It was enough to make anyone who has ever eaten seafood,
especially tuna, feel a small flop in their stomach over
Memorial Day weekend, when a new study from the National
Academies of Science showed that radioactive tuna was showing up
off the coast of California. The levels of radioactive cesium
and potassium were elevated, and the source was unmistakable.
Even back-of-the-envelope calculations could prove that the
behemoth bluefin tuna species had come from Japanese waters
after the catastrophic nuclear meltdown at Fukushima last year.
There were a lot of reasons to be instantly concerned. Radiation
poisoning went through the media panic machine last year after
the meltdown, and now it was back. And not just in our air or
leeching into our ocean, but potentially showing up on our
plate. Yet despite the breathless hand-wringing, it turns out
our food is safe. “People become terribly anxious about this
subject, sometimes needlessly so,” says Nicholas Fisher, the
Stony Brook University researcher behind the st