Protecting crops from radiation-contaminated soil

Almost four years after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, farmland remains contaminated with higher-than-natural levels of radiocesium in some regions of Japan, with cesium-134 and cesium-137 being the most troublesome because of the slow rate at which they decay. In a study published in Scientific Reports, a group at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan led by Ryoung Shin has identified a chemical compound that prevents plants from taking up cesium, thus protecting them—and us—from its harmful effects.

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