Many birds like to dress in bright outfits - first of all, this makes it easier for birds to find sexual partners. Let us recall at least a peacock, which always spreads its gorgeous tail, showing off in front of its friends. But the Chernobyl birds are not up to the picturesque "clothes" - in the conditions in which these birds live, survival comes first … Severe life - harsh tones. The city of one of the most terrible nuclear disasters, as well as the surrounding lands, are filled with gray and black birds. Even those who previously did nothing but flaunt multicolored and overdressed changed their color.
Belarusian blackies
In 2006, 20 years after the famous accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. on one of the federal TV channels there was a program dedicated to the anniversary of the tragedy. In this program, among other things, they showed a certain Belarusian village, which was in the zone of radiation contamination. The journalists who made the program were surprised to notice then that most of the chickens in rural households had black plumage. There were almost no chickens of a different color, and blacks did not live long - they often got sick and died. One of the local grandmothers then commented on the situation and said that. apparently the black color helps chickens to tolerate radiation more easily.
The guess of the Belarusian grandmother turned out to be correct - some time later her naive assumption was confirmed by professionals.
I will kill the redhead
Scientists from the USA and France took up our smaller feathered brothers living in Chernobyl. It took them three whole years to research, but the result was worth it. After making several trips to the danger zone, the biologists collected blood samples from the birds, and also made a number of other measurements. First of all, scientists were interested in the color of the plumage - they had long noticed that local birds are inclined to “dress” more gloomily than their comrades from the usual, not contaminated with radiation, terrain. At first, ornithologists (bird researchers) found that in areas where the level of radiation was very high, the number of birds with red plumage began to sharply decrease. "Mother nature of the Chernobyl lands clearly does not favor redheads," the scientists thought, "I wonder why?"
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The tubes filled with bird's blood were quickly sent to American and French laboratories for further research. There, the ornithologists continued their work - they analyzed the collected material and compared the populations of "mushroom" birds and their more discreet compatriots - "blackies". having come to the conclusion that the latter are much more successful in coping with ionizing radiation, precisely the radiation that destroys many living organisms, in particular birds, in radioactive zones.
Rescue molecules
The focus of the study in question turned out to be molecules that allow both to create pigments (natural dyes are what makes a gingerbird exactly ginger, and a black one - exactly black), and resist life-threatening radiation.
A bright - and, in particular, red - color of feathers is necessary for birdies primarily to attract the opposite sex, as we have already spoken about. Plus, colorful "vestments" help the feathered creatures to better blend in with the environment. Also a question of survival in its own way. But when it comes to Chernobyl, priorities change dramatically. The bottom line is this. For the production of the red pigment pheomelanin, the bird has to pay with a decrease in the amount of antioxidants, and these are precisely the substances that help fight destructive processes in the body. In the case of the Chernobyl birds, this is the process of exposure to radiation.
Live gray or die smart
How does this mechanism work? Just like the mechanism … of the regular market. We know perfectly well that a person comes to the market with a limited amount of money. He cannot buy up everything he wants (we will not take into account the oligarchs). A person acquires only the most necessary - luxury items are often left aside. But now there is something to eat. And drink. And you can live.
So is the body of our feathered comrades. The fact is that the raw material for both antioxidants (which are necessary for survival) and pigment (let's call it a luxury item) is an amino acid called glutathione (GSH). Let this be an analogue of money. Interestingly, this very glutathione is not needed at all to create dark plumage! And all funds can be safely spent on the ability to resist harmful radiation.
Having established such a relationship, scientists rushed to confirm their theory with quantitative indicators. Biologists have compared the ratio of pigments and the distribution of birds of one color or another among 97 species of birds! Indeed, it turned out that where the radiation background was above a certain level, smart birds were very, very rare. In dark birds, such a relationship was not observed - they everywhere felt like fish in water.
It turns out that the more colorful and attractive coloration deprives the winged creatures of the ability to protect themselves from radiation. The habit of dressing beautifully here is bad form. This is how things are with our feathered friends - either go to bed dressed in a coffin, or stay alive, but do with a gloomy outfit. And the organism, even the bird's, is not a fool - it immediately made a choice in favor of life. A study of the fauna near the nuclear power plant showed that local birds have to choose between feather color and health. What a pity that beauty and brightness rob the "flyers" of their vitality …
Should we judge people by the image of a bird?
The same group of ornithologists that dealt with Chernobyl birds is planning to conduct a similar study of the territory and fauna around the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant in Japan in the future. Scientists hope to find out whether it is possible to predict the consequences of such accidents for animals living in the area of a particular station.
Scientists note the relationship of color and protection from any negative influences not only in birds, but also in cats, for example. Some observations have shown that cats and cats with a large percentage of red hair are weaker in health - they are less resistant to viral diseases, more difficult to get out of critical conditions, longer brothers recover from operations and diseases.
There is an assumption that red-headed homo sapiens are more susceptible to toxins and more susceptible to poisons. But this is just a hypothesis. As for radiation, everything is inaccurate here. The effect of radiation on the human body has been poorly studied - after all, it has a purely probabilistic nature. For a good defining experiment, it would be necessary to take a thousand people, irradiate them with a strictly defined dose of one type of radiation and one frequency, and then a certain percentage of them will die. An unenviable prospect for test subjects. And it is almost impossible to maintain such dose accuracy.
If we take into account the color of a person's skin, and not the color of his hair, then nothing is clear here either. It is known that having received a dose of 240 roentgens, a person dies in 50% of cases. For example, if black skin color reduces this probability by only one percent, this is absolutely not enough to scientifically record the difference with current methods. So, apparently, there are still many discoveries ahead of scientists regarding this vital and interesting scientific issue.
George Tuz. Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" № 32 2011