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In the 1930s, Japanese marine biologists began studying coral reefs at the Palao Tropical Biological Station on the island of Koror in today’s Republic of Palau while the island was occupied and governed by the Japanese Empire. These scientists’ ecological research on the symbiotic relationship between coral polyps and algae later contributed to the American science of ecosystem and radiation ecology, which developed in the irradiated atolls of the Marshall Islands, where the United States infamously conducted nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s. It was also in the 1950s when American and Japanese scientists turned to ‘radioautography’ to visualize the otherwise invisible presence of radiation in these coral reefs. Absorbing radioactive elements released into the marine environment, the bodies of irradiated corals and algae became organic mediums of ‘sensing’ radiation for scientists. This article examines the analogy of ‘self-portrait’ in relation to the radioautographic images made by these irradiated specimens.