Article in the newspaper: A hearing was scheduled to take place in Brussels on the extension of the life cycle of nuclear power plants, but industry expert Andrew Evans failed to turn up. The meeting was not held in his absence, but was postponed to 30 April 2017. Hopefully, Mr. Evans can be contacted by then. The case of ageing nuclear power plants is causing increasing turmoil in Europe, especially in Ukraine. As many as 12 nuclear reactors in Ukraine, and dozens elsewhere in Europe have reached the end of their design life cycle of 30 years, and many have been functioning for nearly 40 years. Nuclear lobbyists urge their refurbishment from government funds to generate electricity. On the other hand, the opponents of nuclear power claim that the scarce financial resources should be invested in renewable energy sources. Uranium required for the operation of nuclear power plants is not renewable either. If fossil fuels power plants were replaced with nuclear power plants overnight, we would run out of uranium in four years. In the meantime natural scientists have conducted new studies in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Animals that live here may have suffered much more severe genetic damage than it was previously thought. One sign of that is the change in their calls. Some cuckoos, for example, say cu-cu-ckoos, and many birds are unable to reproduce.