<
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a46799706/mutant-wolves-of-chernobyl/>
"On April 26, 1986, disaster struck the small Ukrainian-Belarusian border town
of Chernobyl, (then part of the Soviet Union) when a series of steam explosions
led to a nuclear meltdown. The apocalyptic event impacted hundreds of thousands
of people and greatly impacted the surrounding environment.
But nearly 40 years later, something strange is happening. The Chernobyl
Exclusion Zone (CEZ), a roughly 1,000 square mile perimeter around the nuclear
plant, is slowly becoming one of the world’s biggest science experiments for
exploring the long-term effects of ionizing radiation. While humans might’ve
abandoned the area, other animals stuck around.
In 2016, a study found that the Eastern tree frogs (
Hyla orientalis) in the
CEZ exhibit different characteristics than their neighboring cousins, and in
2023, another study discovered distinct genetic differences between Chernobyl
dogs and dogs living only 10 miles away in Chernobyl City. Now, Princeton
University biologists Cara Love and Shane Campbell-Stanton are exploring
another strange mammalian characteristic of the CEZ—its unexpectedly
thriving
wolf population. The results of the decade-long study were presented at the
Annual Meeting of Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology in January."
Via
Fix the News:
<
https://fixthenews.com/goodnews-meals-brazil-rewild-denmark-mangroves-pakistan/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
