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Chernobyl Worms Show Unexpected Resilience to Radiation (www.sciencealert.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/science

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Tiny worms living in the radioactive Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) surprisingly show no signs of radiation damage in their genes. Researchers compared the worms' genomes to those from non- irradiated areas and found no mutations caused by radiation.

This doesn't mean the zone is safe, but suggests these worms have remarkable resilience to radiation. Studying these worms might provide insights into DNA repair mechanisms that could benefit human health research, such as understanding why some people are more susceptible to cancers caused by DNA damage.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Back in 2006 BBC Horizon made a documentary about our fear of radiation, it explained three different types of models for calculating radiation danger.

The Linear-No-Threshold model: All radiation is dangerous, even small ammounts, easy to calculate, and will absolutely keep us safe from radiation, but will limit what we can do with radiation.
A linear model with a threshold: Untill a certain level, radiation is a non-issue. If this is the case, we could allow for more uses of nuclear technology with less need for heavy shielding, this is however very hard to implement as radiation exposure is a factor of both time and intensity which would vary for everyone.
A linear model with a negative bend at the start, small ammounts of radiation is beneficial. The data from animals caught in the exclusion zone does seem to indicate that this is the case over generations, genes that reduce the risk of cancer have been found to be active in animals caught in the exclusion zone.

Here is a link to the documentary: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7pqwo8