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0 pointsaidenn04y ago0 comments

That's also the linear no threshold model.

The risk of dying increases linearly with the number of bullets you load.

A different model suggests that very low levels are either benign or even helpful.

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7 comments · 3 top-level

ziddoap4y ago· 2 in thread

>A different model suggests that very low levels are either benign or even helpful.

Ah, the classic shoot yourself with small caliber bullets to build up an immunity against the larger caliber ones!

api4y ago

The radiation hormesis idea is controversial but that is a bad argument against it. Molecular scale events interacting with molecular scale DNA repair machinery is a different physical context than bullets.

The body is hit by natural radiation all the time and so it has mechanisms for this. Not so much for macroscopic projectiles.

The question is how these mechanisms behave and whether a small amount of radiation stimulates them… and then how much, for how long, etc. It’s a complex model with multiple systems and feedback loops.

ziddoap4y ago

>The radiation hormesis idea is controversial but that is a bad argument against it

Jokes don't translate well in ASCII, sorry. It's a (I thought) well known meme.

emn134y ago· 2 in thread

I can't find any solid supporting sources that provide any evidence that there exists a positively safe dosage, but even the linear-no-threshold models suggest the effects of low dosages are small enough to be hard to measure; i.e. which model is correct is practically irrelevant for low enough (e.g. 1-10 mSv?) dosages.

aidenn0OP4y ago

Presumably there is some level of radiation at which if 100 million people were exposed to for 20 years, we would see measurable excess deaths with the linear no-threshold model, but not with other models.

In particular the linear model treats chronic exposure as all the same; X amount for a week is the same as X/52 for a year.

emn134y ago

Yeah, the linearity in the dose seems more plausible than the linearity in time; and I don't understand why the two dimensions necessarily would be intrinsically linked.

dspillett4y ago

> A different model suggests that very low levels are either benign

Nothing in what others have said suggests low levels are deadly or even likely to be damaging, at leas not over the time frame of a human life as defined by the many things that can take us out.

> or even helpful.

A larger amount of something being damaging does not rule out a small amount being helpful, there just comes a point when the potential danger starts to outweigh the potential benefits. Water is very beneficial, necessary in fact, but too much of it over a short time will kill you.

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