Infinite Unknown

- High concentration of radioactive cesium found in land animals (Kyodo News, March 2, 2013):

A high concentration of radioactive cesium has been found in a range of land animals and insects in areas around the site of the Fukushima nuclear plant accident, providing a clue to a mechanism of radioactivity accumulation in the food chain, a study showed Saturday.

According to a survey by the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology and Hokkaido University, over 6,700 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137 was detected in a frog captured in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, some 40 kilometers west of the crippled nuclear plant.

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Tags: animals, Environment, Food, Frogs, Fukushima, Global News, Health, Insects, Japan, Nuclear, Nuclear reactors, Radiation, Science

YouTube Added: 03.12.2012

Description:

Microcosmos is a 1996 documentary film by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou and produced by Jacques Perrin. This film is primarily a record of detailed insect interactions set to the music of Bruno Coulais. A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching. Written by Will Gilbert

Tags: Documentary, Insects

- Fukushima citizen, “We didn’t see bugs this summer, children are made carry a portable shrine in black rain” (Fukushima Diary, Oct 14, 2012)

Tags: Children, Environment, Global News, Health, Insects, Japan, Nuclear, Nuclear reactors, Radiation

- Biologist on Mutated Butterflies: Study is overwhelming in its implications for humans — Japan Researcher: Insects were believed to be very resistant to radiation — Irregularly developed eyes, malformed antennae, much smaller wings (PHOTO) (ENENews, Aug 13, 2012):

Title: ‘Severe abnormalities’ found in Fukushima butterflies
Source:  BBC News
Author: Nick Crumpton
Date: August 13, 2012

Exposure to radioactive material released into the environment have caused mutations in butterflies found in Japan, a study suggests.

Source: Scientific Reports

Scientists found an increase in leg, antennae and wing shape mutations among butterflies collected following the 2011 Fukushima accident. Continue reading »

Tags: Butterflies, Environment, Fukushima, Global News, Health, Insects, Japan, Nuclear, Nuclear reactors, Radiation, Science

- Radioactive fallout from Fukushima nuclear meltdowns caused abnormalities in Japan’s butterflies (Japan Times, Aug 12, 2012):

Radioactive fallout from the nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture created abnormalities among the nation’s butterflies, according to a team of researchers.

“We conclude that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima (No. 1) nuclear power plant caused physiological and genetic damage” to pale grass blue butterflies, a common species in Japan, a recent article in Scientific Reports, one of on-line journals of the Nature Publishing Group, said.

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Tags: Butterflies, Contamination, DNA, Environment, Fukushima, Global News, Health, Insects, Japan, Nuclear, Radiation

- Hybrid Insect Micro Electromechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) (DARPA):

Olfactory training of bees has been used to locate mines and weapons of mass destruction. The Hybrid Insect Micro Electromechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) program is aimed at developing technology to provide control over insect locomotion, just as reins are needed for effective control over horse locomotion.

HI-MEMS-derived technologies will enable many robotic capabilities at low cost, impacting the development of future autonomous defense systems. The realization of cyborgs will provide compact platforms that use highly efficient biological systems developed over millions of years of evolution. HI-MEMS platforms will extend the duration and improve the capability of microbotic missions due to the combined efficiency of biochemical energy storage (fat) and bio-actuators (muscle) compared to traditional chemical energy storage (battery) and actuators (motors).  The basic technology developed in this program will also serve as a biological tool to understand and control insect development, opening vistas in our understanding of tissue development and providing new technological pathways to harness the natural sensors and power generation of insects.

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Tags: DARPA, Global News, Government, Insects, Military, New World Order, Science, Scientists, Technology, U.S.

- 4170 Bq/Kg of Radioactive Cesium in Crickets in Iitate-mura, Fukushima (EX-SKF, Jan. 11, 2012):

A researcher (vice president) at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology collected 500 crickets (1 kilogram) in Iitate-mura in Fukushima Prefecture, and found 4,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium. He also tested locusts in different locations in Fukushima, and found radioactive cesium in them.

