Oolite Bulletins

Flowers allegedly mutated by Fukushima radiation. (#mutant #freak #flowers !!!) Real or shooped?

My apology, it's a horrible click-bait site. If anyone has seen these images at a better site, please say:

http://likes.com/g/12143169?v=83kPLHCHd ... pSw&page=1

From Snopes.com:

http://www.snopes.com/nuclear-mutant-daisies/

Mutant Daisies. Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Fasciation
Does this photograph show daisies near the Fukushima nuclear power plant that mutated as the result of radiation? Probably not.

WHAT'S TRUE: A photograph shows a group of mutated daisies in Japan.

WHAT'S FALSE: The flowers in the photograph are proven to have mutated due to radiation from the power plant.

The page shows photos of other daisies from around the world which exhibit the same type of mutation, known as fasciation.

Hey thanks, Disembodied! That Snopes website is useful for these sorts of queries, but I never remember it exists.

The word "mutant" itself is an overstatement. Apparently it is actually a malformation - literally a "monster" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monster), a phenomenon which is the subject of teratology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teratology) . Just like humans born with six toes or conjoined twins.