radiation

Wolfe K, Wayne ML, Makova K, Steen TY, Uyenoyama M & Takahata N 2012 SMBE proposal to the government of Japan. Mol Biol Evol 29:441.

• the SMBE proposes that the government of Japan encourage and facilitate the study of the short- and long-term effects of radiation on organisms
• we regard the longitudinal and temporal sampling of organisms as critical and urgent, and hope that in contrast to the case of the Chernobyl disaster, radiation effect studies on organisms can be initiated swiftly
• in the case of Chernobyl, it took up to 10 years to initiate such studies
• this delay has brought much confusion
• monitoring of model organisms such as Drosophila melanogaster, Arabidopsis thaliana, and Rhabditid nematodes would yield especially valuable insights within a short timescale
• to maximize confidence in any such scientific endeavor, all data should be publicly accessible