Deformed fish found near old uranium site

[struggle4progress]

REGINA – Federal regulators are worried about the high number of deformed fish turning up near a decommissioned uranium operation in northwest Saskatchewan.

On Tuesday, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved a two-year licence for Cameco Corp. to operate the defunct Beaverlodge mine and mill site as a waste facility.

The report said Cameco, a Saskatchewan-based uranium mining company, has been investigating after a 2003 environmental study found a potential risk to humans "related to an exceedance of toxicity benchmarks" for selenium and uranium at two lakes – Beaverlodge and Martin. <snip>

Despite its concerns about environmental issues, the commission approved the waste facility operating licence ...

http://sask.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=fish-uranium050407

[Wickerman]

1. odd

imagine that

[struggle4progress]

2. Gotta luv that avatar. eom

[NNadir]

3. Of course, if you actually read the article rather than spin it,

it says that selenium is the suspect agent.

Of course, people of a certain religion love to put the words "deformity and uranium," in the same sentence to try to advance the cause of scientific ignorance.

Let's read another excerpt of this popular press article which, as usual, completely ignores an effort to explore causality in even a remotely scientific way.

"The high levels of non-radioactive selenium in lake sediment in the area was identified as a particular concern with respect to the fish population.

"They are believed to have resulted in a relatively high incidence of deformities in fish, specifically the Lake Chub species," the report said.

Commission staff believe the selenium levels are high enough "to cause significant reproductive failure" in fish and the problem will remain for several decades.

One intervener said she suspected radiation and not selenium was the cause of the deformed fish, but commission staff disagree..."

Now let's imagine the science education of the "intervener" who by virtue of "intervening" is worthy of some press: Think she passed high school physics?

I feel like I know her. She's full of shit, but in a climate of fear, ignorance and superstition, her comments are worthy of being reported in the newspaper as if she were somehow reputable.

The radioactivity of this old uranium mine is certainly dwarfed by the cooling ponds of the Chernobyl reactor complex. The catfish living quite happily in that pond show clear genetic damage but nonetheless no (as in zero, nada, zilch, zip) mutations.

http://home.earthlink.net/~douglaspage/id26.html

"A form of nuclear hysteria spread behind the winds. More than 100,000 European women, for instance, chose to abort pregnancies after Chernobyl, for fear of giving birth to nuclear mutants. Yet, 12 years later, no mutant rodents or fish have been found, much less mutant human babies. Dallas is trying to understand what he's not seeing. What he's not seeing are the expected mutations.

'These are the most radioactively contaminated living organisms in the wild we've ever found," a baffled Dallas says. "To be honest, these animals has so much radiation in them it defies the ability to understand how they survive. We have animals where the amount of radiation is over 80,000 Bq/g of tissue. Some of them are getting 2, 3 and 4 rems of radiation each day. Yet, they're apparently thriving on the most radioactive land on earth. We don't have an explanation.'"

I'm sorry for anti-nuclear anti-environmental scare mongers that their distortions of reality can be readily examined at the unfortunate laboratory at Chernobyl. They might be able to extract more credibility for their fear without experimental evidence. But they don't give a fuck about experiment or reality. They plug happily along saying "uranium and mutant" together as if it means something. They're perfectly willing to try to kill us all with their lack of thinking.

Here's a fucking clue. Uranium is endemic in that region. That's why there are mines there. To get the uranium of the rocks. The naturally occurring rocks.

If George W. Bush were not residing in the White House, one might fear stupidity, lies and distortion less than one is compelled to fear them now. But if I fear anything, it's not a deformed fish of unknown etiology.

What I fear is ignorance.

[struggle4progress]

4. Amazing! Since the commission disagrees with the intervenor ...

... you apparently want to construct an imaginary personal profile: "She's full of shit" and you should "wonder" whether she passed high school physics ...

With continuing practice, you are indeed becoming more adept at writing slanderous fictional biography: who could ever forget JFK "scammed his way through law school"? But perhaps you might want to make some effort to break this vile habit before you find youself telling such tales reflexively ...

[NNadir]

7. I know she'd full of shit because I know science.

Maybe you can prove that the commission is wrong. Prove that the Uranium deformed the fish.

