Did Chernobyl Create Mutant Animals? 

Thanks for watching Super Nerds! If you like this kind of video, let me know in the comments, and suggest ideas for future deep dives. See you in Footnotes. -- kH

You're telling me I can't go to Chernobyl, get bitten by a spider and develop spider like abilities?? Then what was the point of blowing up the reactor??

Super villain kyle is just covering up his deathclaw breeding grounds..

cockroaches when the bombs fall: shades out bois, its gunna be a bright one

As a stuttering mathematician once said, "Life, uh, finds a way."

Reactor 4 explodes* Animals leave or die* Humans evacuate* Animals :aaaw yeah no more of those weird hairless apes

So Jeremy Wade, the legendary host of River Monsters once journeyed into Chernobyl and was granted special permission to fish inside the exclusion zone. He was in search of a mutated 'Som' catfish that had reportedly ripped someone's arm off or something of the sort (the details elude me). When he finally managed to catch the fish near the canals of Reactor no. 4 itself and handed it off to a scientist studying the effects of radiation on wildlife there, they found that instead of being a super huge aggressive mutant, this fish was under half the size that it should've been with about and I quote Jeremy Wade, '16 times the usual level of radiation' . Goes to show ya that radiation exposure doesn't in fact create Incredible Hulks but rather seriously damages the environment and the creatures living in it. And do I even have to say that I loved the episode anymore? Keep it up!

As long as huge mosquitoes aren't a thing I'm happy

"There is no gaint bettles storming around the red forest," Reality is often dissapointing

The 3 eyed fish escaped the area, and resettled in Springfield!

I Just ordered a cardboard box from Chernobyl, it was the cheapest microwave I could find...

It’s crazy how resilient nature is. It bounces back from wildfires, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, tornadoes, and even radiation fallout. Sure, it may not come back exactly like it was before but it’s been shown time and time again to fight its way back to life and adapt to be more prepared for future disasters.

6:35 Trees were having trouble photosynthesizing so... are those asthmatic trees?

Getting a dose of Radiation: Pop culture: Super powers Reality: Super Dead

You missed one thing. You mention plants and animals but you forgot about fungus. Thanks to the Chernobyl incident we discovered a decade later the existence of Radiotrophic fungi that performs radiosynthesis, which similar to plants using photosyntesis using photons and chlorophyll to convert sunlight into chemical energy, they convert gamma radiation with melanin into chemical energy to grow as well, at least in theory. While the rest of the living beings there survived or adapted to the circumstances these fungi definitely proliferated because a study compared the growing of these fungi with normal non-melanin based ones and discovered that while it takes more resources for the species to create melanin, in places rich with radiation they grow faster. This then lead to the idea to use them to clean radiation waste or even further to be used as a food resource for astronauts because space is filled with radiation. Just a little positive result after a tragedy.

Catfish in the cooling pools were found to have a significant difference in their genes that showed they had rapidly developed a tolerance to radiation, but the sizes didn't change at all. Glad you covered this.

Nappa: "Vegeta what does the scouter say about his power level?" Vegeta: ITS. .. 6:20

You look like if Thor and Captain America had a baby together and it was subsequently raised by Bruce Banner and Tony Stark.

Is it at all possible that the animals surrounding the area may have grown less sensitive to the radiation over time? Like their immune systems have gotten better at selecting and destroying mutated cells

Since several of the animals probably died, at the beginning then the remaining animals must have less genetic diversity. There are a lot of problems that would come from that.

When you go to Chernobyl to get an extra arm like in the movies but you just get a parasitic twin

I just visited Pryp'yat' ghost town this weekend, great timing for this video! There are many stray dogs and we were told not to touch them. We were also told not to touch the vegetation or sit on the ground or have exposed skin. But everything looks normal. We didn't see any red pine trees or weird looking vegetation. One guy in the group didn't care about the rules and stroke the dogs (they are very tame, looking for affection) and touched everything. But after the mandatory scans upon leaving the exclusion zone, he wasn't contaminated, so the dogs were also not contaminated? The geiger counters also didn't show much activity, a part from the occasional objects but nothing life threatening for the small amount of time staying there. Anyway when you go there, you can't deny that nature has completely taken over the town, and many locals will confirm that wildlife is growing. It's really fascinating, although since the HBO series, many "stupid" tourists are going there, who have no interest in the science, and most of the tour guides don't seem to care either.

