However, the release of radionuclides into the environment from nuclear accidents or nuclear weapons fallout poses potential threats to public health and societies and economic activities as some radionuclides are capable of persistently contaminating the food chain, resulting in widespread and long-term risk of radiation exposure
Would be interested to see how that compares to coal
The cesium leeches into the soil and it’s absorbed by the truffles. They wouldn’t save us in a nuclear war. This is just where the radioactivity accumulates.
Why/how does it concentrate in truffles?
Could truffles be used to extract the radioactivity from the environment?
The paper the article references
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.3c03565
Would be interested to see how that compares to coal
The cesium leeches into the soil and it’s absorbed by the truffles. They wouldn’t save us in a nuclear war. This is just where the radioactivity accumulates.
Could it aid in clear up in places like Ukraine and Japan?
I doubt it, but this is not my area of expertise.
Truffles are pretty rare (which is why we use pigs to find them) but maybe another kind of fungi could work?
Deer truffles are not regular truffles and they aren’t that rare actually.
The radioactivity has been towed from the environment.