Chernobyl's legacy recorded in trees

Exposure to radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl accident had a lasting negative legacy on the area's trees, a study has suggested.

Researchers said the worst effects were recorded in the "first few years" but surviving trees were left vulnerable to environmental stress, such as drought.

They added that young trees appeared to be particularly affected.

Writing in the journal Trees, the team said it was the first study to look at the impact at a landscape scale.

"Our field results were consistent with previous findings that were based on much smaller sample sizes," explained co-author Tim Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, US.

"They are also consistent with the many reports of genetic impacts to these trees," he told BBC News.

                                  

                      The change in wood colour in these Scots pine logs indicates the year of the accident

"Many of the trees show highly abnormal growth forms reflecting the effects of mutations and cell death resulting from radiation exposure."

Prof Mousseau, who has been carrying out field studies since 1999 within the 30km (19-mile) exclusion zone around the site of the 1986 explosion, said it was the first time that a study of this scale - involving more than 100 Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) at 12 sites - had been conducted."There was one similar study conducted before but it only looked at a total of nine trees and was mainly interested in wood structure, not growth," he said.

"Another study was performed in the 1950s but it was for a different tree in the US and it used a single external gamma source suspended above the ground to show growth effects for a very limited number of trees.
"For this study, the team took core samples from Scots pine trees for a number of reasons, such as the species is found across Europe and well dispersed within the Chernobyl region.
"They are also a favourite for silviculture and have enormous economic value," Prof Mousseau added.

"Also, based on past work and our own observations, they appeared to be a good target for radioecology as they showed signs of being impacted by the fallout.

"In fact, one of the first ecological observations at Chernobyl was the death of the so-called red forest: a stand of these pines which very quickly died and turned red following the disaster."

Scots pines' tree rings were also easier to read than other species, such as birch, found in the study area, he explained.

Prof Mousseau and his team hope to follow up this study by carrying out similar work in the Fukushima region in Japan, where logging also had considerable economic importance and pine trees were widely dispersed.

"Based on our limited field observations in the most contaminated regions of Fukushima prefecture, there did not appear to be a major die off as seen in Chernobyl for Scots pines," he said.

"However, anecdotally, we have noticed significant die off of growing tips and branches in some areas that suggests that there could be impacts on growth.

The twisted stems of Scots pines have been attributed to mutations caused by radiation exposure

From BBC News- Sci/Environment

Bird of prey at risk of extinction in UK

One of the UK's birds of prey - the hen harrier - is at risk of extinction.

Conservationists say there are only two nesting pairs left in Britain and they have failed to breed.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) says it's the first time the birds have not produced a chick in about 50 years.

The charity said they think the fact that the birds prey on grouse has affected their numbers, because landowners protect the grouse on their land - making it difficult for the hen harriers to feed.

A study by government scientists suggests illegal shooting, trapping and disturbing nests was also keeping numbers low.

The RSPB support a plan to bring in different food sources for the hen harriers, so they don't rely on grouse for food.

From CBBC Newsround

The Midway pollution disaster- A video to watch and think

You really MUST watch this video

Disasters like this one MUST NOT happen!

It's  up to US ALL to prevent  them!

Dozens of dolphins are mysteriously turning up dead on beaches from New Jersey to Virginia

A mysterious rise in deaths of bottlenose dolphins this year has left scientists and officials in multiple states searching for answers. As of last Thursday, Reuters reports, more than 120 dead dolphins had been discovered across the East Coast, and carcasses continue to wash up on Atlantic shores.

So far most of the deaths have occurred in Virginia around the southern areas of the Chesapeake Bay. According to the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center, the average number of dolphin strandings for July is seven; This year, the aquarium has responded to 44 deaths in July alone. Just yesterday, as Richmond's local CBS affiliateWTVR reported, the aquarium confirmed that an additional 13 dead dolphins were found over the weekend. WTVR reports that two scientists from the Smithsonian Institution have been dispatched to assist with an investigation that has so far produced no definitive answers.

IN 1987 AND 1988, MORE THAN 700 DOLPHINS WERE KILLED BY BACTERIAL AND VIRAL INFECTIONS

This year's rash of deaths hasn't been seen on a similar level since 1987 and 1988, when more than 700 dolphins were found dead on the Atlantic seaboard over an 18 month period. Those deaths were found to be caused by bacterial and viral infections, leading some researchers to speculate that a similar outbreak could be the cause of this year's spike in dolphin fatalities.

Federal investigators are also participating in the search for answers, but have not nailed down a single cause. "There's a number of things that cause animals to strand," NOAA's Maggie Mooney-Seus told CBS News. "It could be biotoxins. It could be disease. It could be human interactions with fishing gear."

"It's absolutely alarming," a Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center researcher toldReuters. "This is really frightening because these animals are sentinels of ocean health."

Credits to The Verge

Fukushima radioactive water leak an 'emergency'

Japan's nuclear watchdog has said the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is facing a new "emergency" caused by a build-up of radioactive groundwater.

The crippled Fukushima plant has suffered water leaks and power cuts in recent months

A barrier built to contain the water has already been breached, the Nuclear Regulatory Authority warned.

