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In reply to the discussion: Starfish dying in the NW Pacific [View all]RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)At the following link from Deep Sea News, in the comments section, one commenter offered up some good suggestions to the scientists there.
http://deepseanews.com/2013/12/three-reasons-why-fukushima-radiation-has-nothing-to-do-with-starfish-wasting-syndrome/
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Epidemiologically, are not the factors you have raised direct evidence of the impact of potassium/caesium and Calcium/Strontium ionic replacement? Four points:
1. Perhaps more so than any other sea creature, K and Ca are the critical minerals for starfish. Starfish have complex K and Ca exchange, uptake and shedding mechanisms.
2. Sr and Cs are notorious Ca and K emulators respectively.
3. A single Sr90 or Cs137 atom resident in a starfish for a few days would release enough energy to create soft tissue trauma (mutative effects inclusive). Biological response? Uptake K to attempt a heal, and more K to attempt to shed the damaged arm. Effect? More potential Cs and Sr intake. What happens when the starfish gets multiplicitous shed messages from 10-20 atomic trauma centres throughout its whole body? It melts.
3. Sr and Cs are found in trace levels in every one of the places that SWS is now occuring, and have been for a number of years now. This is as a direct consequence of the US Government nuclear policies, and its shoddy and slipshod waste management practices. Sure, Fukushima is a slow moving toxic tidal wave, and you havent even started to see the true effects. But the killer genie was out of the bottle years ago.
4. Go and run some tests. Get relatively pure water from the deep South Pacific, and healthy starfish from the same region. Put a sick starfish in with the healthy ones. Then try adding some radioactive isotopes at trace levels. Break the story.