Shut up, they’re just extra-cute.
Doubtful it’s from radiation. I’ve seen this type of formation before. We had some purple asters with it once. Usually it’s caused by a viral infection or drought conditions that cause issues with the plant’s development. See also:
Snopes posted about this earlier. The fasciation isn’t necessarily related to radiation at all.
kill me …
I am pretty perplexed by this piece. As far as we know, those daisies have absolutely nothing to do with Fukushima or with radiations. Why call them “Deformed mutant daisies photographed near Fukushima”, then? This does not look standard practice for good journalism!
BTW, 0.5 ÎĽSv/h seems more or less the standard background radiation on the surface of the planet Earth:
Good Point TPN. But I think there’s room for the viral phenomenon you’ve seen with your purple asters and the radiation explanation.
If these Salvador Dali Daisies were not seen or not common before the Fukushima disaster, but became more common after — maybe the radiation reduced the daisies’ ability to ward off viral infections.
I understand that the immune systems of plants & animals differ, but animal immune systems are reduced or even obliterated by radiation. This is used medically before bone marrow transplants & some people with autoimmune disorders - over-active immune systems - have found relief by spending time in caves with high levels of Radon. Reduced immunity can be a contributing factor to the development of cancer.
Maybe the radiation is screwing with the plant’s immunity to the virus.
Just my two-cents. I am not an expert.
~c
p.s.
Just noticed someone else mentioned an article in Snopes – haven’t read it – maybe I will if I don’t get distr…oooo kittens gtg
Nuclear these asters management.
Am I the only one who looked that these and immediately thought “Feed me, Seymour”
Given the frequency of fasciation in plants, I would be more impressed if they DIDN’T find fasciated daisies within 100 km of any arbitrary daisy supporting habitat.
If you look for it, fasciation isn’t that hard to find. It basically occurs when the region of growth/organ formation (called a meristem) which is generally radially symmetrical becomes damaged or perturbed and ends up elongated. I see a lot of exotic looking cacti sold at the grocery store that are due to fasciation of normal growth.
It occurring in flowers makes for a dramatic and obvious effect, but you can often see it in stems and less showy parts.
So, could be random pretty mutant flowers. Or, could be radiation. We don’t know.
Oh please. This is the most asinine, fear-mongering FUD.
“Gee trash is scattered all over the kitchen! Could have been my dog. Or, could be aliens. We don’t know.”
What this does accomplish, is to cloud the issue anytime anyone anywhere asks a legitimate question about safe levels of accidental radiation leakage. They can be blown off with, “we saw your kind before, holding up those flowers, prove your concern is any different”.
Well, if it is radiation and not random, maybe we are helping the daisy-style White Chrysanthemums (just to be particular) to evolve and get better at attracting the ever-more scarce honey bee.
I kinda’ like the outliers. However, at a 2-hour does equal to the recommended dose for 2 weeks, I have a personal aversion to participating in such an evolution. A saying comes to mind, “You don’t sh*t in your living room.” Certainily seems like we shouldn’t need such a saw.
BTW, in civil suits against U.S. industries, the “You Can’t Prove It” defense has been loosing ground to established statistical data.
I miss Maggie…
The effect of gamma rays on man in the moom marigolds?
I was really hoping BoingBoing wouldn’t give this the kind of credulous attention it does not deserve. There’s no hemming and hawing here. It’s normal background radiation (possibly even low for normal background, compared to places like Denver) 100Km from the site. Look at a map. Japan is not that big, if radiation is causing serious deformities in plant life at that distance, we’d have noticed by now. I discuss this in a bit more detail here.
“This woman married a very tall man, and then she got cancer. Now, as Snopes notes, cancer also occurs in countries where the average male height is low. So it could be random chance. Or it could be that tall men cause cancer. We don’t know.”
I’m not sure… but that might be a bit of an overreaction.
