GENETIC MUTATIONS: THE FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR DISASTER

Mutated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). Source: Fukushima Mutations.

By Gundhramns Hammer
August 20, 2015

If you are one of the those people who were born without any expressed biological defects, with a wholesome set of five fingers and five toes, for example, consider yourself lucky.

Lucky because the developmental cascade that lead to you in your mother´s uterus was genetically well-balanced, so much so that this unique biological event - one in the history of the Multiverse - did not take any routes which could have lead to a monster popping out into this world to scare the heck out of your parents or anyone who might have happened to be there upon your arrival to planet Earth/Oceana.

Yes, well-balanced, for when we talk about inherinting DNA here, we are talking of inheriting a well-balanced physico-chemical system. 

So, you were lucky to have inherited a well-balanced physico-chemical system to become you otherwise you might have ended up as a Halloween alien or be dead before you even took off.

But the children of your children and the children of these children might not be so lucky like you were. 

They could very well be homegrown aliens in the future, if there is such a thing, for the way Man is going, he may soon join the labyrinthodonts.

Why?

Because our DNA is being subjected not only to all kinds of man-made xenobiotics in our daily lives but also to global radioactive fallout coming from nukes or nuclear reactor accidents.

Let us face it, we humans have nuked the planet.

And it is well known that radioactivity can damage the genetic material in living cells. It causes genetic mutations.

Biological data gathered after the Fukushima disaster in Japan support this fact. 

A scientific team lead by Dr. Atsuki Hikaya (2012), from the University of Ryukyus in Okinawa, has shown evidence that "the accident caused physiological and genetic damage to the pale grass blue Zizeeria maha, a common lycaenid butterfly in Japan".

This is just an example.

Should you be interested in knowing more on this matter, you should go to a library. There are truckloads of scientific literature attesting this problem: The danger that radioactivity from nukes or radioactive fallout from nuclear catastrophes has upon living creatures.

Our references below can be used as a starting point too.

What follows is a radio special with Leuren Moret, discussing the biological impact of nuclear accidents (Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island) (Videos 1-4):

Video 1. Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima with Leuren Moret (1/4). Uploaded by Rad Chick.

Video 2. Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima with Leuren Moret (2/4). Uploaded by Rad Chick. 

Video 3. Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima with Leuren Moret (3/4). Uploaded by Rad Chick.

Video 4. Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima with Leuren Moret (4/4). Uploaded by Rad Chick.

So, mon Capitaine, is it Homo sapiens or Homo insapiens?

Mon ami, so far the way we have fucked up this planet, it is Homo insapiens.

That business of Homo sapiens remains to be seen!

Quite!


References

Caldicott H. (Ed.) (2014). Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe. The New Press, New York, USA. 243 p.

Hiyama A., Nohara C., Kinjo S., Taira W., Gima S., Tanahara A. & Otaki J.M. (2012). The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass blue butterfly. Nature, Scientific Reports 2 (570). 1-10.

Lelieveld J., Kunkel J. & Lawrence M.G. (2012). Global risk of radioactive fallout after major nuclear reactor accidents. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12: 4245-4258.

Williams A. (2013). Revenge of the mutant vegetables? Pictures of crops 'deformed by fall-out of Fukushima nuclear disaster' sweep Asia. . . but is it all just a hoax? MailOnline, 17 July 2013. 9 p.

World Technology Senate (2013a). Fukushima Mutations. World Technology Senate Info Portals Documents: 1-21.

World Technology Senate (2013b). Future-Scope Project: Planet Earth at the Tipping Point: Emergency Funding Request. World Technology Senate Info Portals Documents: 1-92.

World Technology Senate (2015). FutureScope Project: Fukushima Review. World Technology Senate Info Portals Documents: 1-46.

PLANET OCEAN: IT IS YOU TOO!

Source: Planet Ocean.

By Gundhramns Hammer
August 12, 2015

In many parts of the world, Europe for example, it is beach season. August is the month when masses of people invade the sands by the sea, the Mediterranean.

Continue reading here.