Bio-concentration at work. No information whether he tested other nuclides like radioactive silver (Ag-110m). Professor Bin Mori of Tokyo University found radioactive silver highly concentrated (1000 times the amount in the environment) in Nephila clavata he caught in Iitate-mura.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (1/12/2012):

東京電力福島第一原発事故で、原発から４０キロ離れた計画的避難区域内に生息するコオロギから１キロ・グラム（約５００匹）あたり４０００ベクレル以上の放射性セシウムが検出されたことが、東京農工大の普後一(ふごはじめ)副学長（昆虫生理学）の調査でわかった。

A survey conducted by Hajime Fugo, vice president of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (specialty: insect physiology) found over 4,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in crickets (500 of them that weigh about 1 kilogram) from within the planned evacuation zone 40 kilometers away from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

別の場所のイナゴからも最大２００ベクレルを検出した。

In another location, 200 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found from locusts.

Continue reading »

Tags: Crickets, Environment, Fukushima, Global News, Government, Health, Insects, Japan, Nuclear, Nuclear reactors, Radiation, Science

Prof. Dr. Bin Mori:

“This is the first discovery in the world that an insect highly concentrates silver. Also, it is evident that bio-concentration of radioactivity in the forest has already started.”

Now guess what will happen if human beings eat radioactive Japanese food?

Still believe the government?

- NHK Calls 20 Millisieverts/Year ‘Low-Level Radiation’ & The Lies Of Minister Goshi Hosono

Think again:

- Silent Death – Horror Scenario Awaits Japan (The Low-Level Radiation Myth Exposed)

- #Radiation in Japan: Spiders in Iitate-mura Concentrating Radioactive Silver 1,000 Times (EX-SKF, Nov. 7, 2011):

Dr. Bin Mori is a professor emeritus at University of Tokyo, Faculty of Agriculture. Since the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear crisis on March 11, the professor has been writing his blog focusing on the effect of radiation in plants and remediation of agricultural land.

I have featured his autoradiographs of dandelion and horsetail on my blog before.

In his post on October 30, Professor Mori wrote about his discovery, probably the world first, he made in spiders (Nephila clavata) he caught in Iitate-mura, Fukushima Prefecture, where the villagers were forced to evacuate after being designated as “planned evacuation zone”. The spiders, he found, had radioactive silver (Ag-110m) at 1,000 times the concentration in the environment.

The following is my translation of Dr. Mori’s October 30 blog post, with his express permission:

飯舘村で雨の降る中での植物の採取は困難であったので、竹藪や杉林の中で、網を張っているジョロウグモ(Nephila clavata)を捕獲してきました。

Since it was difficult to collect plants in the rain in Iitate-mura, I caught instead “nephila clavatas” in the bamboo groves and cedar forest.

クモは直接土を食べるかどうかわからないが、網にかかった蝶やアブやカナブンなどを食べて林の中の食物連鎖の上位に位し、放射性セシウムを濃縮しているだろうと考えたからです。

I don’t know whether the spiders eat dirt itself, but I thought they may have concentrated radioactive cesium in their bodies as they were at the top of the food chain in the forest, eating butterflies, horseflies, and drone beetles that they caught in their webs. Continue reading »

Tags: Environment, Fukushima, Global News, Health, Insects, Japan, Nuclear, Nuclear reactors, Radiation, Silver-110m, Society, Spiders

Insect invasion is worst in the African country in 30 years

Liberia has declared a state of emergency over a plague of caterpillars that has destroyed plants and crops and contaminated water supplies, threatening an already fragile food situation.

Tens of millions of marching caterpillars have invaded at least 80 towns and villages in central and northern Liberia, preventing some farmers from reaching their fields and causing others to flee their homes. The inch-long pests – the caterpillar life stage of the noctuid moth – have spread to neighbouring Guinea and are threatening Sierra Leone, which has set up monitoring teams along its border.

Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, said in a televised speech on Monday night that the country’s worst plague of caterpillars in three decades had “the potential to set back our progress in the production of food and export crops”.

Continue reading »

Tags: Environment, FAO, Food, Food Crisis, Food shortages, Insects, Liberia, U.N., Water, Water shortages

For years, now, Pentagon-backed researchers have been trying to create cyborg insects that could serve as living, remote-controlled spies. The problem is, those modified bugs never survived long enough to be useful. Now, Georgia Tech professor Robert Michelson says he’s managed to get the bug ‘borgs to live into adulthood.

DARPA’s Hi-MEMS program aims to implant place micro-mechanical systems [MEMS] “inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis,” the agency explains. That way, as the bugs get older, tissues grow around — and fuse together with — the tiny machines.

Flight International reports that, in his latest work, Michelson truncated a Manduca moth’s thorax “to reduce its mass.” Then he put in “a MEMS component… where abdominal segments would have been, during the larval stage.” Continue reading »

Tags: Cyborg, DARPA, Drones, Insects, Pentagon