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How dangerous is radiation?

Lateralus

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This documentary makes the case that our fear of radiation is unreasonable and not based on science. It makes a good case. Does anyone have information that refutes this documentary?

[YOUTUBE="6IQWuXtX_6E"]Nuclear Nightmares (Part 1)[/YOUTUBE]
 

Katsuni

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Haven't watched the video yet (50 minutes worth? Looks interesting, I shall!) but I can tell yeu already that radiation isn't as bad as people think.

Mostly, radiation isn't even a threat, even in large amounts... unless it happens to be absorbed all at once. There's pockets of natural radiation all over the world, one area in particular, I forget the name of it, had radiation many times higher than the supposed maximum allowance, yet people don't even have a higher rate of cancer there oddly enough.

Seems to be mostly just because of it being in burst amounts.

Small amounts of radiation is common anyway, and not to be mistaken for hazardous.

Whot's really neat, is a properly running nuclear reactor produces less radiation output than a coal reactor XD
 

Katsuni

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Soooo after watching through the videos, they mentioned the name of the place I was thinking of (forgot the name again drat! Oh well ) and pointed out most of whot I already knew. Remembered a few other things I should've mentioned earlier as well.

Overall, not surprised they didn't find much... we know there's a background radiation in the world normally anyway. Obviously, yeu have to have some method of defending against such on a regular basis. This would mean that the body is capable of fighting off, absorbing, or disposing of significantly more radiation than we normally receive in a regular time span. This would also mean that it's only after we cross that threshold of how much the body can absorb, do we reap any negative effects.

Now, obviously there's not much radiation from whot we receive from sunlight, yet it's enough to cause skin cancer... that brings us to something else I should've mentioned earlier, and wasn't covered in the videos.

There's multiple forms of radiation. It's not just "radiation" as a blanket statement. Some forms require very massive doses to be directly ingested to have any effect. Some forms can't even pass through paper, let alone skin. Most radiation can't even get past something so simple as clothing.

Certain types are exceedingly dangerous and can kill yeu with relatively little doses, as they pass directly through yeur body and pretty much anything yeu're wearing.

Alpha radiation is generally harmless, and can't even get through clothing; beta radiation may make yeu feel ill if yeu directly consume it but isn't likely to cause much harm if external. Gamma radiation can go pretty much through yeu, one end to the other, and doesn't slow down without significant dense shielding like lead.

There's cosmic radiation as well but I'm not sure where that stands off the top of my head, other than probably being either equivilent to or stronger than gamma.

But yeah, most forms of radiation aren't that dangerous, especially not in low amounts over prolonged times.

Getting a large amount in a short burst, however, will cause significant issues, since it'll overload the body's ability to compensate.

It's a poison, like any other, think of it like alcohol. If yeu have a little alcohol, very small, trace amounts, yeu get virtually no negative effects at all. Yeu can have a sip of wine every day and not get drunk and be able to drive just fine and won't even remotely show up on a breathalyzer test or whotever if yeu have something like 2 ounces a day.

Now pump that up to 10 days worth in one go, 20 ounces at once suddenly makes a noticeable difference, and yeur body isn't able to ditch the stuff as fast as yeu feed it. The effects, however, are still restricted by body type; someone who's larger and weighs more will generally hold liqueur better. Same with radiation, since there's more skin to go through.

And then yeu can compare exposure to a nuclear bomb to just being equivalent to downing bottle after bottle until yeu pass out and die of liver failure XD

The body can purge itself of almost anything in tiny amounts, it just takes time is all. And naturally, we're capable of removing far more than we normally receive. Yeu can lift about 6X as much with yeur muscles as yeu normally seem capable of, but this's normally only triggered as capable during an adrenaline rush and such... the muscles would tear, the bones would break under the stress if it were done on a regular basis. So, rather than allow yeu to go to yeur limits, yeu're forced to use only a small fraction of whot yeu're truly capable of most of the time.

Same goes with absorption of poisons, such as radiation; yeu can accept alot more than yeu need to, in case it's required. But there is still a breaking point that can be reached.

I'm a little disappointed in the videos overall though... there were more than 57 deaths, and they weren't counting the people who checked the reactor immediately; just the cleaning crews afterwards. The vast majority of the people working at the plant at the time, including the idiot of a researcher who caused the whole mess in the first place, died from radiation sickness, so it's kind of obvious they're misrepresenting their numbers to some degree at least by not counting many individuals.

This kind of obvious gap in information calls the rest of their information into question, since they're picking and choosing to report only the things that match their desired outcome.

Even so, radiation isn't that big of a deal, but that kind of reporting doesn't help prove it to anyone.
 

Lateralus

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I've always felt (call it intuition) that the dangers of nuclear radiation were overstated. It's interesting to see scientific studies confirm this.

I wish the public had a more reasonable approach to these issues. Nuclear power has so much unrealized potential.
 

entropie

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You should watch the documentary about the huge area in Tschernobyl that was affected by the melting down of a power plant.

The area is clean again and looks fine but the gene mutations it caused in animals and people that's really scary..
 

INTP

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You should watch the documentary about the huge area in Tschernobyl that was affected by the melting down of a power plant.

The area is clean again and looks fine but the gene mutations it caused in animals and people that's really scary..

actually this isnt the case there. i just watched a documentary some time ago about the animals living in tshernobyl and how they have taken over the place and how the radiation effects them, actually i have watched few documentaries about this. one was more of a nature documentary and one was more about the science of how the radiation effects the animals physical.

