Colourful Birds Hardest Hit at Chernobyl


	Colourful Birds Hardest Hit at Chernobyl

thisnamecantbetaken

7-14-2007 5:58 PM

780 views

tags:

birds, biodiversity, chernobyl, radiation, nuclear

thisnamecantbetaken says:

Imagine no bird song. What an eery, deathly place Chernobyl must be.

1 Comment |

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7-15-2007 7:11 AM

debbyski

Popped for your comment TN.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/af06ee57-f7ef-40b5-9000-c8fa175dee33/0B5A8EB5-B0AE-4332-AF32-380A38B97044/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1453" href="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1453" style="font-size: 11px;">www.cosmosmagazine.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1453"><H1 class="title">Colourful birds hardest hit at Chernobyl</H1></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1453">Brightly coloured birds have been some of the hardest hit by radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, say ecologists.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1453">"The research shows that the effect [of radiation] on birds is much stronger than previously thought – the open question is why it took 20 year before anybody bothered to look,"</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1453"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.cosmosmagazine.com/img/96A7D6A4-DBAD-40FC-A999-605D7CA3EB79" alt="Colourful birds hardest hit at Chernobyl" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1453">Radiation damage creates massive amounts of free radicals, which antioxidants help to mop up, said Møller, "animals have dramatically reduced antioxidant levels when exposed to radiation."</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1453"><P>Therefore "we predicted that bird species that use large amounts of antioxidants – because of their peculiar life histories – would be most affected by radiation," said Møller. "And that was indeed the case."</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1453">the impacts are not evenly spread across species</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1453">birds near Chernobyl prefer to nest in sites with lower levels of radioactive contamination – but they were unable to determine how the birds detected the difference.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/0B5A8EB5-B0AE-4332-AF32-380A38B97044/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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