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Re:Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow? by stevoski on Monday January 21, 2013 @11:50AM (#5092241)
Species that have much lower lifespans than humans are less likely to develop cancer in their lifetimes. These species particularly benefit from the lack of humans around Chernobyl more than they suffer from the high radiation.
Re:Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow? by valgaze on Monday January 21, 2013 @12:48PM (#5092628)
Re:Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow? by mikeash on Monday January 21, 2013 @12:41PM (#5092581)
Animals are a lot more tolerant of death and mayhem, too. For example, if radiation caused e.g. a 10% incidence of horrible birth defects, a lot of animal populations could survive that just fine, but humans would be horrified at the very idea.
Re:Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow? by Shorel on Monday January 21, 2013 @03:03PM (#5093391)
Humans will survive just as well.

'Being horrified' is not a credible threat to survival.

In fact, in both cases the affected individuals of any species will die and the rest will go on.

Re:Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow? by mikeash on Monday January 21, 2013 @03:25PM (#5093526)
Of course humans will survive, but they'll avoid the area if they can.
Re:Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow? by d0mine on Monday January 21, 2013 @07:49PM (#5094766)
Humans deal with it just fine.

  In 2009, there were 31 countries reported in which at least 10% of children under five died.
For comparison:

  In 2011, the world average was 51 (5.1%), down from 87 (8.7%) in 1990.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_mortality
Re:Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow? by mikeash on Monday January 21, 2013 @09:23PM (#5095148)
We "deal with it" in the sense that we can survive and even thrive in such an environment. But we don't "deal with it just fine" in terms of accepting it when we could easily change it by e.g. avoiding a particular area.
Re:Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow? by Dylan16807 on Monday January 21, 2013 @02:37PM (#5093254)
Despite the fact that somewhere around a third of pregnancies already miscarry. People are weird.