Radioactive Refuge?

Wormwood Forest, a recently published natural history of Chernobyl written by Mary Mycio discusses the impact that the 1986 accident had on the flora and fauna of the area. Mycio has visited the exclusion zone two dozen times in the last several years and believes that the adaptation of animals to their nuclear surroundings was to be expected. Mutations, whether unattributable or genetic, are phased out. According to Mycio, the only significant genetic mutations found are in the fertility levels of small animals like barn swallows. There were some "partly-albino" swallows that appeared a few years after the accident, but their genetic line was not carried on because they were "not considered attractive and found it hard to mate." Apparently the exclusion zone is survival of the fittest in action.

I thought this excerpt from The Independent Online was quite interesting:

In the village of Illintsi, Maria Shaparenko, 82, one of the stubborn resettlers, claims Chernobyl was always a beautiful area and that nothing has really changed. "It's very nice here in summer, everything blooms. In fact nothing is wrong here, it's just that people have been scared off by the radiation." Outside in her yard a cockerel crows, and for a minute, it seems like Chernobyl really is like anywhere else.

What's even more interesting is that her neighbor down the street is "is turning black beside a chamber pot of his own blood-red urine." My point is, it's all very interesting and wonderful that nature thrives in a nuclear wasteland, but I hardly think we should be celebrating the merits of radioactive fall-out. The article in the Independent, in my opinion, spends a little too much time lost in wonderment and a not enough time focusing on the terrors of the accident.