<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div><img src="cid:9763EB10-4F6E-4728-A25D-259E513F0E7D" alt="image.jpeg" id="9763EB10-4F6E-4728-A25D-259E513F0E7D" width="376" height="437" apple-original-width="376" apple-original-height="437"><br><br><div>Seeya round town, Moscow.</div><div><br></div><div>Tom Hansen</div><div>Moscow, Idaho</div><div><br></div><div>"If not us, who?</div><div>If not now, when?"</div><div><br></div><div>- Unknown</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div><br>On May 29, 2012, at 7:26, Art Deco <<a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
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<h5 class="details" style="float:right">May 29, 2012</h5>
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<h1>Giant radioactive fish cross the Pacific Ocean</h1>
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Alicia Chang<br>
Associated Press
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<p class="caption">Workers harvest bluefin tuna from
Maricultura’s tuna pens near Ensenada, Mexico. New research found
increased levels of radiation in Pacific bluefin tuna caught off the
coast of Southern California. Scientists said the radiation found in the
fish came from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant that was crippled by the
2011 earthquake and tsunami.</p>
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<p>LOS ANGELES – Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna
carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan’s crippled
nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away – the
first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity
such a distance. </p>
<p>“We were frankly kind of startled,” said Nicholas Fisher, one of the
researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences. </p>
<p>The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the
amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But
even so, that’s still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the U.S. and
Japanese governments. </p>
<p>Previously, smaller fish and plankton were found with elevated
levels of radiation in Japanese waters after a magnitude-9 earthquake in
March 2011 triggered a tsunami that badly damaged the Fukushima
Dai-ichi reactors. </p>
<p>But scientists did not expect the nuclear fallout to linger in huge
fish that sail the world because such fish can metabolize and shed
radioactive substances. </p>
<p>One of the largest and speediest fish, Pacific bluefin tuna can grow
to 10 feet and weigh more than 1,000 pounds. They spawn off the Japan
coast and swim east at breakneck speed to school in waters off
California and the tip of Baja California, Mexico. </p>
<p>Five months after the Fukushima disaster, Fisher of Stony Brook
University in New York and a team decided to test Pacific bluefin that
were caught off the coast of San Diego. To their surprise, tissue
samples from all 15 tuna captured contained levels of two radioactive
substances – ceisum-134 and cesium-137 – that were higher than in
previous catches. </p>
<p>To rule out the possibility that the radiation was carried by ocean
currents or deposited in the sea through the atmosphere, the team also
analyzed yellowfin tuna, found in the eastern Pacific, and bluefin that
migrated to Southern California before the nuclear crisis. They found no
trace of cesium-134 and only background levels of cesium-137 left over
from nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s. </p>
<p>The results “are unequivocal. Fukushima was the source,” said Ken
Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who had no role
in the research. </p>
<p>Bluefin tuna absorbed radioactive cesium from swimming in
contaminated waters and feeding on contaminated prey such as krill and
squid, the scientists said. As the predators made the journey east, they
shed some of the radiation through metabolism and as they grew larger.
Even so, they weren’t able to completely flush out all the contamination
from their system. </p>
<p>“That’s a big ocean. To swim across it and still retain these radionuclides is pretty amazing,” Fisher said. </p>
<p>Pacific bluefin tuna are prized in Japan, where a thin slice of the
tender red meat prepared as sushi can fetch $24 per piece at top Tokyo
restaurants. Japanese consume 80 percent of the world’s Pacific and
Atlantic bluefin tuna. </p>
<p>The real test of how radioactivity affects tuna populations comes
this summer, when researchers plan to repeat the study with a larger
number of samples. Bluefin tuna that journeyed last year were exposed to
radiation for about a month. The upcoming travelers have been swimming
in radioactive waters for a longer period. How this will affect
concentrations of contamination remains to be seen. </p>
<p>Now that scientists know that bluefin tuna can transport radiation,
they also want to track the movements of other migratory species
including sea turtles, sharks and seabirds.<br clear="all"></p></div></div></div></div><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank"><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a></a><br>
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