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- noun A still-born infant resulting from radiation poisoning
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patra commented on the word jellyfish baby
Refers to children born with a host of physical deformities; originates on Micronesian atolls affected by the Bikini atomic testings.
March 19, 2008
bilby commented on the word jellyfish baby
"The tit-for-tat nuclear escalation of the Cold War had begun. The US conducted a catastrophic H-bomb test at Bikini Atoll, which yielded twice the expected destructive power, producing a fireball three miles high. A cloud of radioactive fallout contaminated 11,265 square kilometres. Marshall Islanders fell ill with radiation sickness, their homes rendered permanently uninhabitable. Over time, many suffered horrific after-effects. In 1996, Lijon Eknilang from Rongelap Atoll told the International Court of Justice how she and other Marshallese women had given birth to ‘monster babies’: ‘One woman on Likiep gave birth to a child with two heads. There is a young girl on Ailuk today with no knees, three toes on each foot and a missing arm. Her mother had not been born by 1954, but she was raised on a contaminated atoll. The most common birth defects have been jellyfish babies, born with no bones in their bodies and with transparent skin. We can see their brains and hearts beating. The babies usually live for a day or two before they stop breathing.’"
- 'Everything Has Changed: A brief history of nuclear weapons', New Internationalist, June 2008.
December 8, 2008