nuclear-news

The insidious effect of ionising radiation, over time

Radiation poses a long-term danger because it mutates DNA, rewriting the genetic code in ways that can lead to cancerous growth of cells.

 workers at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant absorbed 0.4 to 1 Sv of radiation per hour while contending with the nuclear disaster last March. Although they survived in the short term, their lifetime cancer risk increased

Limits Of The Human Body: How Much Sleep Deprivation, Radiation & Acceleration Can We Survive? HUFFINGTON POST, : 08/13/2012  By: Natalie Wolchover One hears epic accounts of people surviving bullets to the brain, 10-story freefalls or months stranded at sea. But put a human anywhere in the known universe except for the thin shell of space that extends a couple of miles above or below sea level on Earth, and we perish within minutes. As strong and resilient as the human body seems in some situations, considered in the context of the cosmos as a whole, it’s unnervingly fragile.

Many of the boundaries within which a typical human can survive have
been fully established; the well-known “rule of threes”  dictates how
long we can forgo air, water and food (roughly three minutes, three
days and three weeks, respectively). Other limits are more
speculative, because people have seldom, if ever, tested them….. How
much radiation can we absorb?

Radiation poses a long-term danger because it mutates DNA, rewriting the genetic code in ways that can lead to cancerous growth of cells.
But how much radiation will strike you dead right away? According to
Peter Caracappa, a nuclear engineer and radiation safety specialist at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 5 and 6 Sieverts (Sv) over the
course of a few minutes will shred up too many cells for your body to
fix at once. “The longer the time period over which the dose is
accumulated, the higher that range would be, since the body works to
repair itself over that time as well,” Caracappa told Life’s Little
Mysteries.

As a point of comparison, some workers at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant absorbed 0.4 to 1 Sv of radiation per hour while contending with the nuclear disaster last March. Although they survived in the short term, their lifetime cancer risk increased, scientists have said.

Even if one steers clear of nuclear disasters and supernova
explosions, the natural background radiation we all experience on
Earth (from sources like uranium in the soil, cosmic rays and medical
devices) increases our chance of developing cancer in a given year by
0.025 percent, Caracappa said…..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/human-body-limits-survival_n_1773167.html

August 14, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general