There
are many potential health effects from exposure to nuclear power plant leaks
into the environment in humans, animals and plants. In human’s exposure to high levels of radiation above one
gray, the standard measure of the absorbed dose of radiation, can result in radiation sickness. According to BBC News, Symptoms of
radiation sickness include nausea and
vomiting within hours of exposure, then later diarrhea, headaches and a fever. After the first symptoms occur there may be a period with
no symptoms but usually weeks later more serious symptoms happen. Exposure to a radiation of four gray will kill about half
of all healthy adults. At higher levels of radiation, all of these symptoms may
be immediately apparent with potential damage to internal organs.
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan was severely damaged after an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the
Richter scale in 2011. The common hypothesis of radiation exposure will result
in genetic damage and increased mutation rates in reproductive and
non-reproductive cells. A study suggests that the radioactive material released
in the air led to a wide variety of negative effects such as population decline
and genetic damage in the animals, and plants in the area. The pale grass blue
butterfly, which is a prevalent type of butterfly in Japan has decreased in
size and experienced slow growth and a high mortality rate in the region
surrounding the Fukushima nuclear plant. Also a species of Japanese monkey
native to Japan, near the Fukushima disaster site showed low level of red and
white blood corpuscles as well as declined levels of hemoglobin. One rice plant
study exposed healthy seedlings to low-level gamma radiation at a contaminated
site in Fukushima Prefecture and after three days, many effects were visible
some being, activation of genes involved in self-defense, ranging from DNA
replication and repair to stress responses to cell death. "The
experimental design employed in this work will provide a new way to test how
the entire rice plant genome responds to ionizing radiation under field
conditions," said Dr. Randeep Rakwal of the University of Tsukuba in
Japan, one of the authors of the study.