You can't?

I didn't think so.

As usual changing the subject and engaging in logical fallacies is the only response to complete and total technical incompetence in addressing the issue at hand. As for the "intervener" I very much doubt she passed high school physics, just as I very much doubt that most anti-nuclear anti-environmentalist activists have in fact passed high school physics. This may not be obvious to those who have either never taken or passed high school physics, but you can tell about one's ability in the subject by what they say. If one wishes to claim that radiation from uranium is the cause of a deformed fish, this has certain implications about what one actually knows and how well one is actually educated.

The subject is uranium, radiation and deformed fish. It is not John Kennedy. Now, I certainly would never start a thread like this thread on such weak evidence. Therefore I am at a loss to claim definitively why it was started, but the purpose for which one might presume this thread was started was to represent some case stated in the article cited about the causal relationship of uranium contamination to fish. Now I contend that the originating post was misleading since 1) it excerpted a specific claim the article completely out of context, and 2) the conclusion taken from the article is not consistent with what the article actually said.

Now what kind of "thinking" response do I get back? An ad hominem remark that 1) it excerpted an off hand remark in one of my earlier posts out of context, and 2) the conclusions taken from the post is not consistent with what the post's main points. For the record, my cited post was about the history of the immoral decision to build the Hanford N-reactor in Washington State, a decision taken by John Kennedy. This post was in response to a post by yet another poorly educated radiation paranoid anti-nuclear anti-environmental activist that attempted (again out of context) to assert the ridiculous notion that John Kennedy was anti-nuclear power on the grounds he had (for convenient political purposes) decided to restrict atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. I was merely pointing out that like most confused anti-nuclear power arguments, this was a lie.

In any case, it might be a typically specious diversion to talk about my low opinion of the famous fraud JFK than to discuss the topic, (deformed fish and radiation) but that doesn't actually defend the argument for uranium causality for fish mutations so much as it demonstrates that the entire argument is weak and, in fact, indefensible. The part of my uncontextually cited post, that the clearly poorly educated seem to have real problems with, is learning about the use of logical fallacies.

One wishes that this would sink it, but one has to recognize who one is dealing with. One can't really hope for much for minds that on a scale of first to third rate, actually measure fourth rate.

In any case I stand by the cited post. I'm certainly not going to retract it in the face of a criticism from a source I hold in particularly low esteem. Here are the post's main points: JFK built the Hanford nuclear N-reactor in spite of the objection of most scientists involved in the project. The Hanford reactor is, for people who understand nuclear technology (as opposed to radiation paranoid flakes), the only reactor built in the United States with the same physics properties as Chernobyl. To wit: It had a positive void coefficient, lacked a containment building, and was designed to have capability in producing weapons grade plutonium while generating electricity.

If this is untrue, prove it.

You can't?

I didn't think so.

To a person who understands reactor design (present company clearly excepted) this Kennedy policy says something about Kennedy. This may or may not jive with the worshipful dogma of worshipful intellectually weak automatons, but who really cares about such people? They are useless, except to the extent that one can watch them (with amused marvel) demonstrate how poor thinking works.

[struggle4progress]

12. "Because I know science"? On the basis of the flimsiest information ...

... about the intervener ("One intervener .. suspected radiation .. deformed fish, but .. staff disagree") you reach conclusions of a personal nature ("Think she passed high school physics? ... She's full of shit") and when called on this you respond that your conclusions are justified "Because I know science"?

Science should be a valuable investigative method: after several centuries, the writing of Bacon is still worth reading.

You, however, instead of treating science as a method, prefer to treat it as a source of religious dogma. You completely abandon hypotheses in favor of absolute certainty. An intervener apparently raises questions which are contrary to your faith, to which you react, not with cool scientific detachment, but rather with the rage of the true believer calling for the excommunication of a heretic. In following this road, you provide no intellectually defensible argument. Had you wanted to tell us exactly what the intervener suggested, and why you thought the intervener wrong, you were free to do so, though it would have required material. beyond what appeared in the newspaper article. As matters stand, there is no evidence that anyone in the thread knows what issues the intervener raised or exactly what the commission staff considered in responding.

