Apologies if the tag is wrong!
From what I understand, the radiation doesn’t do squat untill it’s ionized. The way it was explained to me is that the Radiation is the knife, while the ionization is the hand weilding the knife.
So how does it affect the body? I know it does something to our DNA but what does it do specifically?
Bonus Question: What did scifi writers assume Gamma Ray’s would do to Bruce Banner to make him the Hulk, as opposed to what it does IRL and just… kill you.
In: 63
> The way it was explained to me is that the Radiation is the knife, while the ionization is the hand weilding the knife.
Radiation is just high energy light or particles. Radiation is “ionizing” when it is strong enough to break the bonds between atoms (and makes them ions, hence the name).
Your fats, proteins, DNA, etc. all perform their function by way of their very precise structure. If that structure gets messed up, they won’t function properly. Ionizing radiation can break DNA in a number of ways, damaging or destroying the information encoded in its structure. Depending on the information affected and how it was damaged the cell may be totally fine, may be so damaged that it can’t function and dies, or may keep functioning but with some of the information altered (i.e., a mutation).
> Bonus Question: What did scifi writers assume Gamma Ray’s would do to Bruce Banner to make him the Hulk, as opposed to what it does IRL and just… kill you.
You’d have to ask the writers, but it’s just kind of a trope in superhero comics.
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