radiation

[f4lisa]

what damage does a high dose of radiation cause to body cells?

[Klaynos]

That depends on what type of radiation, and how you define "high dose".

 

Answers range from nothing it'll pass streight through, to you're dead...

[quick silver]

look up "radiation posioning". that would be your best bet.

i think that would be for gamma rays.............

[5614]

It will mutate the cells in your body.

 

A small does of some types of radiation (ie. gamma rays) can pass straight through your body. Whilst other types (alpha radiation) will get stopped by your clothes/skin. Beta radiation will pass through your skin and probably stop inside your body.

 

Whatever stops the radiation will become ionised, the ionising power goes like this:

Alpha > Beta > Gamma

ie. alpha radiation is very ionising, it will do more damage to you than beta or gamma.

 

So like Klaynos said, how much is a "high dose"?

 

When a cell is ionised/mutated it will quite likely stop functioning properly. If one cell gets mutated you won't notice, if a few hundred cells get mutated you probably still won't notice, but if loads (guessing at millions?? don't have a clue to be honest) of cells get damaged in a small area, say the heart, then the heart could stop working.

 

Also remember there is harmless background radiation. That is radiation which is just everywhere. Our cells are getting ionised/mutated the whole time and no one notices. If I had a few mutated cells here, and a few there I wouldn't notice the difference, the problem occurs when the radiation is concentrated, so there's a lot in one area. Or obviously if there is just soo much radiation the body can't operate with the amount of malfunctioning cells.

[swansont]

Also remember there is harmless background radiation. That is radiation which is just everywhere. Our cells are getting ionised/mutated the whole time and no one notices. If I had a few mutated cells here, and a few there I wouldn't notice the difference, the problem occurs when the radiation is concentrated, so there's a lot in one area. Or obviously if there is just soo much radiation the body can't operate with the amount of malfunctioning cells.

 

I wouldn't categorize it as "harmless." AFAIK there is no threshold below which radiation is safe; it can always damage cells and they have the potential to become cancerous. Certainly more dose = more damage= more risk, but the damage only goes to zero when the does does.

[5614]

I wouldn't categorize it as "harmless."

Why not? It does no harm to us? Or technically it does, it could totaly destroy a whole cell, but you'd never know about it. Would you classify something which is totaly unnoticeable as harmfull?

 

Background radiation is constantly damaging cells, it's harming the cells, but as one cell is so insignificant in comparison to the whole body the effects are so insignificant you'd have to work hard to observe it, whilst it did harm a cell I'd call it harmless.

 

it can always damage cells

Agreed, hence I said "Our cells are getting ionised/mutated the whole time".

[RyanJ]

Agreed, hence I said "Our cells are getting ionised/mutated the whole time"[/i'].

 

 

Could beone of the main causes of evolution. Given high doses though the damage is to much to replair and the cell dies or in some cases we get an ever replicting cell, a cancer.

 

Funny, a possible cause for random evolution and yet it kills too.

 

If youwant tosee what radiation can do look up Hiroshima... here are some photos that show how nasty it is.

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[swansont]

Why not? It does no harm to us? Or technically it does' date=' it could totaly destroy a whole cell, but you'd never know about it. Would you classify something which is totaly unnoticeable as harmfull?

 

Background radiation is constantly damaging cells, it's harming the cells, but as one cell is so insignificant in comparison to the whole body the effects are so insignificant you'd have to work hard to observe it, whilst it did harm a cell I'd call it harmless.

 

Agreed, hence I said [i']"Our cells are getting ionised/mutated the whole time"[/i].

 

If it turns cancerous, you'll notice. The cell doesn't know whether the damage done to it was caused by background radiation or not.