Don’t Freak Out Over the Funky Flowers That Appeared Near Fukushima

[A Turtle Named Mack]

A picture of four daisies posted by Twitter user @san_kaido is getting a lot of attention. Three of the flowers in the photo do not look normal. The typically round yellow centers bend and curve like pairs of lips pursed in displeasure. These mutants apparently grew in Nasushiobara, a city bordering Fukushima Prefecture, the region where reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melted down after the earthquake in 2011. Since other plants and animals have show[n] the effects of radiation — bird populations near the closed power plant have shown mutations and population declines — many people jumped to the conclusion that these mutated flowers were evidence of frightening radiation levels.

http://m.snopes.com/nuclear-mutant-daisies

[ganzfeld]

A writer for The Weather Channel reports that the described radiation dose [0.5 μSv/h], measured in microsieverts per hour, is classified as safe for "medium to long term habitation."

I should hope so since its well below the background radiation of many cities around the world.