So you are telling me there no Ghouls, Yao Guais or Deathclaws around Chernobyl?...Bummer

"Ah yes a safety test. What could go wrong 00.00.....0.60 OH NO IT ALL WENT WRONG"

In before Godzilla pops up from Chernobyl and travels to the rest of Europe

This bird egg has been hit with radiation it will evolve into A slightly different bird once it hatch most disappointing Pokémon ever

Hey Kyle, love the show! But it's been 2 videos now, with this one specifically talking about the wildlife (in the previous you had only mentioned it) and no mention of the fungi? While we are talking about wildlife in Chernobyl, what about the Radiotrophic Fungi that was discovered around the powerplant? Species of Fungus found around Chernobyl (Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Wangiella dermatitidis, and Cryptococcus neoformans) were discovered to use an Melanin pigment on their cells to convert Gamma radiation into chemical energy much like plants use Chlorophyll, converting what would be lethal radiation for most forms of life into an energy source for celular growth. An extreme example of nature finding a way to adapt to adversity. Why no love for the fungi Kyle?

3:23 what about reptiles, just so I know if Godzilla is possible.

In summary: When humans wipe themselves out, Mother Nature will just roll her eyes, shake her head and carry on.

So what you are saying is that the "Red Dead" forest was redeemed and started over, a kind of red dead redemption so to say... Majestic TASTY Beast

Kyle Hill - master of writing backwards

4:00 this was actually a very nice analogy

I've heard that the Chernobyl catfish are larger than average ones, but only like 2 or 3 times larger, and only because they have no predators eating them. They keep growing as long as they live, or until they're as big as their waters (or fish tanks) will fit.

*Fukushima happens* Mother Nature: "Ah shit, here we go again"

What about the beetles that were physically symmetric, but had different and asymmetric color patterns? Das pretty cool...

Been waiting for a video on this.

Brother I just discovered you and I’m so happy. Your style is Fresh and I love your passion I can feel it. You just earned a life long sub.

Top Gear: Let's drive through Chernobyl with two cars on low petrol...

There are several mutant fungi living in the reactor core that appear to 'photosynthesize' with gamma radiation, via a melanin-based electron-excitation mechanism. Their nuclei also somehow have become resistant to radiation levels 10,000 times the lethal level for humans. Studying the DNA protection mechanisms they've developed could help us drastically slow cellular damage from carcinogen and radiation exposure, as well as perhaps boosting cellular repair.

6:19 *casually drops an "OVER 9000" lol*

Kyle, kudos on everything you post, my friend. I love to watch your videos when I have free time, both to be entertained and to learn about things I never asked to learn, yet enjoy. You just have this way that sucks people into your videos. I absolutely love to watch these and just veg out to the nerdly goodness. Also, ya look like a very wise thor :)

Could you do an episode on Mt. St. Helens wildlife? After the explosion.

as a rule of thumb, accelerated mutagenesis isnt bad for life as a whole, but of course potentially catastrophic for any individual life form. which means that, at the very least, you could resonably expect the chernobyl incident to bring forth a much larger variety in phenotypes of species than in other comparable environments. but the total number of higher organisms may well be down for many generations as not all of these phenotypes will be fit to survive and thrive. the thing about the beneficial effects of removing the stress of humans from an ecosystem is definitely unquestionable.

10:59 What? This marker text is really in front of him, so that it produces a shadow on the paper? I always thought it's only CGI/VFX.

I was thinking about life and humanity and all that deep shit recently and I touched on something interesting that you reminded me of. I think something that firmly and decisively sets humanity apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, what clearly shows our sentience, is our ability to realize that we're an invasive species and feel remorse for that fact. Sure, that might not be the only thing that sets us apart, but it's certainly one of the most striking, I think.

Kyle: “That would be pretty rad” Me: hahaha yeah man, oh wait that science joke 😯

When can we have a defined scale of radion? Curries, rads, greys , sieverts, chanskies. will someone just pick a lane, I am tired of re-re-re- calculating my perceived scale of death.