I myself, knowing nothing about details of said intervener's submission, have at present no real opinion on the matter: in my original post, I did not even quote the single sentence of the article that mentions the intervener. Your decision to attack this person was entirely your own. I simply noted above is that you seem habitually to practice this sort of ad hominem attack, an observation for which (to me) your subsequent response seems only to provide further evidence.

<edit: typos>

[struggle4progress]

14. I very deliberately chose the paragraphs to post from this article:

The core of the article, in my view was: ".. regulators are worried about .. deformed fish .. near .. a waste facility .... 2003 .. study found .. potential risk to humans .... Despite .. concerns .. commission approved .. waste facility .. licence ...."

Such pro-polluter stances from regulatory agency are common and in my view problematic.

[struggle4progress]

9. I put no "spin" whatsoever into my post.

Per DU copyright restrictions, I quoted a limited number of paragraphs from the article, without making any further comment.

[struggle4progress]

10. Since the 1950's, "mutation" has been synonymous with "genetic damage" ...

... as far as biologists are concerned.

I suppose that you are free, like Alice's Humpty-Dumpty, to use language howsoever you choose -- but your statement "catfish .. in that pond show .. genetic damage but .. no .. mutations" would be regarded as self-contradictory nonsense by modern geneticists, who consider genes as DNA sequences and mutations as changes in these sequences.

[NNadir]

16. Maybe you should tell the environmental toxicologist cited in post #3

(Cham Dallas) about this rather curious interpretation of terminology.

It is his description of his trip to Chernobyl that's the source of the language. I've already had enough exposure to the scientific malapropisms here; let someone else get nauseous for a change.

He might have enough patience to explain the difference between germ cells and somatic cells. I certainly don't.

[struggle4progress]

19. Your distinction between germ lines and somatic lines ...

... appears to be simply a change of subject.

Since you never quite state any clear thesis here, but rather appear only to provide somewhat unpleasant innuendo, I should be forced to attempt to state your thesis for you, in order to respond to it. I believe that would become something along the lines of "The word 'mutation' should be reserved for effects in the germ line." However your pal, Cham, in the article you cite, is quite happy to use the word "mutation" to describe somatic line effects: "Each gene undergoes about 400,000 replication mutations each day - a total of 24 billion gene mutations every day." This suggests to me that Cham is fully capable of using the word 'mutation' correctly, when he wants to, and raises the question of what's up when he chooses to misuse the word.

But even if you were right, and we decided to restrict "mutation" to inherited effects, it is unclear that Cham's claims have merit. His name is on a small number of papers on the catfish, as a co-author; there's no evidence whatsoever that he's competent to identify morphological changes in the fish himself, or that he has carefully tracked that fish population over any extended period; moreover, since most of what is inherited is not immediately visible, the absence of gross deformities would not really provide clear information on damage transmissible between generations. There's no evidence that he or his team have done a systematic and complete genetic assay of the population in question, so Cham seems to be making sweeping claims about absence of effects in this one population without much evidence to support his claims.

It seems to me clear what's up: Cham can't resist an opportunity to push his own personal views as science. Elsewhere in the same article, he provides some hype for hormesis, in language strongly suggesting that hormesis is an established fact, which is not at all the case.

Unless he intends to devote substantially more effort to these catfish, science would be better served if he were more precise and circumspect in his statements.

[NNadir]

34. I'll bet if I were in a mood to read this that they'd be some real "gems"

here.

I think, though, I'll skip it. As it happens I have a stomach virus and I am already nauseous. To quote Queen Victoria, "I am not amused," nor, to go beyond the late Queen, am I able even to think of being amused.

I feel really bad for my country and my planet.

Until the Bush administration, and, sadly enough, until I started in reading some of the stuff I read in the on line forums into which Bushism drew me in hopes of solace, I had no idea how poorly educated our citizenry can actually be. I had no idea how poor thinking can so easily paraded as if it had even a trace of a wisp of a dream of a modicum of a smidgen of sense.

I can't believe it's real, but it is.

