mutant black frog that adapts to nuclear radiation
More than 30 years after the radiation accident, the Chernobyl mentioned now has obviously become one of the largest nature reserves in Europe. Unlike the public imagined weeds, here vegetation and animals flourish here, and various endangered species, including bears, wolves and lynx , can find shelter there.
As human activities cease, the number of large mammals in the Chernobyl region has flourished with the naked eye. According to the national statistics on relevant species, many animals including gray wolf , white-tailed eagle, western swamp harrier , short-eared owl , great egret , small weasel and beaver can be produced normally in nuclear radiation areas, and the number of organisms has begun to expand outside the region.
Why can these animals live in places with such severe radiation? It should be noted that according to the International Atomic Agency's assessment and data detection, as of 2022, Chernobyl is the largest radioactive place known to release to the environment. The explosion of nuclear radiation exists in the form of particles and gaseous radioactivity, and even runs into the atmosphere.
There is no doubt that radiation will destroy the genetic material of living organisms and produce adverse mutations, which is also the reason why the public is so afraid of nuclear radiation. However, the situation has changed now. Faced with the rapidly deteriorating environment of Chernobyl, one of the most interesting research topics related to it is - to detect whether species are really adapting to radiation.
is the same as other radiation objects, and radiation may be a very strong selective factor. When organisms are "forced to choose" in this environment, scientists are particularly interested in the survival chances of organisms and specialize in related species research. Until 2016, researchers were surprised to find several unusual orientalis trees (Hyla orientalis) near the damaged nuclear reactor.
Because the frogs of this species generally have bright green back color, but in this environment, it was found that the back color of the tree frog is close to pure black. However, this cannot be said to be the result of the evolution of species , because the rapid increase in melanin leads to blackness in the dorsal epidermis, which is also a possibility.
From childhood to adulthood, we must have heard a lot of saying that "black people are not afraid of the sun". In general, melanin can indeed reduce the negative effects of ultraviolet radiation. But what few people know is that the protection of melanin can be extended to nuclear radiation and can absorb or even dissipate part of the radiation energy.
In addition to this, it can also remove and neutralize radiation components in cells, protecting individuals from contamination and harm from nuclear radiation.
After detecting the first batch of black frogs, the researchers examined the back colors of oriental tree frogs in other radiant areas in detail between 2017 and 2019. In these three years, researchers specifically detected and analyzed the back skin color of more than 200 male frogs captured in 12 different breeding pools.
These places show a gradient of nuclear pollution - including areas outside the isolation area with the strongest low radiation, radioactive and polluting.
After another three years of research, researchers have found that the researchers have a deeper understanding of this mutated frog. The latest issue of "Evolutionary Application" magazine in 2022 stated that the color of tree frog in the Chernobyl region is much darker than that in other regions, and is basically pitch black.
After careful study and comparison, it was found that Chernobyl frogs may have undergone a rapid evolutionary process to better cope with radiation to adapt to the local environment. Under the pressure of the hard external environment, those minority groups in the tree frogs began to survive by changing their own conditions. The body adopted the protective effect of melanin and used changes in the color of the back skin to achieve better survival.
Therefore, the darker the color the tree frogs can live better under radiation, and their offspring will have more advantages and more successful reproduction.Over the past 30 years, the tree frog that has successfully mutated has undergone generational replacements of about a dozen generations of frogs - this classic natural selection process is really very rapid. But only tree frogs with strong adaptability can survive, otherwise what awaits them will only be the result of elimination.
mutated black frog is the result of natural selection. What we call evolution is actually a mutation in this case, and the survival of the fittest makes the evolved species. Influencing the evolutionary process, some people say that the theory of catastrophe also makes some sense.
Can humans refer to the route of the mutated black frog?
When many people hear this development process of the mutated black frog, they think of us humans themselves. Can we refer to the route of the mutated black frog? If this conjecture proves successful, then the living area and resources of human beings can be expanded further.
At present, this mutation route is not very referenced, mainly because human body structure is very different from that of mutated black frogs.
In fact, humans live in a radiation environment, but excessive nuclear radiation is harmful and may cause disease and death. What impressed me the most was that when I stayed in a nuclear radiation environment for 83 days, a strong man could not stand losing his life.
A chemist once published an article to discuss this phenomenon. The reason why nuclear radiation is so harmful is that the components emitted by nuclear radiation can destroy all existing cell structures . It has strong attack power and almost nothing can resist, which is difficult to repair afterwards.
Although from a general perspective, cells themselves have strong self-repair capabilities, under the high concentration of nuclear radiation, any cell is difficult to resist, and the final result can only be the slowly dying of the cells.
cells undergo abnormal changes in the body. The most common thing is that these cells will become cancer cells, which will scatter to various organs in the human body. You must know that different cells in animals cannot be replaced. The lack of any organ is devastating for animals.
The possibility of human mutation is extremely small, so small that it is almost impossible. The changes in cellularity brought by nuclear radiation will cause the same functional changes in a large number of cells, but the changes in are different and cannot develop and mutate in the direction expected by humans. It is more likely that resists each other and excludes , rather than cooperates with each other to resist the nuclear radiation environment.
The impact of radiation on organisms is that gene mutations, which then produce malformations or other problems, but the evolution of nature itself is gene mutations and then natural selection. The mutation becomes better, and the mutant gene will continue and expand, and radiation will only accelerate the mutation process.
The reason why humans are afraid is that it will cause large-scale human deaths, but nature itself is to screen for organisms that are more suitable for survival on the earth in the process of continuous death.
And for human mutation, another very important point is that humans cannot bear and control the sacrifice of this mutation experiment.
Researchers have been studying mutant black frogs for more than 6 years. The genetic organization of human beings is more complex. It is conceivable that the amount of human labor loss and sacrifice is so great that it is hard for any of us to assume this responsibility and be prepared for a long battle.
According to the evolution time of the Black Frog for more than ten generations, the average life span of humans is about 70, and it started in more than 700 years. In terms of time, it is also a huge cost. All we can do now is to better learn from mutant species, minimize nuclear leakage and the outbreak of nuclear war , and respond to changes in the same way.
Humans can mutate and humans can evolve. This process of natural change is long and predictable. However, under the current circumstances, it is not yet certain whether humans can adapt to the environment of nuclear radiation, and there is no positive answer. At least, it takes a long time of experimentation to have a more definite answer, so we must have more awe of life and the earth!
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