myeloma. Ongoing contamination It was found in 2021 that radioactive ("hot") particles persist in the soil, after international multidisciplinary team of scientists studied the results produced by a machine at Monash University that could slice open tiny samples using a beam of high-energy ions only a nanometre wide. The analysis of the results suggested that natural processes in the desert environment could bring about the slow release of plutonium over a long period. This plutonium is likely to be absorbed by wildlife at Maralinga. Media coverage According to Liz Tynan from James Cook University, the Maralinga tests were a striking example of what can happen when the popular media are unable to report on activities that a government may be trying to hide. Maralinga was an example of extreme secrecy, but by the late 1970s there was a marked change in how the Australian media covered the British nuclear tests. Some resourceful investigative journalists emerged, whistle-blowers such as Avon Hudson spoke out and political scrutiny became more intense. The investigative journalist Brian Toohey ran a series of stories in the Australian Financial Review in October 1978, based in part on a leaked Cabinet submission. In June 1993, New Scientist journalist Ian Anderson wrote an article entitled "Britain's dirty deeds at Maralinga" and several related articles. They are a detailed analysis of the legacy of Vixen B and the Australian Government's prolonged negotiations with the United Kingdom on cleaning up Maralinga and sharing the cost of "safe-sealing" waste plutonium. In 1993, Anderson won two Michael Daley Awards for his Maralinga articles. Maralinga: Australia's Nuclear Waste Cover-up is a book by Alan Parkinson that was published in 2007. In it he claimed that the clean-up of Maralinga in the late 1990s was compromised by cost-cutting, and simply involved dumping hazardous radioactive debris in shallow holes in the ground. He stated that "what was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution that wouldn't be adopted on white-fellas land." Representations in the arts Art In 1987 Winnie Bamara, who lived near Maralinga, produced a painting for a poster protesting nuclear testing at Maralinga, for the Australian Council for Disarmament and Peace for Maralinga Day, 1987 which was produced by Common Ground Magazine with the support of the people of the Maralinga–Tjarutja community. Her image shows a nuclear bomb exploding on the Maralinga lands as three Indigenous people stand watching, with text that