Chernobyl plant life endures radioactivity
The way Pripyat's ecosystem seemed to shrug off the contamination caught the attention of the scientific world and in 2005, the UN even
gf published a report about the phenomenon.
Then, in 2007, a group of researchers wearing masks, goggles and gloves decided to investigate just how the plants were able to survive.Then they sowed the same kind of seeds on a control field in the decontaminated region near the city of Chernobyl.
One of the researchers, Martin Hajduch from the Slovak Academy of Sciences, told BBC News that even though previous studies had analysed how genes mutated because of radioactivity, his team wanted to do something different.
They wanted to investigate the molecular mechanisms allowing plants to adapt to such a contaminated environment.To do that, they waited for the plants to grow and produce new seeds and then examined their proteins.
"We decided to apply a... methodology called 'proteomics' that is capable of identifying hundreds of proteins," said Dr Hajduch.He explained that proteomics was a study of proteins - vital parts of all living organisms. The word "proteome" is actually a blend of "protein" and "genome" and describes the entire complement of proteins produced by an organism's genes.
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