"Uncanny Terrain," a documentary about organic farmers facing Japan's nuclear crisis

"Uncanny Terrain" is a documentary in progress, about organic farmers facing Japan's nuclear catastrophe. A Chicago-based, Japanese American film making team will spend up to a year in the radioactively contaminated regions of northeast Japan downwind of the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which is still releasing radioactive steam onto the winds nearly five months after the radioactive catastrophe began. Fukushima and neighboring prefectures are famous for their small, family-run, independent organic farms. Husband and wife team Junko Kajino and Ed M. Koziarski have already captured powerful video testimonies, such as of a dairy farmer, just 14 km from Fukushima Daiichi, who refuses to kill his herd, despite repeated orders to do so, as his "only protest against the government and TEPCO." The film makers are requesting monetary donations to enable them to continue their work.

Wildlife threatened by "biggest man-made release ever of radioactive material into the oceans" at Fukushima

Naturenews reports that "Leaked isotopes likely to affect marine ecosystems more than terrestrial ones," given Fukushima Daiichi's ocean side location as well as the seasonal timing of the catastrophic radioactivity releases. Naturenews had earlier, on April 12th, reported that the Fukushima "Radiation release will hit marine life," and that "Researchers call for extensive surveys to gauge ecological effects of Fukushima" -- making the Obama administration's dismantlement of emergency radiation monitoring by FDA, NOAA, EPA, etc. all the more baffling and ironic. After all, as Ken Buesseler, a marine geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, is quoted by Naturenews as saying: "...this is the biggest man-made release ever of radioactive material into the oceans. We haven't yet seen enough data to assess what's going on, so anything that can be done in terms of further monitoring would be very welcome."

Chernobyl birds are small brained

Marsh warblers are one of the species affectedBirds living around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have 5% smaller brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation. The finding comes from a study of 550 birds belonging to 48 different species living in the region, published in the journal PLoS One. Brain size was significantly smaller in yearlings compared with older birds. Smaller brain sizes are thought to be linked to reduced cognitive ability. BBC

"Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment" available online for free

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Dec. 2009, 335 pages, published by the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), is viewable online at no charge in PDF format. Go to: http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Annals/Detail.aspx?cid=f3f3bd16-51ba-4d7b-a086-753f44b3bfc1. Then click on “Full Text.” Then, under “Annals Access,” next to “Nonmembers,” click on “View Annals TOC free.” This will allow you, chapter by chapter, to download and/or view the entire text of the book, for free. As the 25^th commemoration of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe approaches (April 26, 2011), this vital book could not be more timely. It is written by Alexey V. Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, Russia; Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko, of the Institute of Radiation Safety in Minsk, Belarus. Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger of the Environmental Institute at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, U.S.A. has served as the Consulting Editor. Please help spread the word about this significant scientific study, and its availability online at no charge. Its hardcopy sale price from the NYAS has been a whopping $150 for nonmembers – out of reach, of course, for most all-volunteer anti-nuclear groups. Besides that, NYAS only printed 700 hardcopies of the book to begin with. Now, no copies are left, and it is unknown if more will be printed.

Study of insects around Chernobyl shows mutations

Artist Cornelia Hesse-Honegger's fascinating study of insect mutations around the Chernobyl zone. She writes: "I am still flabbergasted that biologists in Western Europe did not think it necessary to conduct any studies to find out whether the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl had any effects on nature or on human beings. In 1990 I traveled with a group to Chernobyl to collect leaf bugs and to see there for myself what was going on." What she found profoundly shocked her. The insects had "feelers the shape of sausages; their larvae had divided wings or black growths sticking out of their eyes." See the full study and illustrations. (Pictured left:Tree bug from Slavoutich, Ukraine).