coconut should travel thousands of leagues, well, shoot, it's not going to hurt anyone more than a barium enema. At least it isn't in the air.
Why did I put the waste of rad waste in quotes, you wonder? Well, from where do you think the barium and iodine and whatever ungodly stuff is in chemotherapy comes? A hole in the ground? No, that waste serves medical purposes. The rest of it could be put into a different reactor design, in accordance with the reactor families planned out in the 40's and 50's, but nobody has spent the research dollars to go far with them.
Final note: I heard a rumor that the prescription drug "Lunesta" contains a coconut extract. Is that why they have glowing butterflies in their ads?
Mostly old news, but an interesting posit (Score:2, Interesting)
About 3 years ago there was a TV special on Bikini Atoll and how the wildlife there has exploded due to lack of all human intervention (read harvesting). All of the shipwrecks are now beautiful artificial reefs teeming with life of all kinds and on all levels of the food chain. (The shark population alone is staggering)
The background radiation levels underwater are zero, so the entire area is now open for private SCUBA charters, with dive packages including boat dives on many of the largest ships sunk there. (The Saratoga, The Nagato, etc)
As for the coconuts, that's true of any radioactively contaminated area. Living things absorb radioactive material. Especially plants. Plant life and soil are the most radioactive things surrounding Chernobyl. (Unless you're inside the sarcophagus staring at the "elephant's foot" http://youtube.com/watch?v=u5EAS5PT7Q8 [youtube.com])
This begs the question: Could you seed a contaminated area with plants which are good at absorbing radioactive isotopes and harvest/dispose of them to clean up an area? Could we clean Bikini over time by going through several years of coconut harvesting?
Re:Radiation and life (Score:3, Interesting)
That is very interesting (: 849 of a total of 22 400 people with cancer, in a study of 1,14 million people. One question is if these people would develop cancer anyway, just a different type and a bit later. One other interesting thing to look at is not just how many cases of cancer develops, but how much it cuts of the life expectancy/quality of the people who get it, and in the population at large.
I once read that the number of people who died from Chernobyl is 47. That where those who died fighting the fire, and from direct exposure to massive radiation. Loads more have their life-spans shortened, but in the entire population affected, the impact was very small, and that compared to the energy produced, the danger to peoples lives from nuclear is tiny compared to effects from other common energy sources.
Re:Bikini (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Radiation and life (Score:4, Interesting)
That's actually a red-herring in the argument against nuclear power and NIMBY-ism. The real worry isn't about real health effects. It's financial.
The real argument is;
"If your plant explodes, because you spent money on CEO bonuses instead of safety inspections, even if your radioactive cloud does not meaningfully impact my health and safety, the measurable radiation in the soil of my back yard will destroy the value of my property in the open real estate market, while your endowed CEO floats gently down to an easy retirement on his golden parachute."
This is a REAL and measurable negative impact from nuclear power, and no amount of "radiation is good for you" PR-spin is going to change it. Nobody wants their nest-egg destroyed. Nobody wants their hometown community erased.
Even increased regulation and vigilance is not going to impact this effect that nuclear power plants have on residential real estate markets.
Re:You joke, but ... (Score:3, Interesting)
That is part of the problem. Another problem is that Australia is extremely nutrient poor. Being in the middle of a continental plate, with few volcaones (none active), means that little new material comes to the surface.
Re:You joke, but ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Australia did have big wide rivers, it's just that by the time humans got here, they were so wide they are referred to as flood plains.
The buring by aboriginals and the wholesale clearing by white settlers has caused the water channels we now call creeks and rivers, but these are not a natural part of the landscape. Read some of the notes by the early explorers. They describe large parts of inner Australia that is now desert or close too, as swamp land.
Peter Andrew's book Back from the Brink, is a great background on the situation along with his suggestions to fix the problem. He not scientist, just a farmer, but he makes so much sense that a number CSIRO scientists are backing his observations.