Earth watch

By Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 5, 2000

Study: Chernobyl mutating wheat fast

Lingering radiation from the Chernobyl accident makes wheat plants in the area around the Ukrainian power complex mutate much faster than expected, researchers say.

Their study hints that radiation, including the sun's ultraviolet rays penetrating Earth's depleted ozone layer, may push crops and other plants toward unpredictable and faster-than-expected evolutionary changes, some scientists said. Crops' hardiness, food quality, resistance to pests and other characteristics could change.

However, the wheat researchers saw no alarming, immediate danger to the evolution of plants around Chernobyl. In fact, the researchers said the wheat plants were normal in all outward respects.

The research, published in today's issue of the journal Nature, was carried out by a team in Ukraine, Britain and Switzerland.

Research locates sources of arctic dioxin

NEW YORK -- For the first time, scientists say they have pinpointed many of the industrial polluters responsible for the dioxin that is ending up in the arctic.

To perform the study, scientists at New York City's Queens College modified a computer program originally designed to track fallout in the event of a nuclear accident.

They found that 35 municipal waste incinerators, cement kilns and steel plants in the eastern and central United States account for one-third of the dioxin reaching Nunavut Territory in the Canadian arctic.

For example, during the one-year study a single municipal waste incinerator in Harrisburg, Pa., accounted for nearly 5 percent of the dioxin reaching Broughton Island, just north of the Arctic Circle on Baffin Bay.

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