Chernobyl has become synonymous with disaster. The 1986 nuclear disaster, once again brought to the attention of the world thanks to the HBO series, caused thousands of cancers, turned a once densely populated area into a ghost town and created an exclusion zone of 2,600 square kilometers. But the Chernobyl exclusion zone is alive. Wolves, wild boars and bears have returned to the lush forests surrounding the old nuclear power plant.
As for the vegetation, all of it, except for the most vulnerable and exposed to radiation plants, never died and even in the most radioactive zones was restored within three years. People, other mammals and birds would have died long ago from the radiation that irradiated plants in the most contaminated areas. So why is plant life so resistant to radiation and nuclear disaster?
What happened to the plants in Chernobyl?
To answer this question, we first need to understand how radiation from nuclear reactors affects living cells. The radioactive material from Chernobyl is "unstable" because it constantly emits high-energy particles and waves that destroy cellular structures or produce reactive substances that attack the cellular machinery.
Most parts of a cell can be replaced if damaged, but DNA is an important exception. At high doses of radiation, DNA becomes battered and cells die quickly. Low doses can lead to less damage in terms of mutations that alter cell function - for example, making them carcinogenic, multiplying uncontrollably and invading other parts of the body.
In animals, this is often fatal because their cells and systems are especially specialized and not very flexible. Imagine animal biology as a complex machine in which each cell and organ has its own place and purpose, and all parts must work and interact together for the individual to live. A person cannot live without a brain, lungs or heart.
Plants, on the other hand, develop much more flexibly and organically. Since they cannot move, they have no choice but to adapt to the circumstances in which they find themselves. Instead of having a specific structure, like an animal, plants create one as they develop. They grow longer roots or higher stems - it depends on the balance of chemical signals from other parts of the plant and the "woody Internet", as well as light, temperature, water and nutritional conditions.
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It is extremely important that, unlike animal cells, almost all plant cells are capable of creating new cells of any type that the plant needs. This is why a gardener can grow a new plant from a cuttings and roots will grow from what was once a stem or leaf.
All this means that plants can replace dead cells or tissues much more easily than animals, regardless of whether they are damaged as a result of an animal attack or radiation.
Although radiation and other types of DNA damage can cause tumors in plants, mutated cells are usually unable to move from one part of the plant to another, as in the process of cancer, thanks to the rigid connecting walls that surround plant cells. Such "tumors" will not be fatal in the vast majority of cases, because the plant will find a way to work without faulty tissue.
Remarkably, in addition to this innate resistance to radiation, some plants in the Chernobyl exclusion zone seem to use additional mechanisms to protect their DNA, change the chemical composition to make it more resistant to damage, and turn on systems to repair it if it is not. works. The level of natural radiation on the Earth's surface was much higher in the distant past, when the first plants developed, so plants in the exclusion zone can use these ancient defense mechanisms.
Now life around Chernobyl is flourishing. The variety of plants and animals is probably even higher than it was before the disaster. In a sense, the Chernobyl disaster has become a paradise on earth: by expelling ourselves from this area, we have made space for the return of nature.
Ilya Khel