[kitkatrose]

17. Hmmmm, I didn't learn that in my genetics class.

Now mutations can be genetic damage, but to me damage implies harm, which isn't always the case. I'd say mutation is synonymous (sp?) with genetic change, and that's about it. And genetic damage can be other things (I think), like weakening inserting extra molecules (phosphates, sugars) into the code (which I guess could be a mutation, but not my area of expertise) or increased shortening of telomeres, or something else entirely. Definitions, especially scientific ones, tend to be modified as more is uncovered. :shrug: But that's just my $.02

[struggle4progress]

18. Mutation is generally understood as affecting the base sequence.

The question at hand is whether one can sensibly say "there's lots of genetic damage but without mutation." My object wasn't to parse the word "damage." My point was simply that the statement was nonsense: it would appear to remain nonsense under your parsing.

The insertion of extraneous matter (such as an exogenous aromatic ring) between base pairs could induce faulty copying and cause mutation -- I wouldn't call that a mutation myself ...

[kitkatrose]

20. Okay, but if the base sequence isn't changed

then it's not a mutation. What I was trying to say was that you can damage a gene with out changing it--I think. I'm not sure why you're calling the guy's statement nonsense, since you haven't really explained why other than stating that ""mutation" has been synonymous with "genetic damage" .

The insertion of extraneous matter (such as an exogenous aromatic ring) between base pairs could induce faulty copying and cause mutation -- I wouldn't call that a mutation myself ...

And it appears to me that you gave an example of genetic damage, but not mutation right there. So unless we're missing each other, I'm not sure what we're arguing about.

[struggle4progress]

22. ".. Mutation is defined as a failure to store genetic information ..

.. faithfully. Changes in genetic information can be reflected in the expression of that information (i.e. in the proteins produced) ... Some mutations occur in regular body cells; these are somatic mutations. For example, someone who spends too much time suntanning might experience a mutation in a skin cell ... Some mutations occur in germline cells. These cells produce the gametes; therefore, they are gametic mutations. In most cases, such mutations wouldn't even be noticed by the individual. After all, the gametes don't play a prominent role in the day-to-day function of the individual. These mutations, in contrast to the somatic mutations, will be passed on to the next generation, because they occur in the cells that produce the next generation ... Some mutations arise as natural errors in DNA replication (or as a result of unknown chemical reactions); these are known as spontaneous mutations ... Mutations can also be caused by agents in the environment; these are induced mutations. Induced mutations increase the mutation rate over the spontaneous rate ... "

http://www.emunix.emich.edu/~rwinning/genetics/mutat.htm


"... A gene mutation is a permanent change in the DNA sequence that makes up a gene. Mutations range in size from one DNA base to a large segment of a chromosome. Gene mutations occur in two ways: they can be inherited from a parent or acquired during a person's lifetime ..."

http://www.mydna.com/genes/genetics/genetics101/geneticdisorders_family.html


The gene, to me, is an abstract sequence, coded concretely as DNA base-pair triplets; genetic damage for me is damage to this abstract sequence. Damaging (or, if you prefer, changing the gene) means changing the abstract sequence. There are clearly a number of ways that cellular mechanisms can be poisoned or interfered with, which result in abnormal performance; not all of these involve change to the abstract sequence that comprises the gene. If such interference actually causes a change in the triplet sequence, either in the cell or in one of its daughters, that to me is a mutation. I wouldn't call mere temporary insertion of an inappropriate entity into the body of the DNA a mutation, although if through some chemical reaction occurred that affected the coded sequence, I would call that a mutation, and I consider this the standard usage of the word.

Arguing about "damage" versus "change" seems to me non-productive, perhaps because I'm completely unsure what you have in mind when you speak of "genetic damage without genetic change."

If you have in mind some specific mechanism, relevant to the fish under discussion, by which the gene could be damaged without being changed, I'm certainly interested to hear about it. This isn't my specialty, so I'm always learning something new.

As present, however, I will say that it is my view that CE Dallas, in the little piece under discussion, is simply being sloppy with his language, and I am filled with suspicion that his sloppiness is deliberate, uninformative, and serves particular non-scientific propaganda purposes.

[hunter]

24. Genetic "information" is actively maintained, not stored.

That's a significant distinction. The idea that genetic information is "stored" implies a belief that God or Mother Nature or some other Creator handed down the genetic code, which confuses all these issues.

