Nuclear power plant exposure

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.

The pictures below are both from google.com, one being the worldwide symbol of radiation and the other showing nuclear power plants in Ohio.