{"id":104975,"date":"2025-10-28T09:55:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T09:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/104975\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T09:55:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T09:55:14","slug":"blue-dogs-spotted-near-chernobyl-after-possible-chemical-exposure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/104975\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue dogs spotted near Chernobyl after possible chemical exposure"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl power plant near Pripyat exploded, releasing radioactive material into the area as residents evacuated.<\/p>\n

The wild dogs are descended from pets abandoned during the nuclear disaster, the Daily Mail reports.<\/p>\n

They have been living and breeding in the CEZ for generations, where they are constantly exposed to six times the radiation humans can withstand.<\/p>\n

A 2023 study of the animals\u2019 genetic makeup found there are genetic differences between dogs in the CEZ and dogs in wider Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Norman J. Kleiman is an environmental health scientist at Columbia University and co-author of the academic project, which genetically analysed 116 dogs in the region.<\/p>\n

His research found the feral animals had genetically developed over generations to withstand the toxicity of their environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomehow, two small populations of dogs managed to survive in that highly toxic environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The research identified 52 genes that \u201ccould be associated with exposure to the contamination of the environment at the Nuclear Power Plant\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kleiman has suggested the research might provide insight into the health impacts of chronic radiation exposure, developing understandings of how to best \u201cmitigate health risks\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl power plant near Pripyat exploded, releasing radioactive material into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,1558,15497,75976,31515,75975,48803,9213,33014,305,42,41184,3180,43,7977,603,17398,7812,1857,9636,40,38,41,39,3461],"class_list":["post-104975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-been","tag-blue","tag-bluetinged","tag-chemical","tag-chernobyl","tag-disaster","tag-dogs","tag-exposure","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-infamous","tag-near","tag-news","tag-northern","tag-nuclear","tag-possible","tag-seen","tag-site","tag-spotted","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}