Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:Since several of its reactors exploded, water that has seeped into the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant merged with radioactive sludge and became highly irradiated. Because these bacteria also cause corrosion, they can provide valuable information about how to safely decommission nuclear reactors. Following the 2011 tsunami that caused massive meltdowns in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Japan shut down all of its nuclear operations. Recently, however, Japan restarted one of Fukushima’s surviving reactors—but that reactor was not the only thing to survive the disaster. During the time that the Fukushima plant was abandoned, water seeped into radioactive waste that remained within the reactor buildings.