February 10th, 2012

Birds may have been more greatly and immediately affected by the Fukushima disaster than even scientists anticipated, according to research by a team of scientists comparing effects in Japan with that of the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 25 years ago.

Their findings, that the bird community within 15-30 miles of the Fukushima nuclear complex has been greatly diminished by the nuclear accident of March 2011, were published this week in Environmental Pollution.

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August 18th, 2010

Concerns that fires ripping through forests already polluted by Chernobyl fallout could launch dangerous amounts of radioactivity into the air are unwarranted, scientists say, adding that real health risks are very small. “Of the total radioactivity in the area, much less than one percent of it will be remobilized,” said Jim Smith, an expert on Chernobyl and a specialist in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Britain’s University of Portsmouth.

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