I think there will be some mutations in higher lifeforms, however it's gonna be limited by how many young will just not get born or not be viable. Insects produce hundreds upon thousands of young, compared to a mammal or birds less than 10 a year. so you will find more in insects. Plus higher life will fail much easier when grown in a womb if it is mutated.

Loved the video. One related topic I'm familiar with that didn't get mentioned here or (as far as I could see) in the comments was the reports of multi-legged frogs (particularly in the mid to late 1990s), which were being popularly attributed to radioactive mutations (among other suggested causes). It turns out that they were _actually_ being caused by a parasitic infection (namely, by flatworms of the _Ribeiroia_ genus), which were causing those mutations in the tadpoles to make them easier targets for predators.

No animal X-Men or Godzilla? Lame.

Some of the catfish living in the cooling ponds have had significant mutations. Jeremy Wade is shown a picture of one in one of his episodes of Rivermonsters.

Wow gotta love how he puts this

The insects look really insane up there lol, mainly discoloration, none the less, looks interesting! Great work

I remember having seen something about flatworms being found near chernobyl that were significantly larger than normal, but that was the only wildlife mutation that I had heard of. But yeah, pop-culture thinks that radiation = mutation. And to a certain extent it kinda does, yes, BUT in general those mutations are random, rarely in the gonadatropic cells, (sex cells, like sperm and ova) and ergo rarely passed on to children. And those that ARE passed to children rarely allow those children to be viable! and so those children just don't grow up. Nature is incredibly resilient in this. So the idea of glowing birds, or two-headed deer is highly unlikely. Note: highly unlikely does NOT equal impossible. Those kinds of mutations CAN happen, it's just so unlikely that it boggles the mind. I mean we've actually MADE glowing cats in a lab in Japan, by splicing specific genes into them. But the chance that the same kind of genes would magically appear in something that was affected by radiation from a nuclear disaster? About the same chance of a monkey, sitting at a typewriter, writing out War & Peace by randomly hitting the keyboard. That's the "beauty" of the way life has managed to survive over these billions of years. That something happens that causes a selective pressure on a population. MOST of that population won't necessarily do so well, as they aren't perfectly adapted to the current paradigm. Those that survive, whether by luck or skill, manage to pass on those genes to their offspring, and without as much competition, they have every resource at their disposal to propagate profusely. That's the "selection" part of natural selection at work. The second half of that is the natural mutation chance, whether through bacterial or viral injection, background radiation, solar effects, cosmic rays from nearby super-novae, or just random quantuum fluctuations, is the random genetic damage that happens naturally over time. This damage IS the one thing that has allowed life to evolve. This damage on a per-individual basis is often HORRIBLE and debilitating, and most often fatal. In those rare circumstances when it's NOT fatal, it's rarely useful, and even more rarely capable of being passed on to their offspring. But that's the crux of the matter when it comes to mutation. Time. Rarity. These things mean almost NOTHING in the face of the numbers we are dealing with. Because if there are a million deer in a herd (in Northern Canada Caribou heard number in the several millions, so not unrealistic) and 1% of those deer are mutated. And 1% of those that are mutated survive. and 1% of those that survive can pass that mutation on... That means every single generation, there is one new mutation passed on. Maybe it could change the colour of their coats to a slightly different shade of brown. Maybe it seems to do nothing, but accidentally provides a resistance to some virus or bacteria that prey upon their population, or maybe it does nothing at all. But if there's a new mutant born every generation, the SECOND that one of those random mutations DOES make a difference through some kind of external selective pressure... BOOM that gene becomes the norm, instead of the mutant. So why does life seem not to have been effected the way pop culture thinks it does? Well over time, all these mutations have made the various species we deal with very well adapted for the role they play, and so it takes an extraordinary event to cause any large change to a species that overcomes the natural pressures of their environment. In short, why no two-headed deer? Because Science!

