Tag Archives: radioactive

Radiation exposure in Russia blamed on Fukushima crabs

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I’m a sucker for food safety jokes, and the punchline of “it must have been the Fukushima crabs” is a beauty.

According to the Telegraph, doctors in Russia who treated victims of a military test explosion have evidence of being exposed to radioactive materials, with isotopes being found within their muscle tissue.

Officials however are playing the food safety card when trying to explain why cesium-137 is there.

Staff from the Arkhangelsk regional hospital were not informed at first that they were treating irradiated patients, and protective measures were not taken until the next day, they told Russian media this week.

In some cases, staff said they were falsely told patients had been decontaminated.

One doctor was later found to have the isotope Caesium-137 in his muscle tissue. He was told he must have eaten too many “Fukushima crabs” during a trip to Thailand, his colleague told the news outlet Meduza.

In related news, Chernobyl on HBO is excellent.

 

Radioactive boars rampaging through Germany and want to eat babies

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A succession of mild winters has, according to Fox News, left Germany scrambling to deal with a skyrocketing wild boar population (right, not exactly as shown). Tales of swarming beasts rampaging through city streets and attacking citizens occur with alarming regularity.

And just imagine the E. coli O157:H7 these mutant boars are spreading throughout the country.

The problem has been aggravated by the lingering effects of the Chernobyl disaster from twenty-five years ago; a large portion of the wild animals are contaminated by radioactivity.

Poisonous radiation leaves the beasts completely inedible (wild boar is considered a delicacy in Germany), and the phenomenon is becoming expensive for the German government. In the last hunting season, 650,000 boar were shot versus 287,000 in the previous year. And due to atomic energy regulations, the government must buy contaminated animals from hunters who catch them.