A lot of people who call themselves environmentalists (or such) behave as if they are protecting God's One True Creation, even as they may claim to be atheists or adherents of spiritualities that do not recognize a Creator.

Unfortunately these attitudes tend to interfere with our understanding of genetics. As our understanding increases, genetics turns out to be a very messy and complicated process.

Our genes, which many of us treat as the sacred word of some creator, commonly take many trips daily through various choppers, after which they are reassembled by various processes.

It's as if you could read a book by throwing it into a shredder and watching it come out again whole.

Various toxins, both radioactive and non-radioactive, can interfere with the reassembly process.

The conotations of the word "mutation" in common language are not the same as the scientific conotations. In any case, mutations can be caused by both radioactive and non-radioactive pollution.

When some people use the word "mutation" they are certainly seeking to invoke the images of fifty year old atomic horror film fantasies.

But the giant ants of the old horror films were a lot scarier than the real live ants that crawled out of our nuclear waste dumps.

[struggle4progress]

26. "Storage" is actually a perfectly reasonable analogy. The organism ...

... possesses a database for coding the protein mechanisms that underlie all cellular functioning. To our best knowledge, this database has developed slowly over quite a long period of time, and organisms devote some metabolic energy to the preservation of this database: this makes sense, since permanent changes to the database generally impair fitness.

There is indeed some regulated cutting and splicing activity, such as that effected by the topoisomerases, but I do not see that glossing such metabolic activity, with the image of a book tossed into a shredder, provides any usable insights into cellular mechanisms or helps us to understand the issues affecting fish in this thread.

Nor have I been able to understand why you think this useful "storage" concept involves any creation ideas.

My discussion of "mutation" in this thread has been entirely in response to the introduction of the concept into the thread by poster #3.

[hunter]

27. It's a digression from the original post, but the distinction is important

It is this comparison of genes to some sort of computer program or database that led so many people to be shocked by the relatively small number of genes humans have. There are many kinds of small creepy-crawly things that have more genes than humans do!

It seems odd to have to say this, but most of the information required to make a human being does not reside in our genes. An alien technology, no matter how powerful, could not reproduce a human being from a map of the human genome. Reproducing a human being requires not only a complete map of all the mechanisms within a single human zygote, but also a map of all the mechanisms that maintain the environment within the uterus of a pregnant woman. (Reproducing creatures hatched from eggs might be somewhat easier...)

The notion that we live in a "creation" permeates all our thinking. As human beings we create things (for example, computers, databases, etc.) and it is only natural that we think of ourselves as some sort of "creation." This often blinds us to the actual science of things.

Thus we think of our genes as storage, or as some sort of "instructions," when a better description might be that genes are expressing the allowable limits of human variation. Cells having genes outside these limits are usually deleted. Cancers and harmful mutations are visible to us only when the internal and external mechanisms that ordinarily cause the death of malfunctioning cells fail.

Life itself is very familiar with the damaging effects of radioactive elements. That's not a license to add more radioactive elements to the stew of them we already live in, but it is enough to let me say (one more time!) that radioactive pollutants are not much different than other sorts of pollutants.

[struggle4progress]

28. Ultimately, none of the cellular machinery functions without ...

... accurate protein transcription from DNA. It is true that the cellular mechanisms cannot be reproduced from DNA in vacuo and depend on pre-existing cellular machinery. But this pre-existing machinery cannot be maintained without the genome: there is no new protein synthesis, hence no new enzyme production without it, and without this the individual cell has a limited future.

I consider it simply nonsensical to describe genes as "expressing the allowable limits of human variation," since the genes themselves appear to provide no obvious limits: the limits are provided existentially by the ability of the resulting proteins to effect particular biochemical reactions, and as a general rule mutation of a gene usually appears to have an untoward effect on the functionality of the protein. Complex organisms have evolved a variety of (imperfect) mechanisms (including apoptosis) for attempting to deal with such mutation, as well as other forms of dysfunctionality.

I continue to fail to see how the idea "creation" has anything to do with this discussion and do not understand your reintroduction of this extraneous notion into the discussion.

[hunter]

29. The genetic model you are using is too simple.

That's why my assertion that our genes are expressing the allowable limits of human variation seems "nonsensical" to you.

