Rebirth and Recovery in the Shadow of Chernobyl
Regular readers of this blog know that I normally focus on cosmic
topics: comets, exoplanets, dark matter, the search for alien life, and
the like. I don’t tangle so much with the everyday challenges of life
here on the ground. I enjoy taking a break from the quotidian. But the
truth is, the two sides are never very far apart. They are both–all–part
of one universe, governed by one set of physical laws. The nuclear
reactions that regulate the afterglow of a supernova explosion are the
exact same ones that established the harsh consequences of the Chernobyl
nuclear accident.
I’m not picking that example at random. I recently had the privilege
of working with two historians (Kate Brown at the University of Maryland
Baltimore County, and her colleague Olha Martynyuk of the National Technical University of Ukraine) on their first-person exploration
of the legacy of the 1986 Chernobyl incident on villagers living in the
outer part of the contaminated zone. They returned from their trip full
of unexpected stories about life in one of the most notoriously
irradiated parts of the world. Their experience got me thinking once
again about the juxtaposition of cosmic and terrestrial issues.
Data: 17.02.2017
Fonte: www.blogs.discovermagazine.com
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento