I have chosen option number two, ionizing radiation effects on cells and tissues this week, since radioactivity and its effect on people has always been a topic of immense interest to me and also since I have some experience at specialized schools working around live radioactive sources and within a mildly irradiated area since training for response to a radiological incident is greatly enhanced when the monitors truly get readings.
The tissues and cells of the body are defined in both structure and composition. Ionizing radiation contains sufficient energy to break chemical bonds and as an example normal ionization has at least six times the energy required to break the bond of two carbon atoms (How does radiation affect humans?, n.d., Para 2). As chemical bonds are broken by this radiation, the structure and composition of the cell may be compromised. Effects may include broken or altered DNA chains which then contain compromised instructions for the cells. I consider this comparable to a corrupt file on the operating system of a computer where a majority of the needed files are correct, but the alteration is large enough that the computer cannot function properly.
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Outright cell death occurs at a dosage of approximately 100 gray (1 gray = 1joule/kilogram energy absorption) whereas reproductive death can occur at approximately 2 gray (How does radiation affect humans?, n.d., Para 5). If sufficient quantities of key cells are directly killed by the ionization, the victim will die. Reproductive death in certain cells, such as blood and intestinal tract lining is also fatal (How does radiation affect humans?, n.d., Para 5). A whole body exposure to 100 gray is lethal within 48 hours while a 2.5-5 gray exposure proves lethal within a few weeks (How does radiation affect humans?, n.d., Para
Children are more susceptible to changes in their cells if given adult doses of radiation. Primary risks to
Uranium can be used to produce nuclear energy, it's renewable, and it means less pollution which in turn helps the environment.
There are two reactions that happen in the human body when ionizing radiation within the diagnostic range (30-150 kilovolt peak) is
Beginning with the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979, a widespread belief has proliferated that all levels of ionizing radiation are dangerous. Since 1980, radiation hormesis studies have shown there is actually a threshold of danger with high level exposures, but below that threshold low dose radiation is essentially safe and quite possibly beneficial to life. Yet, this relatively new, seemingly contradictory understanding of radiation's health effects has gone essentially unknown to the general public. In order to grasp the reasons why, we must again return to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
According to Ecker and Bramesco, the majority of the understanding of the effects of radiation comes from the research from the atomic bombings of the town of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (107). There is a greater effect when a dose of radiation is given all at once rather than over an extended period of time (105), However, as soon as radiation hits an individual there are some immediate effects and more long term effects. Some long issues that has come up due to the radiation of the atomic bomb were the more frequent cases of leukemia, cancer, and cataracts than people who weren’t affected from radiation (Ecker and Bramseco 107). Also, mutations can be a long term effect. Naturally, mutations occur at a low rate. Radiation can increase the number of mutation cases because it is a mutagen (Nasr and Hoyle). Some short term effects would be radiation sickness called acute somatic effects. Acute means severe and somatic means ‘related to the body’. The first signs of radiation sickness are nausea, throwing-up, and fever and
Medalia (2011) concludes that ionizing radiation, in other words radiation separate from harmless radio waves and light, has the ability to knock electrons out of atoms, causing a condition that produces an electrically charged atom that can damage human cells. Only a very small amount is needed to produce biological change. Symptoms include cancer, genetic mutations, sickness, vomiting, diarrhea, hemorrhaging, and at high doses, death within hours (Medalia 2011).
Secondary radiation is developed from any matter being hit by primary radiation. Secondary x-rays have less penetrating energy than primary radiation. Acute (short term) effects of radiation result from high doses of whole body radiation, 100 rads and above. Clinically, a person may experience a mild and transient illness to death. It may occur minutes, hours, or weeks after the exposure. The median lethal whole body dose for humans is 450 rads. Chronic (long-term) effects of radiation can arrive years after the original exposure. It also may have cumulative effects on the somatic cells over the lifetime of the patient. Future generations may experience genetic
The new United States Coast Guard Radiological Isotope Identification Device (RIID) is being promulgated with the next six months. Currently CG-721, DOL-44, nor the Maritime Law Enforcement Academy (MLEA) have discussed implementation processes for the RADSEEKER. This type of oversight could result in Radiation Detection Level II personnel the inability to determine the legitimacy of a radiological source. This poses a risk to national security and the safety of Coast Guard personnel. As MLEA’s Radiation Course Managers there needs to be an effective formulated plan of creating training material, integrating training material to academy staff, and procedures for members in the fleet to become proficient.
