The Mutant Butterflies of Fukushima

The great earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, wiping out entire communities and their inhabitants, crippling the Fukushima nuclear plant, and triggering a string of disastrous nuclear problems from explosions to radiation to leaks happened only last year. 

But genetic effects are already starting to become present in forms of life, such as the "Mutant Butterflies of Fukushima". It sounds a bit like a comedically overwrought name for a B Movie on the sci fi channel, but it's real. Ok, so it's not quite as exciting as the image it conjures of 40-foot pretty-winged butterflies stomping through the streets of Tokyo, clinging to the sides of skyscrapers with people clutched in their wiry little legs and sucking the living daylights out of every nectar-laden flower in sight, but it's still pretty compelling to see the effects of nuclear radiation in such a short time. 

Researchers began to examine an initial batch of around 100 butterflies from near the plant just a few months after the disaster occurred; 12% of them had mutations. When that first batch mated, the mutation rate increased to 18%, but interestingly when they mated with non-Fukushima butterflies, the rate jumped significantly - to 34% - showing that the offspring was inheriting deformed genes passed down by its parents at high rates, even if one was healthy.

According to a report that was released in August, around 200 more young butterflies analyzed several months later showed that more than 50% of the butterflies had some form of mutation now. The study indicates this dramatic increase may have to do with the stage of their developments that the butterflies were exposed to the radiation - either as larvae or younger than the adults that were first sampled.

Sadly, the mutations are pretty much just things like malformed eyes and smaller wings, nothing awesome like shooting lasers out of their eyes or being able to pick up and fly with cars. 

...Yet.