The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986 released vast amounts of radioactive material over an area of 200,000 km in eastern and central Europe, affecting all living organisms. The biological impacts including the conservation consequences of this event are still poorly known even 25 years after the disaster. Here we assess the effects of this environmental disaster f...

Major nuclear accidents as recently in Fukushima set nuclear power plant security at the top of the public agenda. Using data of the German Socio-Economic Panel we analyze the effects of the Fukushima accident and a subsequent government decision on nuclear power phase-out on several measures of subjective perception in Germany. In the light of current political debates about the strategic orie...

Arctic residents, whose diets comprise a large proportion of traditional terrestrial and freshwater foodstuffs, have received the highest radiation exposures to artificial radionuclides in the Arctic. Doses to members of both the average population and selected indigenous population groups in the Arctic depend on the rates of consumption of locally-derived terrestrial and freshwater foodstuffs,...

Nuclear weapons are carefully designed to have an extremely low probability of exploding accidentally with an appreciable yield—even if they are involved in a high-speed crash, struck by a bullet or consumed in a fire. The principal concern when nuclear warheads are involved in such accidents is the possible dispersal of plutonium into the environment. In particular, an explosion could disperse...

Nuclear reactors have, during the first twenty years of their existence, achieved an impressive safety record, possibly exceeding that of any comparable industry. As revealed in apaper byHenriB. Smets of the European Nuclear Energy Agency, there have been recorded during this period of time but six fatalities and less than 30 persons seriously irradiated from reactor accidents. Three of the fat...

Introduction Conclusions References