How Damaging is Radiation?

What is radiation?

Isn't a bad type of poisoning. It's just like a dirty word to me. It's just something which is not good, not good for me, being a human being exposed to great amounts of it—waves of bad stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's dangerous. We all know that, right? Water's good for you; radiation is not.

It can go right through, like walls. Radiation can seep through the concrete walls. And so goes; it's absorbed into your skin, and then you get poisoning from it. The radiation itself could damage the DNA, changing, like, I guess, mutations—mutations.

It ruins tissues and whatnot, and that can break down the body, and it's not healthy. It causes, like, cancer and things like that.

Are you exposed to radiation?

No, not at all. No, um, no, probably in some ways, but you don't know exactly how.

No, not really— from the Sun, um, mobile phones, they tell us.

Yeah, yeah, probably from a lot of electronic sources, microwaves and things—microwaves, mobile phones.

Yeah, cell phones. Are they cancer-causing, do you think?

I think they are because, um, yeah, I mean, like, a lot of people have come up with, like, you know, cancer tumors around the ear area recently. And um, I think that's too much of a coincidence to not be involved with the mobile phone usage.

I think that it does, but it doesn't affect my day-to-day life. You know where I put my phone— I still carry it in my pocket even though I might get cancer in my leg. I mean, it's not changing my life.

UV, gamma, x-rays, gamma, Alpha, Beta, Alpha, Beta, gamma.

Yeah, all right, let's take a closer look at these examples. They are all, in fact, types of radiation. Assuming by mobile phones we mean the waves that they transmit, which are microwaves. But there are some important distinctions between these different types of radiation.

For example, Alpha and beta rays are actually tiny particles moving very fast, whereas the rest of these types of radiation are all waves, very similar to light. So let's arrange them by particles on the right and waves on the left.

Another very important distinction is between the radiation that can do damage to molecules like DNA and radiation that can't. So let's rearrange the radiation into these groups.

So the damaging radiation includes UV rays, x-rays, gamma rays, and Alpha and beta particles. So sunlight and microwaves, including the waves used by mobile phones, should not be able to cause damage to molecules.

So where is most of your exposure to damaging radiation coming from?

Well, for one thing, there are radioactive isotopes in the soil and in the air that we breathe. So we get a very low level of background radiation from these sources.

Also, every time we take a plane trip, we're exposed to higher levels of what's called cosmic radiation, which are particles that are streaming towards us from outer space. Normally, these are blocked out by the atmosphere, but at the high altitudes that planes fly at, we're exposed to more of this radiation.

Every time you get an x-ray at the dentist or to check for broken bones, that also gives you a significant dose of radiation. But generally, the levels of radiation that we're exposed to are so low that it's not worth worrying about.

Banana is a radioactive.

Why is that?

They have potassium 40. And so if you eat too many bananas, you can get ratings of a g account.

Do you eat bananas?

I do— I love. I love, and I'm so fine. I guess it never puts you off the thought that it could be radiating you.

It's kind of cool to be honest—like radioactive powers or something.