Kind: captions
Language: en
What is radiation?
Isn't it 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. [laughter]
Yeah. I mean, it's dangerous. We all
know that, right?
Water's good for you. Radiation's not
easy.
It can go right through like walls.
radiation can seep through the concrete
walls and
so it 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 I it doesn't
affect my daytoday life and you know
where I put my phone and still carry it
in my pocket even though I might get
cancer in my leg. I mean it's not
changing my life. UV rays gamma
x-rays
gamma alpha beta
alpha beta gamma. Yeah. [laughter] 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 uh
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 [clears throat]
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, uh, 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. Bananas are
radioactive.
Why is that?
They have potassium 40.
40.
And so if you eat too many bananas, you
can get readings of a geer counter.
Do you eat bananas?
I don't either.
I love bananas.
I love [laughter] them.
And I'm still fine. I guess
it never puts you off the thought that
it could
could be radiating you.
It's kind of cool to be honest. like
radioactive powers or