This means the amount of contaminated water seeping into the Pacific Ocean could accelerate rapidly, it said.There has been spate of water leaks and power failures at the plant, devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.Its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), has been criticised heavily for its lack of transparency over the leaks.

'Weak sense of crisis'

Tepco admitted for the first time last month that radioactive groundwater had breached an underground barrier and been leaking into the sea, but said it was taking steps to prevent it.However, the head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority task force, Shinji Kinjo, told the Reuters news agency on Monday that the countermeasures were only a temporary solution.Tepco's "sense of crisis is weak," Mr Kinjo said. "This is why you can't just leave it up to Tepco alone"

"Right now, we have an emergency," he added.

If the underground barrier is breached, the watchdog warns, the water could start to seep through shallower areas of earth.Once it reaches the surface, it could start to flow "extremely fast", says Mr Kinjo. Contaminated water could rise to the ground's surface within three weeks, the Asahi newspaper predicted on Saturday.The contaminated water is thought to have come from the 400 tonnes of groundwater pumped into the plant every day to cool the reactors.

Tepco 'in trouble'

Tepco admitted on Friday that a cumulative 20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium may have leaked into the sea since the disaster. It has been clear for months now that the operators of the Fukushima plant are in deep trouble, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. The only course of action, he continues, is to pump water out. But this has to be stored, and more than 1,000 giant holding tanks surrounding the plant are nearly all full, he adds.

Tepco said on Monday it plans to start pumping out a further 100 tonnes of groundwater a day.

From BBC News- Sci/Environment

Rare long-eared bats endangered in UK

The grey long-eared bat, one of the UK's rarest mammals, is in danger of disappearing if it's not given extra protection.

 A study by scientists at the University of Bristol found there were only about 1,000 of the bats left in the UK.

They are mainly found along the south coast of England and on the Isle of Wight, with a few on the Channel Islands and just one spotted in Wales.

The researchers say the bats' habitat should be protected.

The Bat Conservation Trust said the grey long-eared bat should be given "UK Priority Species status" to make sure that money is spent protecting where the bats live.

From CBBC Animals

The grey long-eared bat (Plecotus austriacus) is a fairly large European bat. It has distinctive ears, long and with a distinctive fold. It hunts above woodland, often by day, and mostly for moths. It is extremely similar to the more common brown long-eared bat, and was only distinguished in the 1960s, but has a paler belly. It is not an endangered species.

Echolocation

The frequencies used by this bat species for echolocation lie between 18-45 kHz, have most energy at 28 kHz and have an average duration of 5.8 ms.

In wikipedia

Alpine glaciers 'protect mountain peaks from erosion'

Instead of wearing mountains down, evidence from Europe's high Alps shows that glaciers shield summits from erosion, acting as a protective lid.

Mont Blanc's Bossons glacier protects the peak from rain

French scientists studied erosion on Mont Blanc, western Europe's highest peak, below and around its glaciers.

Ice at the highest points froze to the mountain rock and played little part in erosion, the team said.

In contrast, water and rain eroded glacier-free areas 10 times faster than areas protected by the glacier.

The research was part of Cécile Godon's doctoral research at Université de Savoie, located on the edge of the French Alps, and appeared in the journal Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters.

The study focused on the Bossons glacier, which flows down the northern face of Mont Blanc towards the French town of Chamonix.

Rock debris, carved from the mountain at the toe of the Bossons glacier and sediments washed out in high mountain streams were compared with erosion in nearby glacier-free areas.

The researchers found that the cold glacial ice protected the mountain from erosion, rather than promoting it.

Rising ice

These results may explain the high altitude of the Alps. Driven by the tectonic collision of Europe with Africa, the high alpine bedrock is rising about one millimetre each year.

Glacier-free areas of the Alps erode at a similar rate but where the mountains are protected by ice, the peaks wear away at one tenth that rate.

Fritz Schlunegger, from Bern University, Switzerland, was not involved in the work and commented: "This group has used sediments at the end of Bossons glacier to determine where erosion is happening beneath the ice.

"Most material has been derived from the non-frozen part the glacier, while higher up towards (the summit of) Mont Blanc - where the glacier is frozen to the ground - erosion is much less," he told BBC News.

"This is really the first time, according to my knowledge, where this has been convincingly shown in a quantitative way and using a natural example.                                                                                                                                                                                   Cold ice clings to the rock face and prevents erosion

"However, mountains don't grow to infinity, so there must be another mechanism which has lowered the summit of Europe. According to (Dr) Godon's findings, this erosion is not related to glaciers, so we still have to think about other possibilities."

Around the globe, mountain glaciers - especially those at low latitudes - are retreating in response to climate change, scientists say.

Reports earlier this year indicated that glaciers around Mount Everest had lost more than one eight of their area in the past 50 years, and the snowline had retreated 180 metres up the mountain sides.

Dr Godon's results suggest that changes like these could change the shapes of the world's highest mountains, and that climate and mountain landscape are intimately linked.

From BBC News Sci/Environment