Effects of Nuclear Radiation on Wildlife

[Eric]

Note: Gojira refers to the Japanese Godzilla. Godzilla refers to the American Godzilla.

Back in the day, nuclear giant monsters were all the rage. Gojira, Rodan, Gamera, Giant Ants, Giant Scorpions, Giant Octopus, Giant Spiders, Giant Preying Mantis, Giant Gila Monster, Behemoth, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Godzilla ect ect. They had a nuclear related giant everything. After seeing the original japanese 'Gojira' (a brilliant movie by the way) I began to wonder: how would radiation affect wildlife? I'm not talking about 30 story high lizards levelling Tokyo. Realistically, how would radiation affect the DNA of animals such as, say, Komodo Dragons? Or Iguanas? Would it cause giantism? Or would it mutate the animals into some new species? I'm curious.

[Darth Wong]

It would give them cancer and they would die.

[Eric]

Not neccisarily. Yes I know I spelt that wrong. If you look at the Chernobyl accident, hundreds of people were mutated in odd ways. Such as babies being born with extra thumbs and that sort of crap. The radiation from Hiroshima and Nagasaki also caused such things along with the diseases that radiation cause. You'd get babies being born bigger than they were supposed to be and smaller than they were supposed to be. Children with extra thumbs, fingers, hands and even arms in some occasions.

[Spiff]

Suppose it could result in either cancer growths, unstable mutations, or Godzilla. Assuming of course its a mutation that can be passed onto offspring, the chances of it being both a visible mutation and benefitial are praticaly none, as far as i know


things like this .. bleh

[Eric]

That poor, poor, poor fish.

[Darth Wong]

Not neccisarily. Yes I know I spelt that wrong. If you look at the Chernobyl accident, hundreds of people were mutated in odd ways. Such as babies being born with extra thumbs and that sort of crap. The radiation from Hiroshima and Nagasaki also caused such things along with the diseases that radiation cause. You'd get babies being born bigger than they were supposed to be and smaller than they were supposed to be. Children with extra thumbs, fingers, hands and even arms in some occasions.

That sort of thing happens even without radiation. One of my uncles has an extra thumb. Radiation might increase the odds of that sort of thing, but for the majority, it just gives you cancer.

If you look at the Bikini atoll and other areas where heavy nuclear tests were conducted, we didn't get monsters; we mostly just killed everything off.

[Eric]

Of course you killed everything off on Bikini Atoll. You nuked it for gods sake! I'm talking about the radiation from a nuclear meltdown and/or explosion affecting local wildlife.

[Darth Wong]

Of course you killed everything off on Bikini Atoll. You nuked it for gods sake! I'm talking about the radiation from a nuclear meltdown and/or explosion affecting local wildlife.

You're missing the point, which is that the irradiated area stayed mostly devoid of life for a long time. I'm not just talking about immediate effects of the blast.

[Sinuhet]

Ave to all!

It is not so simple. I am not radiotherapeut and from radiobiology I dont know a lot, on the other hand, my coleagues in job are talking about these things and I -as oncologist - sometimes read about similar things. So only a few remarks:

1. In general, it is not true that after irradiation you will have cancer or your babies about one leg more. As for late effects of radiation, it is true that it is cause of certain special pattern of morbidity. But "the cancer" is only one of them. It has late effects on a lot of organs and tissues, is causing fibrogenesis in many organs and so on. Radiation is damaging DNA, true, but these are stochastic processes and there are a lot of repair DNA mechanisms. The irradiation is not something quite unnormal in wild nature too, so your organism have after several millions-bilions of years of evolution some good adaptive mechanisms. The question is however the dose of radiation and time, during which it is applied.

2. There is statistically proven that after atom bombs in Japan or after Chernobyl, the rate (or probability) of some cancers was higher. Classical example is cancer of thyroid gland. On the other hand it is also dependent on the age of the people in time of "application", so for example the pattern of the occurence of the breast cancer in affected Japaneese woman across the different age strata is very complex. And it is possible to evaluate this only after several decades.

3. There are also more complex DNA damages than mutations on the level of codons, i.e. chromosomal aberrations, which can cause "the things" with the extremities or the mutilated fish above. But it is not so frequent. It is also a reason why there are not existing some really good data for judgment, if such things are caused by living next to atom craft or similar situations. Intuitively it is "sure" what is the cause, but such chromosomal aberations are also in "normal" conditions (but is "normal" to live between so many new artificially synthesised materials from chemical industry and so on ?, and this is a reality against a lot a of people dont protest like against "always harmful" radiation.) Further there also exist certain genetic predispositions for higher sensitivity to irradiation, so in this people also relatively unharmful dose can cause great damage.

4. The irradiation is not good, clear. It increase chance of damage of your genetic material, it is only a probability, but it is bad in population view. On the other hand, small doses of radiation can cause also (maybe unwaited) good effects on individual organism (and I dont mean treatment of cancer with this modality). For example in small doses it is stimulating spermatogenesis (without mutations), while - in general - irradiation of gonads is harmful.

So, in conclusion, it is very complex topic, and without any offence, your discussion above was oversimplified even in my eyes.

Bye Sinuhet

[Darth Wong]

Fair enough; your medical expertise obviously exceeds ours by a considerable margin.

[allthesedamnnamesaretaken]

you lost me after "ave to all!"