Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 11, 2011, a group of friends in the United States and Japan started a dialog to discuss what they could to help the friends and family in Japan. Since monitoring for radioactivity was very important following the disaster, the availability of Geiger counters was a critical issue.
Back in the 1950s at the height of the cold war, there was a great deal of talk about fallout shelters. When people were very serious about the prospect of nuclear war with the Russians and the Chinese, shelters were built that were intended to allow people to survive if their city was hit by a nuclear blast and they were outside the radius of immediate destruction.
If there is a nuclear accident or explosion and radioactive fallout may reach your area, there are preparations that you can make to protect yourself and your family from the fallout. Time being one of the factors that reduces the danger of fall out, here are some temporary measures that will protect your home and family for a few days. These actions will take time to prepare so in order to be effective, they must be done well before any accident or explosion occurs.
Radioresistance is defined as the ability of some organisms to survive in environments where there is a high level of radioactivity. There may be naturally occurring radiation from uranium ores or man-made radiation from nuclear bombs or nuclear accidents. After the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine, scientists were surprised to find that many species survived when the assumption was that the high level of radiation should have killed most of them.
Ionizing radiation damages DNA in living cells. All cells have DNA repair machinery. If there is a way to accelerate the repair of DNA, it would confer some protection against the damage caused by ionizing radiation.
There is a type of bacteria named Deinococcus radiodurans (Latin for “terrific berry that withstands radiation”) that is very resistant to damage by ionizing radiation. It is known as an extremophilic bacterium meaning that it is very tough. In addition to being able to withstand radiation it can also survive dehydration, extremely low temperatures, some acids and even vacuum.
There are no drugs licensed to treat any acute radiation damage to internal tissues. Sometimes, iodine tablets are taken with the intent of flooding the system with non-radioactive iodine so that the radioactive isotope iodine-131 will not be taken up by the thyroid and cause cancer.
Protective clothing has been developed for people who work around radioactive materials on a regular basis or who might be called to respond to a nuclear accident where radioactivity has been released into the environment.
Radioactive materials are widely used in our high-tech society. There are medical application, industrial applications, research applications, nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons development. In addition, there is a great deal of radioactive waste left over from past uses. What can be done to protect people from the harmful effects of ionizing radiation?
Radiation is used to treat many different cancers. About one half of the new invasive cancer cases will be treated with radiation. The procedures and equipment have been developed to optimized damage to the cancerous tumors and tissue with minimal damage to surrounding healthy tissue. When a beam of radiation is directed at a tumor, the normal tissue in the path of the beam can be damaged.