Hi Kyle, great episode as always! I remember I saw a documentary (sorry I couldn't find it again, I'm a bit lazy, but I think it was on Arte) explaining that: 1) Some of the plants like birches for example, didn't suffer much of the radiation because their DNA is much simpler than ours and thus, can't be damaged as easily by the energetic particles released. 2) The mammals living here are separated in "two groups", the large ones, who learned the places to avoid and the little ones (like mouses and rats) because they have a smaller life cycle, reproduce quickly and are naturally adaptable are developing a resistance to radiation by augmenting their immune system, especially the process that allows to repair its DNA 3) Each year their are tons of migratory birds who die because they find the place attractive but don't know where it's safe and where it's not and as each year the population who come dies they can't give the information to the rest of the specie so it creates a circle and it happens over and over again. I hope that this will prove to be true and help to understand why in conjunction with human absence things go well for wild life despite the radiation. Keep up the good work, it's good to have people who share science in this kind of way on the internet!

I thoroughly enjoy watching these. Answers alot of what ifs

I wish other RU-vidrs had your integrity. So many click-bait losers out there, and/or people who don't do enough diligent research before posting a video. You explain things to a great extent, and then you follow that up with caveats and contrasting statements. Fantastic job.

Please bring back the "Surprise Lightsaber!" moments!

"After these radioactive particles settled as a kind of deadly dust they irradiated including infrastructure, the land, the water, people's clothes and hair, plants, animals..." And my sweet baby thyroid, Kyle.

To hell with the content (just kidd’in) I watch for Kyle ‼️. Wholly molecular that guy’s *GORGEOUS*. SUBSCRIBED 😆

Yep, no deathclaws and giant roaches, just short people with ability to control gravity, dogs that can make you to hallucinate more of them, and giant gravity balls that can tear you apart.

Like the fact that "let's get technical" is catching on.

No question - just wanted to get in early while you're reading comments to thank you for your fantastic channel, Kyle. You're a great science communicator and I recommend your videos to my students (I'm a UK-based educator) 👍

: Let's make a test to see what happens if something goes wrong. !!!!BOOM!!!!! : Oh, THAT's what happens.

Really glad he covered that River Monsters episode myth.

And thus Pokemon were born! Man, if that was true, I'd sabotage all nuclear powerplants and become the very best!

"That would be pretty rad..."

What I want to be talked about in relation to nature vs radiation is the fungi. Apparently there's some pretty funky mushrooms growing around the elephants foot. You know, the hunk of molten core that we humans can't spend more than 2 minutes around. And they're growing. Evolving and turning into something that can survive, and maybe even thrive, in highly radioactive conditions. The extreme example aside, what about the fungi in the exclusion zone? It it mutating too? Mushrooms are highly diverse and incredibly resilient and adaptable, and have been used in several things from drugs to fertilizer. What could be made out of radiation mushrooms?

Loved this episode

12:39 When Kyle goes from God of Thunder to Princess of Thunder.

Thank you for covering topics like this in the same way you do other topics--non-biased and just reporting what the research shows. As a nuclear engineer with a massive interest in radiobiology, everything I've seen points to nature being pretty resilient, and radiation generally being far less bad for life than we often think. To get it to be dangerous, you need extraordinary situations (like 12 gray/day--that's pretty extraordinary).

One thing to remember about the recovery rate for the ecosystem is that EXTENSIVE efforts were made for cleanup especially ones to preserve water systems. This story would probably be incredibly different if the landscape had been left untouched, the red forest in place and the groundwater and rivers to be contaminated. Another interesting thing is he talked about the decimated insect populations but not about the fact that mycelium was and continues to be almost entirely absent in the exclusion zone. The decay cycle is severely slowed and hampered by the lack of fungi and molds, leaf litter that fell years ago is still mostly intact today. This will have a knock-effect as nutrients are drawn out of the soil but not replaced by decay.

The fact that there are any animals still alive inside the zone is amazing to me!

"That would be rad!" 😂 I hope that was on purpose.

Kyle, I must say, as much as I enjoy your analyses of sci-fi universes, hearing you talk about stuff in real life like this is also fantastic. Please do more videos like this in the future

Great exposition. ^_^

Love your videos man! Amazing quality and impact.

