On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear disaster since World War II decimated Chernobyl in the Soviet Union. Nearly 40 years later, a lot has changed. Chernobyl, for one, is now within the borders of Ukraine, and the destroyed reactor is now capped by a massive dome, known as New Safe Confinement.

Feral dogs living near Chernobyl differ genetically from their ancestors who survived the 1986 nuclear plant disaster—but these variations do not appear to stem from radioactivity-induced mutations. The new findings are helping experts contextualize how such ecological catastrophes influence the environment around them,

Radiation-induced mutation is unlikely to have induced genetic differences between dog populations in Chernobyl City and the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), according to a new study in PLOS ONE from North Carolina State University and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.