If you are thinking of genes as "building plans" or "instruction books" or "databases" passed down from previous generations, that is a very creationist viewpoint, whether you believe that life has been evolving for billions of years, or if you believe some Creator created life some 6000 years ago. From this creationist viewpoint genes are preserving something important, some "creative spark" perhaps.

I myself am a very spiritual person -- it is my faith that the universe is an expression of some greater power. Tto be specific, I am mostly a "Social Justice" Catholic. But it has also been my good fortune to learn how hard it is to practice either science or religion without prejudice.

In the case of genetics, our scientific models work much better once we assume genes are something that "just happened."

In my own scientific models genes are very much like clouds. The shape of a particular cloud -- whether it looks like a sheep, or a dragon, or a pirate ship -- is of no great concern to the study of atmospheric science. The various sorts of clouds we see are not classified by their random shapes, but by deeper, fundamental patterns. Nobody could get a get a doctorate studying sheep-shaped clouds.

To understand clouds, first you must know the difference between cirrus, cumulus, and stratus clouds, and then you work from there...

http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/weather/pricloud/index.html

(Although, if you are obsessed with sheep shaped clouds, you might get your doctorate in some obscure study of cumulus cloud formation.)

Many anti-nuclear activists (and I've known quite a few...) see radioactive pollution as something fundamentally different than other sorts of pollution. It's not. Certainly mankind's "creation" of nuclear weapons has radically changed the course of human history, but the natural environment has proven to be remarkably indifferent to the sorts of radioactive pollution humans fear the most.

From a human perspective, individual humans are very important. When a human dies prematurely of some radioactive pollutant, we consider that a very significant event, perhaps even more significant than if a human dies of some much more common non-radioactive pollutant.

But the greater natural environment is largely indifferent to such events. Nature doesn't care if some random fish or mouse dies of radioactive pollution. Those organisms that are able to survive in a radioactive environment survive, and those organisms that can't survive don't.

From an utterly inhuman perspective the exclusion of humans from radioactive environments is a very good thing. If you are a radioactive fish, you don't have to worry that you will end up on some human's dinner table. You can be radioactive to the point where humans will not eat you, but your overall fecundity, and the fecundity of the generations that follow you, is not affected at all.

This has been clearly demonstrated at Chernobyl. Once the short-lived, highly radioactive elements decay, the natural environment fourishes because humans are excluded.

There are now many places on earth that have been polluted by radioactive waste. In the former Soviet Union there are places where raw nuclear waste was dumped into open trenches. (Here in the United States we dumped such wastes into single wall steel tanks, and thus inherited a different sort of problem.) These places are not "wastelands."

The same cannot be said for other areas polluted by humans. Mining wastes have wiped out entire ecosystems, as described in the original post here.

The original post does not demonstrate that nuclear power is bad, only that our handling of mining wastes is bad. I don't believe anyone in this forum would dispute that.

[struggle4progress]

30. The reason your assertion seems nonsensical to me ...

... is that your "our genes are expressing the allowable limits of human variation" does not seem to be based on any mechanism: rather, it seems to be some sort of philosophical gloss, which allows you to transition to further irrelevant philosophical discussion of "creation" and your spirituality.

Whether my model is too simple, or not, may depend, I think, on the use to which it is put. I have simply been trying to explain exactly why I consider the claim under discussion (that fish had genetic damage but no mutations) to be empty blather.

As an alternative to the Watson-Crick model, and associated triplet codon scheme, supported by a half century of molecular genetics research, you apparently propose that "genes are very much like clouds."

Of course, if this gene-model of yours is a productive source of testable technical ideas, I would be naturally interested to learn more about it. And, more relevant to the current subthread, I would be delighted to hear you explain exactly how this alleged "cloud-like"-ness of genes helps us to understand ability of radiation to cause mutation (as studied, for example, by Muller and his coworkers long ago) and genetic-damage: after this, it would be nice to learn how you believe the insights you derive from this support the Cham Dallas assertion that I have repeatedly ridiculed supra.

[hunter]

31. Goodness, yes, I know how genes work...

...I know what the scientific definition of a mutation is, and it seems to me you are using facts irrelevant to the central point of my argument to confuse this issue. If you want to play a game of academic arm waving, we can do that all day.

