The study, which began in 2017 as a freshman spring break assignment, revealed the dire consequences of atomic bomb tests.
According to the study, which was published in Nature Communications, 68 of 122 honey samples taken in all regions from Maine to Florida contain varying amounts of cesium-137.
“While soils in the eastern United States today have a relatively narrow range of radiocaesium, the concentration in honey sourced from this region is nearly three orders of magnitude with much higher levels in the southeast”, – the study said.
Cesium got into honey because of its similarity with potassium. It is well absorbed by plants, and if they lack potassium, they begin to absorb the cesium accumulated in the soil. In this case, cesium-137 or radiocesium is a radioactive nuclide formed mainly during fission of nuclei in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.
In the United States, cesium-137 circulates after nuclear tests that were carried out in Nevada and New Mexico in the middle of the last century.