The article isn't very specific on the specific vectors at work here, but from what the scientists did, it sounds like those butterflies were very close indeed and literally ate radioactive materials. So it may not be relevant to local parents unless their kids eat a lot of dirt right outside power plants.
You don't have any kids yourself, I take. They are entropy machines! You never know what stupid (from adult perspective) thing they are going to do next.
Besides, it may be nitpicking, but kids eating dirt right outside power plants would die horrible deaths within days. It is the lesser doses in the rear by populated areas whose effects may not be so well understood.
> Besides, it may be nitpicking, but kids eating dirt right outside power plants would die horrible deaths within days. It is the lesser doses in the rear by populated areas whose effects may not be so well understood.
Nah, it's not nitpicking. It's just totally wrong.
The radiation that upon ingestion kills you is alpha/beta radiation, i.e. particle radiation. This radiation doesn't otherwise cause harm (except in very large doses,) because it's a particle radiation that can't penetrate solid matter.
Nuclear reactors handle their fuel carefully (well, that's the default assumption. I don't know if all do,) and so, only gamma-radiation actually escapes the power plant, except in emergencies, of course. Gamma-radiation permeates through solid matter without too much difficulty (well, depending on the (amount of) matter, but the human body is basically translucent to gamma radiation. This is why X-Rays actually work.) and therefore it really doesn't matter whether the kids do ingest it or not.
Now, coal power plants on the other hand are an entirely different thing. Fly Ash, which coal power plants exude in large quantities contains Thorium and Uranium in rather high concentrations. Ingesting that might indeed be hazardous, though I don't know if you'd die a "horrible death" from the amounts typically in the vicinity (around 1 mile or so) of coal power plants.
Fun fact: coal power plants actually cause more radiation pollution to their surroundings than nuclear power plants (during normal operation.)
EDIT: I was wrong, nuclear power plants also emit alpha and beta radiation, as well as gamma, neutron, neutrino and positron radiation and other stuff. But apparently in such small quantities that I really can't imagine anyone dying from eating the soil around a nuclear power plant. Proof: this is a German AKW (Atomkraftwerk, nuclear power plant) in Phillipsburg. Notice how it is entirely surrounded with fields where crops is grown? People and animals eat all this stuff. http://goo.gl/maps/jydz1 Actually, Biblis (another AKW) is even more impressive: http://goo.gl/maps/LP1Hi
That's great, but in this case we're discussing the environment around the Fukushima nuclear plant, where we have a distinctly abnormal radiological environment. The teratological damage we have observed in butterfly populations around that area is not necessarily going to show up in the human population or food chain, but I find it easy to see why people would lose sleep over the possibility: it is widely acknowledged that management of the nuclear plant and the Japanese government handled the situation poorly, so there is no reliable standard as yet by which to judge the safety of the affected population.
Now, I'm in full agreement about the filthiness of coal plants, and that many objections to nuclear power are the result of ignorance. However, nuclear advocates simply can't afford to be glib about the safety issues.
I'm not a nuclear advocate, though. And, I was responding to the GP, who distinctly mentioned nuclear power plants, plural, so not Fukushima in particular. I wouldn't want to eat anything that has been in a ten-mile radius around Fukushima. Not because it's likely going to cause me any harm, just… you know… to be safe.