have the power and ability to operate the bombs. Is progress to blame for the invention of the atom bomb? Or is it humans and our drive to create? If, or when, the atom bomb goes off, it will not because progress demanded it, but because a human, or group of humans, with the required cultural clout, made the decision to set it off. For most readers, the idea of blowing up the world, and everyone in it, is not going to be a positive image. For those who grew up during the atom bomb scares, the image will have even more of an impact, driving fear into their hearts and minds. It is possible that imagery is strong enough to strike-out the human component from the reader’s minds. Had I been a casual reader, it is possible that I, too, would have
The Beta travels faster and penetrates further than any other. Gamma rays are the most dangerous from all since the can travel further and damage tissues and organs. Radiation can be measured in doses such as the Roentgens and the Rem. Radiation in our planet can come from cosmic radiation, terrestrial sources, the body, or man-made sources such as diagnostic radiology and therapeutic radiology. When a person is exposed to radiation he/she can suffer from acute effects also known as effects that occur quickly or chronic effects which are known as long term effects. People can handle chronic exposure to radiation better than a large amount of radiation within a short period of time. People who have a been exposed to large amounts of radiation within a short period of time can become ill quickly such as in acute radiation sickness or could potentially die from such exposure. Exposure to radiation can cause illnesses such as cancer, cataracts, and could ultimately cause a reduction in life. America uses emergency managers to handle aspect of all emergencies posed to communities across the country. Emergency managers use The Radiological Protection System trains and aids communities when radiological emergencies occur. In the United
The effects of EMR upon biological systems depend both upon the radiation's power and its frequency. For EMR of visible frequencies or lower the damage done to cells and other materials is determined mainly by power and caused primarily by heating effects from the combined energy transfer of many photons. By contrast, for ultraviolet and higher frequencies chemical materials and living cells can be further damaged beyond that done by simple heating, since individual photons of such high frequency have enough energy to cause direct molecular
In this project we will determine how much radiation Chavez students are consuming daily as well as annually. In order to find an accurate reading of the amount of radiation consumption we came up with 10 questions that were crucial to our investigation. Our questions consist of medical, travel and miscellaneous related objects that disperse radiation. In order for us to get a more accurate idea of how much radiation students are consuming we made a total of 100 surveys, which were distributed to our Chavez peers. Once we gathered all information we made precise calculations of each item according to the amount of mREM each item contained. After that we will be analyzing our data and transfer it to a graph where it will be divided into 3 different sections; that is how we will determine where Chavez students are receiving most of the radiation from.
An atomic bomb is a bomb whose violent explosive power is due to the sudden release of energy resulting from the splitting of nuclei of a heavy chemical element (as plutonium or uranium) by neutrons in a very rapid chain reaction —called also atom bomb. 2 : a nuclear weapon (as a hydrogen bomb)
Radiation therapy is the ionization of atoms in tissues resulting in formation of highly reactive radicals in a well-defined, restricted volume (1). In other words, ionizing radiations are used to eradicate tumors and at the same time preserve structure and function of normal tissue. A limitation is prevented from being a problem. If bone marrow or neuronal cells are destroyed or injured, they do not regenerate. However, with radiation therapy, these cells are often saved from injury or destruction, unless the tumor is infecting bone marrow or neuronal cells. Today, radiation therapy is the most popular type of cancer therapy in use. It is used to treat one-half to two-thirds of all cancers, which translates to more than ten percent of the population
Lasting from 13 through 20 weeks, this period has some improvement in survivors' condition. From 20 weeks and up, is characterized by numerous complications in the healing process, mostly related to healing of thermal and mechanical injuries, and if the individual was exposed to a few hundred to a thousand Millisieverts of radiation, it is coupled with infertility, subfertility and blood disorders. From the source of Gizmodo.com, “Furthermore, ionizing radiation above a dose of around 50-100 Millisievert exposure has been shown to statistically begin increasing one's chance of dying of cancer sometime in their lifetime over the normal unexposed rate of 25 percent, in the long term, a heightened rate of cancer, proportional to the dose received, would begin to be observed after 5 years and up, with lesser problems such as eye cataracts and other more minor effects in other organs and tissue are also being observed over the long term.” In a summery, it causes severe burns from the heat/light. (It was noted after hiroshima that the shadows of civilians were burned into wherever they were.)