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The Freak-Show, Chernobyl-Mutant Wolves Might Hold The Key for the Cure of Cancer

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Cara Love, an evolutionary biologist and ecotoxicologist at Princeton University, found that the wolves in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) have altered immune systems "similar to cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment," according to the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.

In 2014, Love and her colleagues put collars equipped with radiation dosimeters on wolves in the area and took blood samples to understand the animals' responses to being exposed to upwards of 11.28 millirem of radiation per day – six times the legal safety limit of radiation for humans.

The research could help to identify protective mutations that can increase the odds of surviving cancer.

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It's fuckin wild how some of the world's worst events create all kinds of medical marvels. After I saw the source article, I was interested in what else was impacted by Chernobyl. It turns out it's a ton. 

1. The Chernobyl disaster provided valuable data on the health impacts (couldn't remember the correct usage of affect vs effect and that's not something I'll ever write out because I don't wanna be embarrassed about my technical-writing skills now that Barstool Tate is on the prowl) of radiation exposure on humans. There's no way there's as much medical advancement without that shit. They could study the poor folks who got locked in the zone for too long but eventually those test subjects sadly die. They saw how it affected the skin and organs of everybody involved right away but they couldn't see the long-term complications. Sad. 

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It also helped developing shit like treatments for radiation sickness and in improving radiation safety for things like  X-ray machines and cancer treatments.

2. Following the Chernobyl accident, there was a huge increase in thyroid cancer cases among those exposed to radioactive iodine released from the reactor. I'm not sure what that means but it sounds very bad. 

3. There's a bunch of other shit too but I got kinda bored and the language in the Mayo Clinic's achieves was a touch too scientific for me. I don't understand a lot of it so I was probably the wrong person to write this blog but I like wolves!

Ever since I watched that show on HBO about Chernobyl, I've been very upset about the animals. Sure, the people are a travesty too but they can get a note about what it's going on. The humans can be given an alert to get the fuck outta the area as quickly as possible. 

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Not the wolves, squirrels, bunnies, manatees, kangaroos, dogs, cats, more bunnies, raccoons, rabbits, and more bunnies. It's fucking awful. 

But, hearing that there might be some good after this nuclear tragedy, lessons the sting of all those lost bunnies. Knowing their lives could result in something good is all you can really hope for in a situation like this.