mutations

– Scientist anticipates Fukushima radiation will cause mutations in marine bacteria in U.S.

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Flaws in study and questions —

1- Data was to be collected twice monthly. What is the data collected to date?

2- The study is based on one release of radioactivity in March 2011. Charts (see below) promote a model of initial release and no releases afterward, despite constant releases for over 4 1/2 years.

3- Researcher only expects to find “neutral mutations in housekeeping genes” and “nonsense and missense mutations in non-essential genes”. Why?

4- How much funding for this research center comes from DOE? She is a National Science Foundation graduate research fellow.

5- “[G[ive policy makers the information they need to manage affected ecosystems.” How does anyone “manage” a radioactively damaged ecosystem?

Posted on ENE News

National Science Foundation research proposal by Bethany Kolody, NSF graduate research fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (emphasis added):

Impacts of Radioactive 137Cs on Marine Bacterioplankton: Effects of the Fukushima Disaster on Hawaii’s Kaneohe Bay Bacterial Communities

• Introduction: … Despite our dependence on marine bacteria, very little research has been conducted on how they respond to large-scale disasters… Fukushima Daiichi [is] the largest ever release of anthropogenic radionuclides into the ocean. The main pollutant, 137Cs…  will first hit the US territories at the Hawaiian Pacific Islands in early 2014, diluted by only three orders of magnitude… the impacts of radioactive waste on marine microorganisms are largely unknown. Due to their short reproductive lifecycle and unicellularity, bacteria evolve faster than most eukaryotes when exposed to radiation, so much so that radiation is used in laboratories to induce mutagenesis. This project aims to assess the impacts of radiation on the bacterioplankton community of Kaneohe Bay in Oahu, Hawaii. The bay is in the direct path of Fukushima’s radioactive waste and has a bacterioplankton community that was well-characterized pre-disturbance, making it the ideal case study for the microscopic impacts of radioactive pollution. I will compare trends after radiation exposure to previously documented annual/seasonal fluctuations…

• Research Questions: 1. How has the bacterioplankton species composition in Kaneohe Bay… changed since the Fukushima leak? — 2. Has there been a significant increase in single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) since the radiation event, as compared to mutation rates that would occur due to random chance?…

• Anticipated Results: 1. The bacterial community structure will change significantly more than due to random chance. — 2. Post-Fukushima species will have significantly more nonsense and missense mutations in non-essential genes and neutral mutations in housekeeping genes than would have accumulated due to random chance…

• Broader Impacts:  This research will help characterize the full repercussions of radioactive pollution… It will reduce the knowledge gap of what potential harm radioactivity causes marine microbial communities, and give policy makers the information they need to manage affected ecosystems… This study will also characterize the impact of radiation on pathogenic bacteria in coastal communities, which is crucial to fully assessing the impact of radioactive waste on human and environmental health.

Associated Press, Feb 26, 2015 http://www.kgw.com/story/news/local/2015/02/26/striped-knifefish-fukushima-tsunami-oregon-coast/24059713/ :

An estimated 300 different invasive species have drifted across the Pacific on tsunami debris, [John Calvanese, an Oregon State graduate student] said. Most are small invertebrates. Many are unidentifiable, either because they are in a stage of life not recognized by scientists or they are new to science. “Debris is still coming across the ocean,” Chapman said. “We know there is this conveyor of species from Asia land on our shores. We’ve found parasites inside mussels that came across, mussels themselves that are strange, and oysters with parasites that have never been seen before, even in Asia. We’re worried.”

See also: High concentrations of radioactive cesium found in plankton — “So heavily contaminated”

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– Scientist: “We’re worried”; Parasites ‘never seen before’ are washing up on West Coast; Finding unidentifiable ‘strange’ creatures ‘new to science’

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From KGW Portland
February 26, 2015

PORT ORFORD, Ore. (AP) – A fish normally found in the ocean off Japan and other tropical waters has turned up alive in a crab pot hauled up by a fisherman off the Oregon coast.

It’s possible the fish – a striped knifejaw – came across the Pacific in debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami, said John Chapman, an invasive species specialist at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. Other possibilities include the fish being discharged from a ship’s ballast or dumped from an aquarium.

