Nuclear Energy Plants Raise Concern for Safety in Iran

Nuclear power plant stokes worries

This article I found covers a number of topics we discussed last week in class. First and foremost is local, and global, concern about safety precautions being carried out to prevent contamination. Several residents live within 6 meters from the nuclear plant, but the recommended distance is one kilometer.

There is also a notable lack of communication being shared with the public, and this is increasing the concern of local residents.

"Iran has repeatedly maintained there are no grounds for concern, a position backed up by Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, whose subsidiary Atomstroyexport built the plant and plans its formal handover to Iran this year."

I question the authority with which this corporation Rosatom states there are no grounds for concern without any hard proof. The fact that they are selling the plant to Iran doesn't help settle my suspicions either. I would like to see what empirical proof they can offer to attest to the plants safety.

Near the end of the article the topic of communicating the risks to the public is raised again. The public has no idea what is happening most of the time, and concerns that something may be, or will, mess(ed) up, even if from an emergency official, are removed from public view and denied to ever exist.

While the people in Bushehr may want to leave as soon as possible, many do not have the necessary funds to do so. There is talk of moving everyone, but the government is not applying the required funds to do so. Only about ten percent of the people of Bushehr have left so far. 

Week One Entry

I feel that invasive species are some of the greatest threats to the great lakes and the rivers in the surrounding areas. Not many people are aware of the dangers of invasive species because they do not see the effects every day. Zebra mussels have been more personal to me as they have affected the environment and businesses of my hometown, but others like the Asian Carp make their threat more visible.

Epigenetics In Invasive Species

I found an interesting article on epigenetics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics "the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence". Essentially it is saying that invasive species adapt to their new environments not by evolving and changing their genetic DNA, but through expressions of different traits brought about by environmental factors. While some genes of a species may lie dormant for its entire life, the area a species is living in can change which genes are expressed and which are suppressed. An example from the article includes the invasive plant the Japanese knotweed, of which genetically identical plants can have different leaf shapes and varying heights depending upon where they are growing.

Not all believe that epigenetics and invasive species' success are related. I am not totally convinced either, but it raises an interesting point of how invasive species can thrive in an area vastly different from their origin.