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Pacific tuna carried radioactivity from Japan to US coast



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There were plenty of reports of higher than usual levels of radiation in fruits, vegetables and milk in California last year but this is something much different. While I wouldn't want to go out of my way to eat California produce for a while, eating a Pacific tuna sounds much less appealing for the time being.

Officials says that despite the radiation level being 10 times the normal level, they're still safe to eat, but for me I would not want to take that risk when there are enough other choices out there. In theory (according to scientists) the tuna shed the dangerous radiation over time though I would still err on the side of caution until the levels have settled.

The ocean food chain in action.

Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan's crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.

"We were frankly kind of startled," said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that's still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the U.S. and Japanese governments.


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