Radiation In Food Increases As You Ascend Food Chain
I feel vindicated:
"Yet amounts of the cesium-137 isotope -- which, by comparison, has a 30-year "half life" -- have also soared, with a Wednesday afternoon sample showing levels 527 times the standard.
"That's the one I am worried about," said Michael Friedlander, a U.S.-based nuclear engineer, explaining cesium might linger much longer in the ecosystem. "Plankton absorbs the cesium, the fish eat the plankton, the bigger fish eat smaller fish -- so every step you go up the food chain, the concentration of cesium gets higher." "
- Radiation Levels In Seawater Off Japan Plant Spike To All-time Highs, CNN, 31 March 2011
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4 comments:
Here's a silver lining to that cloud:
I'm sure the media and the public will be cared enough to drive down the demand for the pacific species of tuna the japanese favor.
Yellow fin tuna and other endangered species of fishes that end up in sushi MIGHT just have the chance of increasing their numbers due to lower demand.
Everyone keeps saying there's no threat to human health. If that's true we should just dump all our nuclear waste into the ocean and let it dissipate since its no threat there to anything.
Good point, manu. I agree with you and Ben on that.
I agree with Claudia too, I think. Saying there is no risk to public health may be calming but inaccurate. I don't know, what do you say?
Of course there's a risk, but it's not the Japanese disaster in itself, but the cumulative effect of all the radiation sources to which we're exposed daily. Aargh!
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