Nuclear tuna from Japan

Scientists have detected radiation from Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Pacific bluefin tuna caught off California’s coast.

The findings, published in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded evidence was “unequivocal” that samples from the tuna, caught off San Diego a year ago, were contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima meltdown, according to The Associated Press.

However, radiation levels were well below what is considered safe for human consumption, and the migratory tuna caught by sport fisherman were not headed for market. One of the researchers, Daniel J. Madigan of Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, said the discovery came during a broader study of migratory patterns of Pacific fish.

The tuna were found to have traces of two radioactive forms of caesium, which don’t exist in nature but are produced by nuclear explosions.