Swiss Artist Catalogs Mutant Insects Around Nuke Plants

By Erin Biba Wired May 2010


On The Simpsons, the effects of nuclear contamination are conspicuous and comedic. In nature, though, they're often subtle — and sometimes strangely beautiful. Scientific illustrator Cornelia Hesse-Honegger details these minute mutations in the so-called true bugs she collects near nuclear facilities and areas of chemical contamination. True bugs don't travel far, and they "suck the liquid from the plants they live on," she says. "So if the plant is contaminated, they take a lot of radioactivity into their bodies."

Conventional wisdom holds that nuclear power stations don't leak enough radiation to create malformed organisms. But in some locations, Hesse-Honegger discovered mutations — curtailed feelers, misshapen legs, asymmetrical wings — in as many as 30 percent of the bugs she gathered. That's 10 times the overall rate of about 3 percent for insects found in the wild. "For me, the mutated bugs were like prototypes of a future nature," she says. A selection of Hesse-Honegger's work will be shown this fall in Berlin.


http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/pl_arts_mutantbugs

long may she work her art

Actually, this is pretty scary. All I've ever heard was that Nuke plants were safe and didn't release radiation. Oops.

nt

1. Do abnormalities occur in similar numbers around other power facilities or manufacturing centers? (The artist has chosen to focus on two particular types of locale, and relies on the literature for comparisons. This is a good route for sampling bias to creep in. What if abnormalities are due to, say, close contact with high electric fields, or exposure to common industrial cleaning agents? Too many variables, not enough experiment/control group comparisons to make meaningful comparisons. Something may well be wrong here, but it doesn't help matters to misassign the cause.)

2. Are these known to be mutations? If they don't breed true, they are birth defects, not mutations, and will not accumulate through generations. (The mechanisms by which mutations and birth defects occur are different, and knowing which is the case may help to isolate the cause.)

Neither of these objections amounts to a disproof or a claim that "there's nothing wrong here". Just saying we should arrive at conclusions in small, careful, steps, not leaps of logic. If you're not careful where you're going, you may not get there.

http://www.hrgiger.com/frame.htm



Natural fit. :evilgrin:

(3) MUTATED BACTERIA AND VIRUS
It is well known that radiation can cause mutations in bacteria and viruses. Andrei Sakharov, the famous Russian physicist, described in his 1992 Memoirs that even at low levels radiation could increase mutations of bacteria and viruses. His predictions which were originally made in 1958, have come true and we are seeing new ailments such as Reyes Syndrome which first appeared in 1963, and Legionnaire's Disease which is cased by a bacteria that was not threatening prior to 1976. AIDS may be related to a mutated virus combined with a weakened immunity in a generation born after the first nuclear weapons were detonated.

Of particular interest is Lyme Disease which first appeared in 1975 near the Millstone and Haddam Neck nuclear power plants in Connecticut. Dr. Jay Gould in Deadly Deceit (1990, Four Walls Eight Windows) describes: "In 1975 there were 59 cases of Lyme Disease recorded; in 1985 the number increased to 863, mainly in the two counties of Middlesex and New London, CT near the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant. Just as increases in cancer may be linked to the huge radiation release from Millstone in 1975, so too may be the tick-borne Lyme Disease epidemic. The Lyme Disease is carried by a spirochete that had not been as harmful to humans prior to 1975. It is well known that radiation can cause mutations in bacteria. The enormous 1975 Millstone radiation release may have caused just such a mutation in the tick-borne spirochete." So we have a double challenge -- the weaker immune system, and the new diseases resulting from mutated pathogens.

Dr. Ernest Sternglass explains:

"When the radiation from such isotopes as strontium-89 and 90 in the bone marrow mutates an existing virus that invades the T-cells of the immune system and kills them in the process of replication, the stage is set for the complete collapse of the immune defenses, and resulting death from opportunistic infections or cancer." ("The Implications of Chernobyl for Human Health", International Journal of Biosocial Research, p. 19, July 1986)

have much credibility in the scientific community. The International Journal of Biosocial Research has even less.

The industry has been attacking them for years.

Sternglass is a genius who was the head of the Apollo Lunar Scientific Station Project for NASA and Westinghouse.

He is also the founder of the school of radiological physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

He's a genius.

Gould is also worthy of the highest respect.

You do not have a clue.

And anything you cite will have industry bias/origin.

The industry HATES these scientists.

As for the journal - likewise you provide no link.

My point is that mutations of viruses and bacteria, like mutation of fetuses, caused by nuclear power plant emissions, is KILLING us.

Do you SUPPORT that shit?

Do you DENY it?

Do you have ANY evidence that radiation from nuclear power plants is NOT causing mutations (Jeez even the industry admits that shit).

So why? Why support a murderous, mutagenic technology when so many better options are readily available?

nt

necessary info