Plant Survival

Watch the video trailer from this popular recent TV miniseries. What do you know about the
historical events which this story is based on?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3D8twcaJJ0&feature=emb_logo

Reading for the main idea

Read only the introduction to the article (first three paragraphs), which poses the question,
"So why is plant life so resilient to radiation?" (resilient = able to return to good condition
after a negative event)

The article will answer this question. Before you read the rest of the article, look at the
sentences below and predict which two are true.

a. Some plants are able to "go to sleep" during dangerous times and wake up later when the
danger has passed.
b. When plants are damaged by radiation, they can make new cells more easily than animals
can.
c. Scientists have discovered that only living things which can move around are affected by
radiation.
d. Plants make their own food from sunlight, so they were not part of a radioactive food
chain.
e. Plants have experienced high levels of radiation in previous periods of Earth’s history and
have adaptations to help them survive.
f. There were already so many plants in the area that it didn’t matter if some of them died.

Now read the rest of the article quickly (skim) to see if your ideas were correct.
Why plants don’t die from specialised and inflexible. Think of animal
biology as a machine in which each cell
cancer and organ has a place and purpose, and all
Adapted from TheConversation.com
parts must work and cooperate for the
1 INTRODUCTION
individual to survive. A human cannot
Chernobyl has become a synonym for
manage without a brain, heart or lungs.
catastrophe. The 1986 nuclear disaster,
7 Plants, however, develop in a much
recently brought back into the public eye
more flexible way. Because they can’t
by the popular TV show of the same name,
move, they have to adapt to the
caused thousands of cancers, turned a
circumstances in which they find
populous area into a ghost city, and
themselves. Rather than having a defined
resulted in the setting up of an exclusion
structure as an animal does, plants make it
zone 2600km2 in size.
up as they go along. Whether they grow
2 But Chernobyl’s exclusion zone isn’t
deeper roots or a taller stem depends on
empty of life. Wolves, boars and bears chemical signals from other parts of the
have returned to the lush forests plant and other plants nearby, as well as
surrounding the old nuclear plant. And
light, temperature, water and nutrient
when it comes to trees, flowers and other
conditions.
plant life, only a small proportion died,
and even in the most radioactive areas of
the zone, it was recovering within three
years.
3 Humans and other mammals and birds
would have been killed many times over
by the radiation that plants in the most
contaminated areas received. So why is
plant life so resilient to radiation?
4 HOW RADIATION AFFECTS CELLS
To answer this question, we need to
understand how radiation from nuclear
reactors affects living cells. Chernobyl’s
radioactive material is "unstable" because Parts of a plant
it is constantly firing out high energy
particles that smash cell structures or 8 Critically, unlike animal cells, almost all
produce chemicals which attack the cells’ plant cells are able to create new cells of
machinery. whatever type the plant needs. This is why
5 Most parts of the cell are replaceable if a gardener can grow new plants from
damaged, but not DNA. At higher cuttings, with roots sprouting from what
radiation doses, DNA becomes garbled was once a stem or leaf.
and cells die quickly. Lower doses can
cause less severe damage in the form of
mutations altering the way that the cell
functions for example, causing it to
become cancerous, multiply
uncontrollably, and spread to other parts
of the body.
6 In animals this is often fatal, because
their cells and systems are highly

