Fukushima is irradiating America's west coast

“It’s Gojira, you mo-ron!”

Pretty sure this is actually how Pokemon starts.

The problem with this sort of “study” is you need a pre-disaster baseline. How many were" “mutants” before? Well… (If they track through time and prove that new mutations are not happening it’d be interesting but still not conclusive in any way!)

As far as any effect on mortality in the US, it sounds like complete bullshit to me offhand.

Another article I read on the subject indicated a previous generation they studied had about ~24% mutation rate, but the current generation was something like ~56% mutation rate. I’m guessing at the numbers I read, but that’s in the ballpark.

Problem?

I seem to recall an article about Chernobyl where there were not a lot of animal mutations over the long term because the survival and breeding rates of the mutated animals were generally close to nothing. So there was a spike in mutations but the populations stabalized over time.

And today the zone is a major wildlife refuge, yes.

They’re still chipping away at the problem.

Removal of fuel in pool at Fukushima’s melted reactor begins

TOKYO — The operator of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant has begun removing fuel from a cooling pool at one of three reactors that melted down in the 2011 disaster, a milestone in the decades-long process to decommission the plant.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday that workers started removing the first of 566 used and unused fuel units stored in the pool at Unit 3. The fuel units in the pool located high up in reactor buildings are intact despite the disaster, but the pools are not enclosed, so removing the units to safer ground is crucial to avoid disaster in case of another major quake.

TEPCO says the removal at Unit 3 would take two years, followed by the two other reactors where about 1,000 fuel units remain in the storage pools.

Experts say the melted fuel in the three reactors amounts to more than 800 tons.