The mutant butterflies of Fukushima

From Fox News via DProgram:

(AJC) – One legacy of the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year has already become apparent through a study of butterflies in Japan: Their rate of genetic mutations and deformities has increased with succeeding generations.

“Nature in the Fukushima area has been damaged,” said Joji Otaki, a professor at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, who is the senior author of the new study.

Fukushima… everything under control?

From Maggie Koerth-Baker on Boing Boing:

Nuclear Aftershocks is a new FRONTLINE documentary, airing tomorrow, January 17, at 10:00 pm Eastern. Maggie watched an advance screener yesterday. Photo via Boing Boing blog.

“About halfway through Nuclear Aftershocks, a new FRONTLINE documentary about the physical and social fallout of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, it becomes clear that correspondent Miles O’Brien and his production team are really going to piss some people off. In the best possible way.

Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan (and beyond) is worse than reported

From Robert Cringely on Cringely.com:

Note — I have written previously about other aspects of this subject here, here, here, and here.  I am not by nature an alarmist about nuclear power or even particularly anti-nuclear. But sometimes truth just has to be told.

Photo of Japanese baby being monitored via"I Cringely"

Nobody died following the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. I should know because I was there. But this fact can’t be attributed to any wisdom of the U.S. nuclear industry, but simply to dumb luck.  The two TMI reactors were (and still are) the only such devices ever built deliberately on the approach path to a U.S. Air Force base, now Harrisburg International Airport. An extra 18 inches of reinforced concrete was added to the TMI containment buildings to protect them if hit by a fully laden B-52. No other reactors in the USA had (or have) such thick containment vessels. Had Unit 2 been built to the standards of all its sister reactors like Rancho Seco in California, hydrogen explosions would have breached the containment just as they have in Japan and many people would have died just as they will in Japan.

Fukushima Is Continually Blasting All Of Us With High Levels Of Cesium, Strontium And Plutonium And Will Slowly Kill Millions For Years To Come

From “End of the American Dream.com”:

Click image for source

Fukushima is now far and away the worst nuclear disaster in all of human history. Chernobyl was a Sunday picnic compared to Fukushima and the amount of cesium-137 released at Fukushima this year so far is equivalent to 168 Hiroshima bombs.  The crisis at Fukushima is far, far worse than you have been told.  We are talking about multiple self-sustaining nuclear meltdowns that will not be fully contained for years.

Dr. Shiv Chopra (ex Health Canada) talks food irradiation, other dangers

Dr. Shiv Chopra, on food irradiation, and other health concerns:

“Almost all American and Canadian food is already being irradiated. Take note of out-of-season fruits, looking fine but with blackish and horrible tasting pulp inside. Notice also the strange looking depressions on melon skins with mush and tasteless pulp inside. It is all due to irradiation destroying fruit ripening enzymes that convert their starch into sugar.

Serious crop losses expected in Europe

From Jeremy Lovell and Climate Wire in the Scientific American:

“LONDON — One of the driest spring seasons on record in northern Europe has sucked soils dry and sharply reduced river levels to the point that governments are starting to fear crop losses and France, in particular, is bracing for blackouts as its river-cooled nuclear power plants may be forced to shut down.

French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire warned this week that the warmest and driest spring in half a century could slash wheat yields and might even push up world prices despite the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s predicting a bumper global crop due to greater plantings.

Japan Nuclear Safety watch: Fukoshima reactors continue to spew radioactive particles across northern hemisphere

From Dr. Mark Sircus, at the Intel Hub:

“Arnie Gundersen, widely-regarded to be the best nuclear analyst covering Japan’s Fukushima disaster, indicates that the situation on the ground at the crippled reactors remains precarious and at a minimum it will be years before it can be hoped to be truly contained.

Radiation, chemtrails, and raw milk

From Gordon Watson:

“Our new cowshare isn’t producing much yet, nevertheless, shareholders want to know about the possibility of harmful radio-activity from our raw milk

So I called the BC Minister of Agriculture in Abbotsford.   Jane Pritchard is the deputy Chief Veterinarian. She says that the BC Centre for Disease Control has a Q & A section on its website, to do with this topic. She told me that the air quality is being monitored, and has shown no “spike” in radio-activity.

B.C. dairy farmers want milk tested for radioactivity, Canadian food inspection agency refuses their demands

From Tiffany Crawford, at the Vancouver Sun:

“Canadian health agencies have no immediate plans to measure the amount of radiation in milk following Japan’s nuclear crisis despite the demands of B.C. dairy farmers who want officials to follow the U.S. and test dairy products.

“There will be no testing of milk,” Alice Danjou, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said Friday.

The news came as a disappointment to Robin Smith, executive director of the BC Milk Producers Association, which earlier this week called on the agency to test the milk in an effort to prove to the public the levels are low enough to consume.

Late arriving “Bruce Power” candidate sells twice as many memberships in race to represent Grey-Bruce-Owen-Sound for Progressive Conservatives

As a candidate himself in this race, Michael Schmidt has a unique window into the process. And he reports on it in the latest post on his “Reflections of a Nominee” blog:

"Bruce Power"... what's in a name? Photo of the paramilitary swat team Bruce Power reportedly uses to "guard the perimeter". Hopefully, the OPP will be able to resolve the issues area residents have with the movement of nuclear materials through their town.

“….Bill Walker is the undisputed front-runner in this process. He does not live in the riding and works for Bruce Power, which does not even appear on his promo flier.

He has been liberal worked on the campaign of the liberal Murray Elston, who then became head of the Bruce Power development. Interestingly enough it seems that Bruce Power needs urgently political support to ship radioactive scrap through Bruce and Grey and then through the great lakes.