Can the dogs of Chernobyl teach us new tricks on survival?

AP ^ | March 3, 2023 | LAURA UNGAR

[McGruff]

More than 35 years after the world’s worst nuclear accident, the dogs of Chernobyl roam among decaying, abandoned buildings in and around the closed plant – somehow still able to find food, breed and survive.

Scientists hope that studying these dogs can teach humans new tricks about how to live in the harshest, most degraded environments, too.

They published the first of what they hope will be many genetics studies on Friday in the journal Science Advances, focusing on 302 free-roaming dogs living in an officially designated “exclusion zone” around the disaster site. They identified populations whose differing levels of radiation exposure may have made them genetically distinct from one another and other dogs worldwide.

[Jonty30]

I think it is pretty simple. Either the danger of radiation is overwrought or it is extreme case of survival of the fittest and they are practically immune to radiation by now.

[broken_clock]

I’ll take one and call him Dogmeat ;-)

[LittleBillyInfidel]

Would make a great horror movie, akin to COCAINE BEAR...

RADIOACTIVE ROVER

[rellimpank]

--"Either the danger of radiation is overwrought----

-I've thought that for years--and a few studies have proved it, but that is drowned out by the anti-nukes--

[jmacusa]

Since humans have largely disappeared from the Chernobyl area a lot of the flora and fauna in the area has rebounded. Przewalski's horse is one of them. Once considered nearly extinct this animal is slowly repopulating the area. Przewalski's horse is the only true wild and untamed horse left in the world.

[griffin]

some individuals are able to survive longer after exposure at a given level than others.

[griffin]

I have read that half-Life of nuk fallout is 7 hours. It is very survivable after enough weeks (2-4 in many cases) given adequate shielding shelter and prep.

The half-life of material used in power plants may be very different.

[webheart]

Well let’s hope they learn what we will need to know if the Ukraine war heats up to boiling.

[rellimpank]

—Rocky Mountain Arsenal area near Denver is another example of wildlife thriving in a “hot” area—

—and some years ago, there was a tv special on Chernobyl, showing sturgeon growing in a pond extremely high in radiation—

[antidemoncrat]

“dogs of Chernobyl roam among decaying, abandoned buildings
in and around the closed plant – somehow still able to find
food, breed and survive”

Maybe they are resorting to eating dead folks like the pigs
in Europe did during WWII.

[D Rider]

That’s why you are supposed to seal yourself in your house for 10 days. (Tape up windows and doors ...etc.)

[unlearner]

Plants and animals may often thrive near the perimeter of the exclusion zone. This is probably because low-level radiation exposure has a positive effect in moderation.

[ADemocratNoMore]

Look up “radiation hormesis”

Theory says that a some exposure to radiation, even high levels will actually stimulate the immune system.Most people point to the good health of many Hiroshima survivors who lived to old age.

Also, while huge areas of Kazakhstan were nuked repeatedly during the Cold War by Red nuke tests about half the residents show little or no negative health effects. Of course, the other half, if they lived at all are showing all kinks of very nasty genetic mutation and statistically higher rates of common chronic diseases.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cv1TgO51RY

Unfortunately, I can not cite any supporting facts as this post is based on things read and retained over the years, so,YMMV.

[Liaison]

If you can get past the three glowing eyes and two heads, we might lean something. /sarc

Adaptation is the earth mother of genetic mutation. It is not that a carnivore can’t learn to live anywhere that food exists. Is is The ability to overcome the higher radiation is interesting but I assume chasing Godzilla rabbits is tough.

[Liaison]

Professor lupine I presume?

[jmacusa]

Yes I;m aware of the sturgeon and catfish that are growing in the cooling ponds of the Chernobyl reactor area and the streams and lakes in the area.

All of the area around Chernobyl is radioactive and will be for thousands of years to come. It will take thousands of years for the radioactivity just to begin to break down and then thousands of more years after that for it to disappear.

One negative to the high levels of radiation in the Chernobyl area is near absence of insects, pollinating insects to bring back more plants they would bring more herbivores and of course predators and so life would go on.

It does go on though despite the worst nuclear accident in human history.

Stupid Russians.

[broken_clock]

Professor lupine I presume?

Well, in the video game series “Fallout” Dogmeat is certainly a “Dogtor of Destruction ;-)

[jmacusa]

I once read an account of combat in WW2 in a book written by historian Charles Whiting and it was during the fighting in the Hurtgen Forest.

After his unit's mortar team used phosphorus on a German position a young American infantry man wrote to his parents "I saw a young German kid with blond hair and a pig was chewing on him. I thought ''A roasted Kraut being worked on by a pig''.

[Kartographer]