Radioactive Mushrooms

photos by TAKASHI HOMMA text by KENJI TAKAZAWA   The earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011 triggered hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. Six months later, on Sept. 15, the Japanese government banned the shipment of wild mushrooms harvested in 43 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture. (The mushrooms had been contaminated by radioactive fallout from the nuclear plant.) These photographs were taken in Iwaki City, located about 50 kilometers south of the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. Tests of wild mushrooms harvested there revealed that chichitake (tawny milkcap mushroom, Lactarius volemus) contained 6,200 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram; and amitake (Jersey cow mushroom, Suillus bovinus), 810 becquerels per kilogram. The government-designated legal limit is 500 becquerels per kilogram. Why was so much radioactive material detected in those mushrooms? First of all, mushrooms are fungi, and therefore susceptible to radioactive fallout because of…