The structures inside a plant cell
9 This means that plants can replace dead
cells or tissues much more easily than
animals, whether the damage is due to
being attacked by an animal or to
radiation.
10 And while radiation can cause tumours
in plants, mutated cells are generally not
able to spread from one part of the plant
to another as cancers do, thanks to the
rigid walls surrounding plant cells. Nor are
such tumours fatal in most cases, because
the plant can find ways to work around
the malfunctioning tissue.
11 Interestingly, in addition to this
resilience to radiation, some plants in the
Chernobyl exclusion zone seem to be
using extra mechanisms to protect their
DNA, changing its chemistry to make it
more resistant to damage, and turning on
systems to repair it if this doesn’t work.
DNA, a chemical in living cells which contains
genetic instructions for the reproduction of new
cells.
12 Levels of natural radiation on the
Earth’s surface were much higher in the
distant past when early plants were
evolving, so plants in the exclusion zone
may be using adaptations dating back to
this time in order to survive.
13 A NEW LEASE OF LIFE Life is now
thriving around Chernobyl.
Populations of many plant and animal
species are actually greater than they
were before the disaster.
14 Given the tragic loss and shortening of
human lives associated with Chernobyl,
this resurgence of nature may surprise you.
Radiation does have harmful effects on
plant life, and may shorten the lives of
individual plants and animals. But if
resources are plentiful, then life will
flourish.
15 Crucially, the negative effects of
radiation at Chernobyl are less severe than
the benefits resulting from humans
leaving the area. Now one of Europe’s
largest nature preserves, the ecosystem
supports more life than before, even if
each individual cycle of that life lasts a
little less.
16 In a way, the Chernobyl disaster reveals
the true extent of our environmental
impact on the planet. Harmful as it was,
the nuclear accident was far less
destructive to the local ecosystem than we
were. In driving ourselves away from the
area, we have created space for nature to
return.
Adapted from The Conversation, by Stuart
Thompson, Senior Lecturer in Plant Biochemistry,
University of Westminster
Vocabulary
Find the words in bold in the text which have these meanings.
Catastrophe
places where nuclear energy is
made (nouns):
nuclear .........
nuclear .........
synonyms for catastrophe
(nouns):
nuclear .........
nuclear .........
what was released at
Chernobyl:
............... (noun)
............... (adjective)
a place people can’t visit
without permission (compound
noun):
...............
dangerous or dirty (adjective):
...............
Health
serious diseases that people or
animals in Chernobyl may
suffer from:
............... (plural
noun) ............... (adjective)
changes in the DNA of a cell
(plural noun):
...........
what cells do when a person
has this disease (verb +
adverb):
.....................
what grows in someone’s body
when they have this disease
(plural noun):
...................
a synonym for the word above,
when part of the body does not
work correctly (adjective +
noun):
....................
mixed up, in the wrong order
(adjective):
...........
causing death (adjective):
...........
Doing well
very green and growing well,
about plants (adjective):
..........
to grow in a strong and healthy
way (verb):
..........
growing and developing very
successfully (participle):
...........
not affected by something
dangerous (adjective):
...........
able to return to good
condition after a negative
event (adjective)
...........
a new period of activity after a
difficult time (noun):
...........
getting better after an illness or
disaster (verb -ing):
...........
fix something that has been
damaged or broken (verb):
...........

Reading for detail

Answer these questions with information from the text. Use the vocabulary from the last
exercise to explain your ideas but phrase the answers in your own words as much as possible.

1. What are the effects of radiation on living things?

2. Why are plant cells more resilient to radiation than animal cells?
3. How do plants decide what types of cells to produce?
4. Why is it difficult for cancer to spread in plants?
5. What extra ability do plants have, that developed long ago, that’s particularly useful in
Chernobyl?
6. According to the writer, which has been more destructive to the environment at
Chernobyl radiation or other human activity?
Talking point
Discuss any of the questions below.
1. Would you be interested to visit the Chernobyl exclusion zone if you could?
Why/not?
2. In your opinion, is nuclear energy a good option for the future? Why/not?
3. What other ways does your country generate energy? Do these have any
disadvantages of their own?
ANSWERS

1- Warm-up
the serious nuclear accident which took place on 26 April, 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine.

2- Reading for the main idea

ANSWER: B and E are true.

3- Vocabulary
Catastrophe: nuclear plant, nuclear reactors, nuclear accident, nuclear disaster, radiation,
radioactive, exclusion zone, contaminated
Health: cancers, cancerous, mutations, multiply uncontrollably, tumours, malfunctioning
tissue, garbled, fatal
Doing well: lush, flourish, thriving, resistant, resilient, resurgence, recovering, repair

4- Reading for detail

Sample answers:
1. Radiation garbles the DNA of living things, which in turn causes cells to multiply
uncontrollably. The result is tumours or cancers. Often cancers are fatal, especially in
animals.
2. Plant cells are more resilient because they are generalised and develop in a more flexible
way than specialised animal cells.
3. The plant can respond to local conditions (including radiation from a nuclear disaster) to
produce the structures that the plant needs to be successful where it is growing.
4. The structure of a plant cell includes strong walls which do not allow any cancerous cells
which may have developed to move into another part of the plant.
5. Plants seem to have an adaptation which makes them resistant to the higher levels of
radiation which were present in the ancient Earth. In addition, these adaptations help plants
to repair damage caused by radiation.
6. The writer’s choice of words with positive connotations, e.g. thriving, resurgence and
flourish, suggests that the natural environment at Chernobyl is doing better since the
accident than it was before. This implies that other human activities were more damaging to
nature than the radioactive contamination has been.

Talking point
If you are curious about visiting Chernobyl (discussion question 1), you may enjoy reading
this article, free online: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/may/28/chernobyl-
wildlife-haven-tour-belarus-creatednuclear-disaster-zone