Wild Monkeys To Monitor Radiation Levels In Japan

How do you do to measure radiation levels in the hard-to-reach forests near Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant? Why, fit wild monkeys with radiation sensors, of course! Researcher Takayuki Takahashi tells CNN that his team plans to fit three monkeys in early 2012 with collars that measure radiation, as well as GPS units that record location and distance from the ground. The researchers plan to leave the monitors in place for about a month, before detaching them via remote control and picking up them up to retrieve their stored data. The information thus gathered will help scientists understand how radiation travels through the environment and the effects it may have on humans and animals. Radiation levels in the area have been monitored from the air by helicopter, but this has yielded an incomplete picture of what's going on at ground level. By fitting sensors on the monkeys—who rove along the ground ...