For instance, I recently watched [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ8cYheR5xo) video, and during it they explain that the bodies of the technicians at the SL-1 site had to be autopsied at great length from the doctors, because their bodies were still emitting extreme radioactivity.
how does radioactive material cause other, normally benign, material to take on radioactivity?
In: 90
The majority of that radiation… simply put, the radioactive material from the reactor itself is on the bodies. If a nuclear reactor blows… well, there’s pressure that was released and it spreads the material that was inside the reactor outwards. These people got covered in it. It stuck to the fibers of their clothing and got onto the skin of the people themselves, some of it got inhaled, etc. I don’t know if the skin can absorb the material but if it does, it’s now under the skin. They are now effectively tiny bits of the reactor walking around.
Now the second half. The radiation itself can get into atoms and change their types, maybe into a radioactive atom. But generally the threat level from that radiation is minimal. An extra neutron into a Carbon atom could make it ratioactive, but it will likely just decay into nitrogen and become stable. It’s a one-for-one trade of a radiation particle. Even if you get a more unlucky trade than this one-for-one example, it’s still just one atom that’s been affected. Statistically speaking this additional radioactive material is harmless compared to what came off the reactor.
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