February 23, 2017
Wild boar (click here) is a popular local delicacy in the Czech Republic but fans of the meat have an unusual problem on their hands this winter - the boars are radioactive.
The boars became contaminated by one of their most popular food sources - false truffles.
A cold and snowy winter is forcing them to feed on false truffles, an underground mushroom common in the Sumava mountain region between the Czech Republic, Austria, and Germany - where wild boars roam free.
The mushrooms can absorb high levels of the radioactive isotope Caesium 137. And three decades ago the nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl released a fair amount of Caesium 137 that eventually drifted down on the Sumava mountains.
Now the boars are eating the mushrooms, and ingesting the Caesium 137 along with them....
Boars aren't the only problem left over from Chernobyl.
April 20, 2016
By Courtney Verrill
By Courtney Verrill
...A 2010 study by the American Academy of Pediatrics (click here) found a correlation between the presence of hazardous levels of strontium-90 — a radioactive element produced by nuclear fission — and dramatically high rates of certain congenital birth defects.
Belarus, whose border with Ukraine is just four miles from the Chernobyl power plant, absorbed an estimated 70% of the nuclear fallout.
A study by UNICEF suggested that more than 20% of adolescent children in Belarus suffer from disabilities caused by birth defects.
Getty photographer Sean Gallup recently visited care centers for children with disabilities in Belarus. Below, see Gallup's images of the children living in these facilities....