First of all, the area is not clean yet, its not even nearly clean. Second of all the only scary thing about genetic mutations and cancers was the lack of them. Only real mutation on any species was that some bird species changed the color of theyr tommy, but this mutation went to extinct really fast and the population didnt get big before they all died. Also they tested many mouses rats and other small animals that get the highest amount of radiation and the cancer cases were really rare, not much bigger than normally. This was really supricing to the scientists because this much radiation should make cancer to nearly all of these small animals.

It was funny to see cats and other animals living wild in abandoned houses and stuff. They followed cat family, lone wolf, birds and bear family and some other animals that lived in tshernobyl on that one documentary, and the natural balance of species seemed to work normally, animals didnt look sick and everything seemed fine with the animal kingdom. It was funny that even till this day the wolfs were afraid to go to the town, but one lone wolf went there and stole a house from this cat family since it didnt want to ran into unfimilar wolf packs.
 

BlueScreen

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I saw a documentary on radioactive bears near Chernobyl, or at least that's the part I remembered. Apparently they were so radioactive that they were considered a radiation hazard, but they were perfectly functional.
 

entropie

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actually this isnt the case there. i just watched a documentary some time ago about the animals living in tshernobyl and how they have taken over the place and how the radiation effects them, actually i have watched few documentaries about this. one was more of a nature documentary and one was more about the science of how the radiation effects the animals physical.

First of all, the area is not clean yet, its not even nearly clean. Second of all the only scary thing about genetic mutations and cancers was the lack of them. Only real mutation on any species was that some bird species changed the color of theyr tommy, but this mutation went to extinct really fast and the population didnt get big before they all died. Also they tested many mouses rats and other small animals that get the highest amount of radiation and the cancer cases were really rare, not much bigger than normally. This was really supricing to the scientists because this much radiation should make cancer to nearly all of these small animals.

It was funny to see cats and other animals living wild in abandoned houses and stuff. They followed cat family, lone wolf, birds and bear family and some other animals that lived in tshernobyl on that one documentary, and the natural balance of species seemed to work normally, animals didnt look sick and everything seemed fine with the animal kingdom. It was funny that even till this day the wolfs were afraid to go to the town, but one lone wolf went there and stole a house from this cat family since it didnt want to ran into unfimilar wolf packs.

Yes, I watched the same documentary, where the cat family lived in an abanddoned house until they were driven out by a wolf I think it was :).

They made that day Chernobyl the topic of the day on TV and they showed after that the first generations of kids born in families living in the Tschernobyl area; many of the pictures havent seen the public yet due to the russian information policy back in the days.

Summa summarum the immediate result of the melting down made roughly 3100 square miles of land and 2800 square miles of wood unusuable for economic purposes. 900.000 people, so called "liquidators" were employed to decontaminate the area, which led to the fact of them being contaminated and to get infected with cancer at young age, with thyroid cancer being the most common (+pneumonia, all sorts of allergies and more). Around 400.000 inhabitants were evacuated and they all receive vaxines against radiation poisoning, showing various forms of cancer or organic failure after the melting down depending on how near they lived next to the reactor.

Fact is the majority of people living in the area called 20 miles zone are either dead or have cancer.

The total sum of people who died I dont know, thank god there werent so many people living in the area in the first place and thank god the winds were bad that time and didnt carry too much radiation further in any direction ( Back in the days the whole incident became public in the first place when they measured radiation in the air in Sweden. ).

I dont know how you guys handle facts and personal scientific enthusiasm; it's a phenomenom often used in movies when the scientist is shown as a guy, who rationalizes his doings by talking about facts, calculating in a thread to human lifes and talking about it that sacrifice would be necessary for progress ( a loved sentence by german medical scientists during WWII ).

I know I draw the bow very widely here, but in my personal opinion to say the radiated area nowadays hasnt killed anyone no more therefore nuclear experiments are cool again and parallely neglecting the scientific fact that radiation is a slow killer and can manifest in genes in ways possible we cant even imagine today, yet: sucks. It's what we call in german "Herunterspielen der Bedrohungsstufe" what could be loosely translated with "to underplay the thread level".

An very intresting read; which is the thing too I drew some of my knowledge from; is the TORCH report ( The other report on Chernobyl )

Downloadable here: Torch: THE OTHER REPORT ON CHERNOBYL
 

Blackmail!

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Mice and Cats don't live long enough to develop cancers the way Men would.
 

Xenocide

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I don't have the attention span for a video (maybe later).

Radiation is a very lethal mutagen. It's a proven fact. It destroys the chemical bonds of the organic compounds that make a living body. It completely fucks with the DNA, changing it's structure which later creates harmful or deadly mutations in the offspring.
It basically kills cells.

It's true though that depending on the wave length the energy they carry and consequently the degree of harmfulness vary.
 

Amethyst

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dna_mutation.gif


When this happens, radiation's bad. Other than that, enjoy your plutonium-239
 

Fluffywolf

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There are so many forms of radiation and we don't know the full extent of the effect many forms of radiation has on us. But it is a fact that there are types of radiation, particularly the kinds that we are capable of reproducing in large bursts, can be extremely hazardous for your health.

Radiation is just such a broad term.
 
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