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- Chernobyl wolves have developed resistance to cancer despite high radiation exposure.
- Wolves are exposed to six times more radiation than the legal safe limit for humans.
- Decades after the nuclear disaster, wolves have shown a genetic predisposition to resistance to cancer.
Wolves in Ukraine’s Chernobyl region have developed resilience to cancer, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology has reported.
In April 1986, a nuclear disaster occurred following an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. A large amount of carcinogenic radioactive material was released.
Today, its legacy remains in the radioactive soil and water of Belarus, Ukraine, and western Russia.
Gray wolves living in highly radioactive areas are exposed to 11.28 milligrams of radiation each day, more than six times the legal safe limit for humans.
But a recent study by Karla Love, an evolutionary biologist and ecotoxicologist at Princeton University, shows how these wolves have adapted to survive in radioactive environments.
Love’s research demonstrated that the Chernobyl wolves had altered immune systems “similar to cancer patients receiving radiation therapy.”
This is important. Scientific research is revealing more about radioresistance, increasing the potential for innovative treatments and prevention strategies for cancer.
Love and her team visited the Exclusion Zone (CEZ) in 2014, outfitting wolves with radio collars to track their movements and monitor radiation exposure in real time.
The worst nuclear disaster in history left the area uninhabitable for humans after carcinogenic radiation and radioactive materials were released into the environment surrounding the power plant.
Approximately 350,000 people were evacuated from the area after the explosion.
However, almost 40 years after the disaster, wildlife such as horses, wolves, forests, and fungi have recolonized the affected areas.
Many studies suggest that animals thrive in this zone due to the absence of humans.
“The CEZ is an interesting example of nature’s ability to bounce back from degradation,” said Tim Christoffersen, UNEP’s Nature Director for Climate Change.
“Even after the world’s worst nuclear disaster, nature thrives when you remove humans from the equation,” environmental scientist Jim Smith told National Geographic.
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