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BBC News – Since the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Russia 15 years ago, nearby Norway has been monitoring its plants, animals and people for radiation on a regular basis. One animal species still showing signs of radiation poisoning is Norway?s reindeer population. There are about 20,000 reindeer in Norway and their radiation levels are checked annually, since Norwegians like to eat reindeer meat. Only about a 10th of the deer pass the safety tests.

It turns out that this is because reindeer love mushrooms, and mushrooms accumulate cesium, a dangerous element that was released in large amounts during the Chernobyl explosion and is still present in the soil.
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Now it’s the Aussies. On October 13, 2000, a bizarre display of upper atmosphere pyrotechnics mystified the midwestern U.S. On Tuesday, December 26, a similar event took place over Queensland in Australia. As in the U.S., police were swamped with calls about the strange lights and booming noises in the sky.

There were reports of “explosions in the sky, sonic boom-type noises and flare-type lights.” In the U.S. on October 13, witnesses described the phenomenon in various ways, primarily as a large white light surrounded by five smaller balls of light or as a flaring body breaking up and moving slowly across the sky.
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Science News – After a stroke, a 25 year old Englishman now has an odd symptom: he can no longer feel disgust. The specific areas in his brain that were damaged are the ones that process feelings of disgust when looking at certain images, such as an overflowing toilet or a smelly dead body.
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Japan’s Health and Welfare Ministry said Wednesday, Dec. 27 that it had confirmed that U.S.-grown genetically modified corn banned for consumption in Japan and elsewhere had been mixed with corn used for brewing beer and making processed foods. Of a batch of about 38,000 tons of corn imported from the United States, about 28,000 might have been blended with the StarLink variety, according to the ministry.

Such incidents are expected to place continued pressure on American food exports in general, and corn in particular. There is presently no effective way to prevent StarLink corn from entering the food chain almost at random, due to the lack of any effective methods of tracking the product.
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