Diagram from the study on aberrant wings

The study had small numbers of samples from arbitrary locations between the May and September samplings.

between the May and September samplings. It was stated that there was a correlation between radiation exposure and abnormalities, but given with potential errors far higher than accepted in statistics to make any statement. ("p" should be less than 0.05, here, it was 0.13) This is not good science or good research.

to make any statement. ("p" should be less than 0.05, here, it was 0.13) This is not good science or good research. The study picked only a few of these to breed (ranging between 1 and 6 of each sex, usually 2-3) to form the first generation ("F1") including those with abnormalities .

(ranging between 1 and 6 of each sex, usually 2-3) to form the first generation ("F1") . For the second generation ("F2"), the study only used 1 "significantly aberrant" female with a couple males from a single locality.





Here is the good news: regardless of whether higher radiation has increased abnormalities, nature is accustomed to radiation and weeds out detrimental mutations and keeps the beneficial mutations --the species ends up growing stronger. On top of that, radiation by its essence decays and within a couple decades Cesium 137 will be more negligible.









According to studies and a documentary released by PBS, the world is currently experiencing the greatest mass extinction since the dinosaurs. We are losing frogs of all types worldwide in a dramatic fashion, and many of those that are left are exhibiting never before seen mutations. And the primary cause identified is the effect of mass amounts of hormones, pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers used worldwide by homes, businesses, cities, and the agricultural and farming industries.But back to the study that has captured the world's attention in the last couple weeks: the malformations of the pale grass blue butterfly in Japan presumed to be due to the Fukushima nuclear accident resulting from the natural disaster.Diagram from the study on aberrant wingsFirst, a couple things to keep in context. Japan has been emitting record amounts of pollution and CO2 since Fukushima which can cause significant problems (reported first here , confirmed this month by Bloomberg ). It must also be kept in context that the earthquakes and tsunami seen in Japan were not "business as usual" in Japan, as is our use of agricultural chemicals. Tens of thousands of people died. Billions of dollars of damage was caused.The butterfly mutation study, unfortunately, has some rather unscientific facts not made clear through the media:So,Compounding the small sample sizes, out of the 11 different locations sampled only 7 had similar locations sampled in both May and September. Not surprisingly, the paper does not offer many direct comparisons between the two time periods. There might be statistical significance to the increase in abnormalities between the two sample periods, but statistical information between the two are not provided.What of the external radiation exposure with abnormality correlation?There is a difference between natural and low levels of radiation and levels hundreds of thousands of times higher- low levels can be beneficial, and high levels obviously can cause damage.Last, the internal radiation exposure had two main statistical results: mortality effects and forewing size differences.There was found to be forewing size differences between different male pairs from different locales and even female pairs from different locales to a significant statistical degree. This may be due to different radiation levels, or different pollution levels, or it may be due to any number of factors present at each locality or even regional differences.