No sooner has "Grim Jim" Lovelock, no 1 fan of nuclear power and responsible for the Gaia hypothesis, given another interview saying that "wildlife does not care about radiation", and that the Chernobyl disaster killed only a few brave firefighters, than US scientists working in Ukraine for the last 17 years publish data showing that low-level radiation has actually led to a major reduction in bird and insect populations.
Jim, you're a scientist. Don't believe the World Health Organisation statistics. The hospitals of Ukraine and Belarus really are abnormally full of leukaemia victims.
• Eco Soundings is our regular bite-sized blog series. It appears every Wednesday in the Guardian newspaper