I've heard it's similar the the DMZ where animals can get away from people

Loved the episode! But especially loved the breakdown on why you were inconclusive. Not enough communicators will detail why they are unsure, they just say more sciencing needs to happen for a conclusion to be definite.

Wait, I can’t support with a url because it has been years, but I recall a group of scientists that were monitoring wildlife that birds were found with changes in their beaks - mostly shorter beaks. And that deer encountered discoloration which made them easier to spot in the woods. There was also a full segment about changes to the wolves and wild dogs in that area, but again was many years ago so I do not recall exactly what happened. But I do remember their study saying wildlife was flocking to the exclusion zone because of the decreased human activity.

Pretty cool videos subscribed

Humans; More deadly than a literal death cloud.

The reason we haven't found mutated animals is because they've been shipped to Area 51 immediately, thus, the storming of it must happen.

Thank you so much Kyle for this optimistic piece about nuclear power. I just wanted to add more about the positive effects. In the worst case scenarios of a massive earthquake and tidal wave with Fukushima no one died of radiation poisoning. But rather from the overreaction of the government not allowing people to return to their homes. A lot of people could have returned to their homes with very few mitigating factors. With Chernobyl, the RBMK reactors primary design was to create plutonium for nuclear weapons. Electricity was just a byproduct. The accident occurred because of the reckless ambitions of the lead engineer on duty. The deaths were created by the Soviet government not being upfront about the disaster. Just hundreds of feet away was reactor number three and then reactor number two and one. They kept running for about another 15 years. In both these scenarios today there is tourism including people that are walking right up to the reactor for a limited amount of time. Everyone knows that the news sells fear and anger. The news is part of the problem with keeping this truly green energy source from being deployed. There are forces that want to make nuclear power so expensive it can never be bilt. Principle among them are oil companies. The deaths and expense of global warming with its extreme weather is obvious and plays out everyday. I'm excited about generation 4 reactors. They're about six different designs and they have about six different characteristics. Some of the best characteristics are -They're considered walk away safe. -They burn more nuclear waste than they create. -The waste is considered hazardous for far less time. -They're non-proliferation so they can't be used for nuclear weapons. - The designs are small and can be as common as a hospital. They take up the footprint of about a Walmart. A truly local power grid to accompany wind and solar. This is truly the future that's going to power our electric cars and trucks. Some of the byproducts of nuclear power is creating hydrogen. This could power our airplanes, trains and ships. I look forward to clean skies without smog or inversion layers. I would much rather live next door to a nuclear power plant then a power plant admitting CO2 gas in other poisons and toxins.

One of my favorite channels on you tube if all time !!!!

great to see someone literally saying "we dont know enough" too many influencers and media are pushing their own agendas and doing assumptions about things they dont know.

Kyle is trying to get us to let our guard down for when he unleashes a radioactive weapon on us. All part of his villainous plan. I'm on to you Kyle!

Nice dnd reference with the tarrasque.

"Were you killed?" Nature: Sadly, yes... But I lived!

Could you do a video on how strong Saitama would need to be to hold his breath in space. Also his season 2 feats? Including his speed when he fought speed o sound sonic

Animals are flourishing in an area where humans have been removed. In other news: the sky is blue.

10:50 be sure to not tell PETA that.

If you watch shiey's trip into pripyat, the micro sieverts levels are at roughly 0.30 to 0.60 which doesn't pose any health issues unless you're exposed to it for months on end, there are some people who live in the outskirts of the zone as well

Hey Kyle, Would a sonic shower like in Star Trek be possible?

Hey Kyle, Great episode! It's nice to see a video talking about how we don't always agree on something, and we should not just jump to conclusions when there is little concensus! Keep it up👍👍

Cool style!

First I left a subscription! I can also say something about the topic, I'm from Germany and that's still affecting us there! After the fallout, which mainly took place in Bavaria and Baden-Würtenberg, there is a station where shot game and mushrooms are examined. There every game is examined, there are still very strongly radioactive wild boars in the regions!

this was probably your best opening. Great intro, awesome episode.

Keep doing the Chernobyl videos I really like the thought of humans just leaving a environment is better for it and I like what radiation actually does

Can you do one about studies around Fukushima incident?