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| Two soft bugs from Seascale and Drigg near Sellafield, UK |
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Radiation-contaminated areas in Europe |
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Themes
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The nuclear reprocessing plant Sellafield, in England
Sellafield, formerly called Windscale, was built in 1946 as a factory for plutonium;
after World War II the Americans did not want to deliver any more plutonium to
the British Government for nuclear weapons. In 1957 a terrible accident occurred
which contaminated the Cumbria region. A thick book could be filled with all
the incidents that have taken place at Sellafield since.
In 1988 I made my first study of leaf bugs at a nuclear facility on Swiss territory.
At Sellafield I collected Heteroptera and Cicada Homoptera as well as ladybird
beetles, Coleoptera. I found morphological disturbances, growths and deformities
of the chitin, the material that makes up the exoskeleton of many insects. I
found the most profound deformities in Ponsonby,
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Picture:
Soft bugs from Seascale and Drigg, UK
Neck plate deformation and ulcer at base of feeler.
Watercolor, Holmrook 1989 |
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| Two soft bugs from Seascale and Drigg near Sellafield, UK |
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Radiation-contaminated areas in Europe |
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Themes
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