COCONUT CRAB. Measuring the radioactivity of the shell of a coconut crab caught on Bikini Island.
GEESE. Banding wild geese to study environmental effects of radionuclides on wildlife and possible entry of radionuclides into the human food chain.
PLANKTON. An ingenious plankton trap is placed in a river as part of a long-range study of radionuclide uptake by aquatic organisms.
SKATE. A clear-nosed skate being monitored by fisheries personnel to gather data on accumulation of radionuclides in its blood and tissues.
Wasps and Radioactive Mud
At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, it was discovered in 1964 that two kinds of mud-dauber wasps were building their mud nests in equipment, cabinets, and electronic gear in the vicinity of a field station on the Oak Ridge reservation.
Some nests, investigation disclosed, were built of radioactive mud. It seemed obvious that the wasps were obtaining mud from radioactive waste pits or from the White Oak Lake bed, which is the site of a former 40-acre lake used for 12 years as a detention pool for radioactive wastes.[18]