THE SLOTH´S MEDICAL BANK: THE SEARCH FOR A WONDER DRUG IN PANAMA

Three-toed sloth (Bradipus variagatus). Source: YouTube.

By Gundhramns Hammer, PhD
August 3, 2015

The extensive use and overuse of antibiotics, sometimes abuse, in the medical and veterinary industries have created new breeds of bacteria that are resistant to drugs. This is why these pathogens are sometimes referred to as "super-bacteria" or "super-germs".

This situation has pushed the major pharmaceutical companies on a world-wide search for a wonder drug that will kill the drug resistant disease-causing microorganisms.

This search for new drugs has become sort of a drug war to see who catches the wonder early drugged worm!

Thus, no place on Earth is left alone without undergoing some kind of bio-prospecting, not even the hot jungles.

Everything is poked around, tested around, dissected around to the unhappiness of many a living creatures in the field and laboratories. 

This is how some scientists have stumbled upon the sloths´ epimicro- and macrobiome whilst doing bio-prospecting for new bioactive substances in Panama.

Sloths, arboreal mammals famous for their slow-moving habits and for looking like cozy bears, carry around an entire universe made up of millions of minute organisms attached to their coarse hairy coat, from fungi to algae.

And they are also hosts to an array of commensal and parasitic arthropods, carriers of various arthropod-borne viruses. Sloths are known to be reservoirs of the flagellate protozoan which causes leishmaniasis in humans, and may also carry trypanosomes and the protozoan Pneumocystis carinii (Gilmore et al., 2001).

So, what happened when sloths were bio-prospected for wonder drugs by scientists?

Eureka! Some fungi taken from the three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) in the jungles of Panama have been found to have anti-parasitic, anti-cancer and anti-bacterial activity, according the findings from a team of scientists led by Dr. Sarah Higginbotham (2014) who works for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. 

Which goes to show you that Biodiversity is big money!

Now, has anyone ask how the sloths feel when they are bothered, dislodged from the top of the trees and hit the ground upon falling to steal them wads of their hair by humans?

We doubt it. 

Besides, how could we when we do not even understand one another and are perpetually engaged in endless bickering about what is whose and warmongering!

Do the sloths see these poking humans as bio-pirates, for in a sense this is what they are.

Only God knows.


From the humans´ perspective, it is all there for the taking.

And from the eye of ecological economics, it is a matter of "ecological services". 

Ecological services for the benefit of man in this case, of course.

Anyway, no matter what, obviously, we can see that saving Biodiversity makes sense. 

And from the big-pharma´s perspective, even more sense when these corporations want to make sense from things that have been put under the scope of economic sense in a world that is being more and more being subjected to the grip of their economic sense.

So much so that ecosystems have now a dollar value.

But these folks, like most humans, are still lacking a true sense of connection to Nature´s sense.

To wrap it up, let us now take a look at this sloth bio-prospecting and poking around in Panama (Video 1):

Source: Vice News

View original

VICE News host Thomas Morton swings from the trees with an international team of scientists in Panama that's found a promising treatment for malaria, Chagas disease and breast cancer in the most unlikely place: The mossy fur of tree sloths. It's yet another reason to not cut down rainforests. About half of all drugs brought to market from 1997-2006 came from plants, fungi and bacteria discovered by "bio-prospectors" in nature. And we see that sloths are just one of many new and unusual frontiers for this research. [Video 1]

English/Español (subtítulos)

Video 1. Bio-prospecting on Panama. Uploaded by Vice News.

References

Gilmore D.P., Da Costa C.P.  &  Duarte D.P.F. (2001). Sloth biology: An update on their physiological ecology, behavior and role as vectors of arthropods and arboviruses. Braz. J. Med. Biol. Res. 34 (1): 9-25.

Higginbotham S., Wong W.R., Linington R.G., Spadadora C., Iturrado L. & Arnold A.E. (2014). Sloth hair as a novel source of fungi with potent anti-parasitic, anti-cancer and anti-bacterial bioactivity. PLoS ONE 9 (1): e84549. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0084549.