Fish Transport Fukushima Radiation

Radioactive particles from the Fukushima nuclear disaster provide an unexpected way to track migratory marine species.

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Pacific bluefin tunaWIKIMEDIA COMMONS, AES256

The Fukushima nuclear disaster following the tsunami in March 2011 was the largest accidental release of radioactive material into the ocean in history, and scientists are still quantifying the ecological fallout of the event. While most studies on the effects on marine wildlife have been conducted in Japan, a new experiment identifies radioactive elements in Pacific bluefin tuna off the coast of San Diego, California. The migratory tuna transported radioactive particles across the ocean in just 5 months, according to the study, published online today (May 28) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But the findings are not necessarily bad: the levels of radioactivity in the fish are not high enough to be a health concern, the authors emphasized, and the radiation ...

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