This is only the second confirmed discovery of a striped knifejaw on the West Coast, Chapman said. The other was March 2013, when five striped knifejaws were found alive near Long Beach, Washington, in a boat that had drifted over from Japan. Four were killed, and the fifth put in an aquarium for display.

The new fish, found off Port Orford, is 5 inches long, shaped like a sunfish, with black and white stripes. It was taken to the Hatfield Center in Newport, where a veterinarian was ready to treat it for cuts on its belly, Chapman said.

It was lucky the fisherman who found the fish recognized it as an exotic, put it in a well on his boat, and turned it over to the university, said John Calvanese, an Oregon State graduate student working at a field station in Port Orford.

An estimated 300 different invasive species have drifted across the Pacific on tsunamis debris, Chapman said. Most are small invertebrates. Many are unidentifiable, either because they are in a stage of life not recognized by scientists or they are new to science.

“Debris is still coming across the ocean,” Chapman said. “We know there is this conveyor of species from Asia land on our shores. We’ve found parasites inside mussels that came across, mussels themselves that are strange, and oysters with parasites that have never been seen before, even in Asia. We’re worried.”

http://www.kgw.com/story/news/local/2015/02/26/striped-knifefish-fukushima-tsunami-oregon-coast/24059713/

Posted under Fair Use Rules

• Deformed, mutated plants in Japan gain internet fame; US gov’t expert: Plant abnormalities can be induced after only 24 hours of exposure to radioactive fallout (photos)

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From ENE News

Yahoo News, Jul 13, 2015: Deformed daisies from Fukushima disaster site gain Internet fame… one Japanese amateur photographer has captured something a bit more unique than a beautiful bloom. Twitter user @san_kaido posted a photo of mutated yellow daisies last month, found in Nasushiobara City, around 70 miles from Fukushima… The photos show daisies with fused yellow centres and with the petals growing out the side of the flower…

Tweet from @san_kaido, translated by Fukushima Diary: “The right one grew up, split into 2 stems to have 2 flowers connected each other, having 4 stems of flower tied beltlike. The left one has 4 stems grew up to be tied to each other and it had the ring-shaped flower. The atmospheric dose is 0.5 μSv/h at 1 m”…

Taka Katsumi, former aide to Member of Japan’s Parliament, Jun 21, 2015:  Deformed Margaret flowers found 130 km from Fukushima Daiichi plant at Nasu Shiobara on May 26, 2015.

Video from Nasushiobara City: Sep 2012, I measured radiation in front of SEKIYA elementary school of Nasushiobara… The monitor indicates… 6.94 on mud in the road side garter, 8.10 micro Sievert per hour on dusts of the school road.

More on Plant Fasciations (emphasis added)

> Univ. of Chicago w/ grant from Rockefeller Foundation (pdf), 1933: All vegetative parts are subject to injury by x-rays. Root tips may become bulbous and swollen, with tumor-like enlargements in which giant cells may occur. Stems become fasciated… flowers of plants rayed in seed or seedling stages may show fasciation…

> Japan’s National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, 2009: The proportion of plants showing stem fasciation increased with gamma-irradiation… Each single mutant also showed stem fasciation at a low frequency without gamma-irradiation, while gamma-irradiation induced stem fasciation. Importantly, in wild-type plants, the frequency of stem fasciation was very low (<0.1%) [but] were induced by gamma-irradiation.

> Affidavit of James Gunckel, Brookhaven National Lab (pdf), 1984: I have carefully examined… plants, collected shortly after the [1979] accident at TMI and compared them with specimens collected more recently. The current abnormalities [5 years post-accident] are probably carried forward by induced chromosomal aberrations. There were a number of anomalies entirely comparable to those induced by ionizing radiation — stem fasciations [etc.]… Most of the stem abnormalities… are induced by relatively high doses of X or gamma rays extending over a period of usually 2-3 months. Notable exceptions, however, are similar responses to beta ray exposure from radioisotopes… for only 24 hours. In other words, it would have been possible for the types of plant abnormalities observed to have been induced by radioactive fallout on March 29, 1979…  I am the world authority on modifications of plant growth and development induced by ionizing radiations…

Watch the video from Nasushiobara City here

http://enenews.com/yahoo-news-mutated-plants-fukushima-gain-internet-fame-pics-show-centers-fused-together-petals-growing-sides-flowers-govt-expert-abnormalities-be-induced-after-only-24-hours-exposure-radioactive