This is referring to nuclear radiation after something like Chernobyl
In: Biology
Ionizing radiation is radiation which have enough energy to split a molecule to form ions. This will cause unwanted chemical reactions which are normally very unlikely to happen. A cell is very exposed to this as it relies heavily on complex stable molecules to function normally. If these molecules suddenly changes the function that this molecule was doing seizes and it is likely that the cell dies. In some cases it can be enough that just a single molecule gets ionized for the cell to die completely.
It’s called ionizing radiation.
The radiation hits an atom in a molecule so hard it knocks out an electron. This changes its charge (ionizing it).
The molecules in your body are held together because of the charges of the atoms. If an atom’s charge changes, the molecule might fall apart.
If the molecule just so happen to be really important, like a bit of DNA a cell needs to live, or the bit of DNA that tell the cell to stop replicating.
You are going to have a bad time.
Fortunately/unfortunately the body has some error checking for your cells. When it finds things are bad enough, it just kills the cell so you don’t get cancer. This is unfortunate if you got a lot of cells that you need to live potentially getting cancer and needing to be ALL killed.
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