newscripts RUMINATIONS ON REINDEER AND RADIOACTIVITY
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umor has it that attributes the about 20% the flying-reindiscrepancy to lifestyle facdeer narrative tors such as “physical activity surrounding Santa and a diet rich in antioxidants Claus was cemented (from berries) and unsatuinto U.S. folklore in the rated fatty acids (from fish),” early-20th century and Skuterud says it could only when Lomen Co., also have to do with genetic a reindeer-meatdiferences between Sami packing firm, launched individuals and other ScanRoutine scan: A Sami a marketing strategy dinavians, data for which are woman gets scanned for radioactive isotopes. involving its reindeer not available. pulling Santa’s sleigh in The Norwegian team does a Macy’s Christmas parade. Still, there’s no not report any extraordinary behavior from good explanation for why Claus’s reindeer the animals, so it appears nuclear reindeer fly, so the Newscripts gang looked into one do not fuel Santa’s sleigh. possibility: Like countless science-fictional characters before them, could intense rahe reindeer’s cousins, the radiodiation help these ungulates get airborne? active roe deer and red deer in A link exists. Lomen owed the abundance the Chernobyl area, haven’t been of their reindeer to herders belonging to the doing half-bad, a Belarusian wildlife Sami people, an indigenous people of Scancensus reports (Curr. Biol. 2015, DOI: dinavia who introduced the first reindeer 10.1016/j.cub.2015.08.017). Researchers to North America. Coincidentally, the Sami counted snow tracks in Polessye State people are also known to be some of the Radioecological Reserve, a nature reserve most RADIOACTIVE HUMANS on Earth— that covers about half of the Chernobyl and their reindeer follow suit—because of exclusion zone, and found that deer and nuclear weapons testing in the northern other large mammal populations have prosSoviet Union as well as fallout in the upper pered in the three decades since the area’s atmosphere from weapons tests around the nuclear disaster and are on par or exceedworld in the 1950s and ’60s. High radioisoing populations in similar reserves. tope fixation in lichens was passed up the Jim T. Smith, professor at the University food chain through reindeer to herders. of Portsmouth and principal investigator “The reindeer herders of central Norway on the study, says this isn’t particularly are more contaminated than most people surprising. It appears that the primary facaround Chernobyl. You’ll struggle to find any tor behind the WILDLIFE FLOURISHING person around Fukushima with or not has less to do with presence more cesium-137 in their body or absence of radiation and more Neither bird nor plane: than Norwegian reindeer herdwith that of humans. An artist’s ers,” Lavrans Skuterud, a senior “It’s a really rendering of research scientist with the Norweinteresting ila radioactive gian Radiation Protection Authorlustration of reindeer. ity, tells Newscripts. Skuterud and our misperhis team have contributed to a ception of what decades-long efort to collect radiation damage we do to data on the herders and the reindeer the environment,” meat of Norway, and in Skuterud’s Smith tells Newscripts. most recent study, they sum“The popular image marize studies on cancer rates of Chernobyl is radioacand 137Cs concentrations in tive wasteland,” he says. “But the Sami herders (Environ. this makes us realize that our Sci. Technol. 2015, DOI: everyday activities—just being in 10.1021/es506244n). a habitat and doing the things that Although reindeer don’t live long people do—are worse,” he says. enough to have significant occurrences of cancer, herders show markedly lower cancer rates than the general MANNY I. FOX MORONE wrote this week’s Norwegian population despite high column. Please send comments and 137Cs concentrations. The study suggestions to
[email protected]. MANNY MORONE/C&EN
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