I'll ask you straight out -- what does it matter if the fish in a radioactive pond experience some genetic change if that change has no adverse affect on fecundity or fitness of the fish, or upon the fecundity and fitness of the following generations of fish?

Mankind has become quite adept at causing the extinction of entire species. So far radioactive pollution is a pretty trivial part of the huge arsenal of death we dish out on this planet. If we do expand our nuclear power programs it is likely the species that die of it will not die of radiation, they will die because our ability to crowd them off the planet will be increased.

If you oppose nuclear power because you don't want human beings to be more "productive," just say that.

If you don't think nuclear power is economical, just say that, but please don't use figures that are inflated by corruption and political posturing.

If you oppose nuclear power because you fear the radiation will kill you, just say that, but be advised other forms of energy are more likely to kill you.

If you oppose nuclear power because you are afraid of nuclear bombs, that is reasonable. This nation we live in has demonstrated its willingness to use nuclear weapons. But be advised that most nuclear bombs are not made from products obtained from civilian reactors.

Any any case my cloud analogy is unrelated to archaic notions of genetic substance. I am very interested in evolution. Lately it is becoming clear that there are devices in the toolboxes of most organisms that somehow shut down pathways for evolution that are less likely to be fruitful, and open up evolutionary pathways that are more likely to be fruitful. To put it simply, life on earth has evolved to evolve.

A sloppy criticism would call this "Lamarckian" but that's not what we're talking about. A hot topic of research is finding out how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. It does not seem to be a process of random mutation and selection.

Philosophically you can take that anywhere you want to, but these observations change our perspective of what genes are actually doing. Yes, yes, they code for proteins, and enzymes, etc., but functionally there is quite a bit more to genes than being simple mutable "blueprints."

[struggle4progress]

32. The thread is about fish at a Canadian mine now being used ...

... as a waste site. Later, another poster posted some material alleging that certain fish near Chernobyl had lots of "genetic damage" but no "mutations." In any parsing I have been able to imagine, that allegation appears nonsensical to me, and I believe that I have provided a clear explanation of why I consider the CE Dallas allegation to be mushy mumble-mouthing. Anyone wanting to provide

(1) a coherent interpretation of the CE Dallas allegation, together with
(2) any evidence that such an interpretation actually matches anything that CE Dallas has written on those fish

had had (it seems to me) ample opportunity to do so -- but as far as I can tell, no one has really been willing to undertake that task. Your vision of genes as "cloud-like" things apparently does not fit this bill, insofar as it does not obviously suggest specific mechanistic insights, and (in any case) you have bluntly declined a polite invitation to elaborate further, beyond claiming "my cloud analogy is unrelated to archaic notions of genetic substance," whatever that might mean.

Good day.

[struggle4progress]

5. Sulfates leaching from old coal mines naturally distresses you ...

... but selenium from old uranium mines does not?

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[struggle4progress]

13. As I have made no statement about nuclear power at all in this thread,

I am having a hard time understanding how I could possibly be misrepresenting your views on the subject here.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Coastie for Truth]

6. Some Inorganic Biochemistry

Point 1

The article reads:

The report said Cameco, a Saskatchewan-based uranium mining company, has been investigating after a 2003 environmental study found a potential risk to humans "related to an exceedance of toxicity benchmarks" for selenium and uranium at two lakes – Beaverlodge and Martin.

Commission staff said the contaminated lake sediment poses a "generally very low" risk to people and the environment in the short term, but in the long term, risks are harder to gauge.

The high levels of non-radioactive selenium in lake sediment in the area was identified as a particular concern with respect to the fish population.

Point 2

Selenium is in Group VIA of the Periodic Chart--with Oxygen, Sulfur, Selenium, Tellurium, and Polonium. Biologically active, just like oxygen, sulfur, selenium.

Did you know - antibiotic resistant bacteria have a much higher fraction of sulfur and selenium in the structure then normal bacteria. (My class notes for Prof. Walker's "Biochem/Genetics for Engineers" at Stanford Univ.).

