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Radioactive Narwhals

Intro

This is a fictional story supporting this article.

Story

A ship has sunk in the middle of the ocean with radioactive waste cargo. The cargo kept leaking for a couple of years in an area visited frequently by a Narwhals population. Through quick evolution, the Narwhals have been able to create an odd ability to trigger an agglomeration of sea algae that grow into a ball and sink into the sea bed. They look like cabbages and humans have found them to be edible. Another twist of turns is that these Narwhals grow an extra tusk that naturally falls into the sea.

The interest in these two items grew as humans realized their economic value. These sea cabbages are edible and are not radioactive and the tusks naturally fall out and are not used by nature in any other way than for decomposition and provide shelter to bacteria and small organisms. At the same time these are elements in nature that have been created by fast evolution.

To avoid disturbances of sea life sensors have been placed where these Narwhals tend to stay during the day and leave in the night. At night, the robot SCAVENGER-1000 will swipe the sea bed and fetch the dropped tusks and the sea cabbages. The SCAVENGER-1000 is programmed to be very delicate and not disturb any of the other marine life.

Scientists have been able to identify these characteristics about Narwhals:

  • A day around the algae is 8 hours long
  • An average radioactive narwhal (RNarwhal) year is 1000 days
  • An average RNarwhal lives for 20 Narwhal years
  • Narwhals have predators but the radioactive ones are able to avoid them and never suffer a predator attack
  • The offspring of RNarwhals triggers cabbage production after day 20 of their lives
  • Not all RNarwhals can produce offspring.
  • Females usually produce an offspring of 10 RNarwhals
  • All other Narwhals produce on average an offspring of 1 RNarwhal via a Parthenogenesis process
  • Offspring is rare and only happens once every 5 years. A generation is expected every 5 years
  • Parthenogenesis is ever rarer and only happens once in the whole lifetime of non-female RNarwhals.