Extremely high levels of radioactive cesium found in earthworm castings from Fukushima soil
By arevamirpal::laprimavera
7 February 2012 There was a piece of news about 20,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium found in earthworms collected in Kawauchi-mura, Fukushima Prefecture (20 kilometers from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant) in Mainichi Shinbun (2/6/2012). The article says the researchers at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, a government institution, found radioactive cesium in earthworms collected at 3 locations in Fukushima. The amounts varied significantly (from 20,000 becquerels/kg to 290 becquerels/kg), and the researchers (or Mainichi Shinbun reporter) attributed to the varying air radiation levels in these 3 locations. Umm, earthworms live in the soil, not in the air, I thought. Still, 20,000 becquerels/kg was high, until I read Professor Bin Mori’s blog about his own experiment using earthworms. Professor Mori found over 1.37 million becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in excrement of earthworms he picked up in Watari District of Fukushima City, where radioactive cesium exceeding the national provisional safety standard (500 becquerels/kg) has been found in rice. […]
1.37 Million Bq/kg Radioactive Cesium in Earthworm Castings in Fukushima
The early ecological studies on energetics, food chains, succession, material cycling, and other concepts were all done through the study of isotopes in ecosystems such as coral reefs and rain forests. Is it possible that we are going to develop a brand new understanding about biomagnification as the isotopes get transferred through energetic transformations into human economies?
That's not the way I prefer to do research–backing into it as your entire civilization gets backed into a corner?
This sounds like someone found a hot dodo and multiplied it out to 1 kg. I seriously doubt they had a kg of earthworm castings. It could be rather misleading.