Point 3

Excessive levels of Selenium (above the normal levels for normal biological processes) are toxic to the kidneys and liver. You can Goggle that one - or check out http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

Point 4

Excessive levels of Selenium (above the normal levels for normal biological processes) have been reported to cause birth defects in vertebrates. Selenium is used in xerographic drums -- and this was as issue in the 1970's for office workers and for assembly workers. You can Goggle that one - or check out http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

[struggle4progress]

11. Response of antioxidant enzymes in freshwater fish populations (Leuciscus

Response of antioxidant enzymes in freshwater fish populations (Leuciscus alburnoides complex) to inorganic pollutants exposure

Lopes PA, Pinheiro T, Santos MC, da Luz Mathias M, Collares-Pereira MJ, Viegas-Crespo AM.

Centro de Biologia Ambiental and Departamento de Zoologia, Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal.

Evidence is accumulating indicating the importance of antioxidant enzyme activity measurements in eco-toxicological studies, as they may constitute markers for exposure to a large variety of pollutants. Variation of antioxidant enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione S-transferases (GST) and the effect of heavy metals and selenium exposure on these enzymes were investigated in the livers of Iberian endemic minnows (Leuciscus alburnoides complex) captured in a copper (Cu) mining area. Higher hepatic levels of copper and selenium were always observed in fish captured at the polluted site relative to the reference area population, reflecting the environmental monitoring results. A seasonal fluctuation in zinc and selenium levels for both populations was also observed which could be related to gonad maturation. The activity of SOD did not show significant regional alterations, but a seasonal variation occurred presumably associated with the Leuciscus life cycle. The GST activity was higher in the fish population from the polluted area (except in spring) and GST variability was associated with selenium and copper levels when both regions were compared. The increased GST activity was probably a metabolic adaptation to the continuous exposure to higher levels of those elements.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11763263&dopt=Abstract


<edit:> As I attempted to indicate to you in our PM exchange, I consider that possible effects on cellular antioxidant mechanisms associated with selenium (NB: effects in different animal models with different types and quantities of exposure have yielded results which differ not only in degree of the effect but even in the direction of the effect) make it difficult to predict reasonably whether one expects any interaction between selenium and radiation exposures in the fish population under discussion.

[hunter]

21. In coal country entire ecosystems are dead.

The fish that used to live in the streams are not simply deformed, they are long dead.

Hell yes, many regulatory institutions are corrupt. They protect the industries they are supposed to be regulating.

You posted this item without comment, but your implication (judging from your other posts) is that this action was somehow tainted, and further evidence that nuclear power is dangerous.

Of course nuclear power is dangerous, but is it more dangerous than other energy sources?

In my own experience I would rather live near the nuclear power stations at San Onofre or Palo Verde or Diablo Canyon then I would near any coal fired plant. And I have, and I do.

[struggle4progress]

23. My major interests at present are political: we cannot hope ...

... to survive the present crisis without a genuine common effort, attacking a range of issues.

Many Americans, in my view, confuse politics with policies and consider beliefs central to everything else. But successful politics is actually about putting differences aside and working together with other people to accomplish specific goals.

In the face of real differences and real agreements, groups can set temporarily aside disputes, in order to accomplish particular concrete goals -- or else everyone can simply refuse to work with anyone else whose views do not completely coincide with his/her own.

As a purely abstract example: it seems you and I disagree about nuclear power; it also seems we agree about the corruption of many regulatory agencies. So where is the productive use of personal time, here, given the actual material situation in the real world at this moment?

[hunter]

25. Democrats must not dismiss the realistic promises of nuclear power.

The true costs of nuclear power have not yet been determined in the United States. My own best guess is that nuclear power is better than coal power.

On the other hand, corrupt institutions cannot assure the safety of the nuclear industry. Every day the Bush Administration demonstrates its incompetence and corruption. In this atmosphere I do not support nuclear power.

I'm hoping that anyone who visits this forum on DU will realize that the issue of nuclear power is still open for discussion, and that they won't slam any democratic politician who might suggest this.

[Kool Kitty]

33. One of the problems that I have with

nuclear power is how they will take care of the waste, because it is dangerous for such a long time. And I really don't want to live next to a reactor, which probably makes me a fool in the eyes of some.