The Truth About Radiation Sickness: What Actually Happens?

Radiation sickness been portrayed in movies and television for more than 50 years-but how accurate is that really? Join Michael Aranda and learn what radiation sickness is actually like, and how the movies got it right, or wrong! Check out this new episode of SciShow!
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Sources:
books.google.de/books?id=6Hhj...
www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/em...
news.mit.edu/2011/explained-ra...
insights.ovid.com/crossref?an...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/em...
hps.org/publicinformation/ate...
www.fda.gov/media/72510/download
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.unscear.org/docs/reports/...
Image Sources:
www.istockphoto.com/photo/man...
www.videoblocks.com/video/mem...
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www.istockphoto.com/photo/dan...
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www.istockphoto.com/photo/rea...
www.istockphoto.com/vector/ca...
www.istockphoto.com/photo/nuc...
www.istockphoto.com/photo/rad...
www.istockphoto.com/photo/bon...
www.istockphoto.com/photo/sun...
www.istockphoto.com/photo/bon...
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www.istockphoto.com/vector/su...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:T...

[@marc-andreservant201]

Doctor: Your exposure has turned you into a radioactive mutant. Patient: Cool! What superpower do I have? Doctor: You have stage IV cancer...

[@ashish_jb4]

I feel so guilty for laughing at this.

[@ComradeHellas]

I feel bad for laughing

[@karthikharitha5712]

So... Deadpool?

[@Carewolf]

@@karthikharitha5712 HeLa 2.0

[@youkofoxy]

Believe or not, stage IV cancer is a mutation.

[@paulgar8]

As a degreed Nuclear Engineer and ex-reactor operator in the US Navy, I say THANK YOU for producing a video explanation of radiation sickness I can show to my non-technical friends. Well Done!!

[@robl6189]

Paul Garrett thank you for your service.

[@peterwolf8395]

Yeah its pretty good still 50 greys is easy to reach uf you inhale radioactive particles as alpha and neutrob radiation have a times 20 coeffizient from sievert to grey so 2 sievert would be 40 grey in a bad case and 2 sieverts is easy to get when talking about exposed r.materials .

[@spvillano]

Well, there is one way to irradiate those near you. Eat a cobalt-60 source, you'll be gamma ray toasting everything and everyone nearby. How and why someone would do such a thing, well, that's beyond my comprehension. Although, a small child did manage to imbibe some cobalt-60 from an orphaned source that her father had no clue what was inside of the device he opened...

[@captaincat1743]

Perhaps you could clarify something for me? I thought that a high dose of neutron radiation could make a person or object dangerously radioactive, by neutron activation and the subsequent decays that take place.? Is this theoretically true ?

[@peterwolf8395]

@@captaincat1743 well neutron radiation and absortion would never created a high enough unstable cire number in your body to make you radioactive .Also you only consist out of ligth elements which tend to not become radioaktiv most of the time even with a neutron mire in the core .

[@HansLemurson]

"You'll reach a lethal level of radiation exposure in 10 minutes in there!" "Good thing I'll be done in 9 minutes."

[@bugjams]

Lmao love that trope. “Death will happen for reasons in only 5 minutes!” *Person spends **4:59** in the room* “Phew! Now you’ll be perfectly healthy!”

[@avi8aviate]

@@bugjams Nah, 4:59.9999999999999999999999999999.

[@lazycouch1]

At least sometimes they use a plot tool like a consumed protective item. Like it's not 10 minutes until death but 10 minutes until a radioactive suit starts degrading. Which would logically allow that plot mechanism at the very least, albeit still a bit cheap.

[@funnifurrytechgirl]

Actually, the lethal dose at elephant's foot is 5 minutes, it just takes longer.

[@Aphelia.]

@jamada d that's so much radiation

[@itsus8172]

A sunburn is actually a form of radiation damage. From that big glowing radioactive sky ball.

[@sacr3]

Sky ball? Its not in the sky. Its sad we have people that think the Sun is in our sky, ugh, gaw, unreal, ugh. Its actually a flat circle thats part of our outer sphere that rotates around our planet, its powered by the energy of the Gods and their everlasting love for their enjoyment of not assisting human beings when they need them most, duh. i'm done now, you're right though - red means many many cells are damaged and are going through Apoptosis because their DNA is too far damaged.

[@Maja0001]

But it's not the same kind of radiation. You get sunburned because of UV light, which has high energy, but not high enough to be ionising. With radioactive elements you get radiation with much higher energy, which can break chemical bonds easily (ionising radiation), and that's why it causes much more damage to tissue.

[@sacr3]

@@Maja0001 The sun does radiate ionizing radiation but yes, its non ionizing radiation (UVB), but it still damages DNA directly by messing with some enzymes or something of that sort. Its cumulative of course, more exposure the more it does its damage and eventually its a bit too much for the cell to repair.

[@RBuckminsterFuller]

@@sacr3 It directly damages DNA inside the nuclei of cells, causing several different kinds of DNA damage which range from easy to impossible to repair. Look up DNA repair mechanisms.

[@shanesmith3453]

@@RBuckminsterFuller The video didn't quite touch on this properly - radiation damage can be fairly permanent and impossible to repair yes. I have radiation ulcers/burns that have not closed at all 10 years after exposure (skin grafts die, no new skin forms over the wound). We're "waiting" for technology to get better to one day find a solution to closing the wounds

[@Master_Therion]

I can count on one hand how many times I've been exposed to high doses of radiation. It's 8 times.

[@TGears314]

Master Therion HA!

[@sdfkjgh]

At the risk of being whoooshed, I can count to 31 on one hand. It's counting in binary. A guy taught me how at a wedding.

[@Ngamotu83]

So you have only two fingers and a thumb? 😁

[@Master_Therion]

@@sdfkjgh I'm going to Google how to do that, it sounds very... handy. Seriously though, I could use that at work. I do a lot of data recording and often forget a pen and paper.

[@Nicolai0Nerland]

@@Ngamotu83 And the shape of an L on their forehead?

[@Jimmyinvictus]

I just keep plenty of Rad-X and RadAway handy...its all good.

[@oneblacksun]

Oh pa-lease. Just get some rad adsorption perks.

[@LalkeBanditen]

And those damn ghouls

[@glorylord6]

Kisra David my recommended solution to that is running.

[@legionofyuri]

(Laughs in vodka) Cheeki breeki

[@burnttoast2615]

Pshhh refined punga fruit man that’s what’s the bomb. Gives heath and takes away rads.

[@taith2]

Might mention in video that half life of 8 days is HORRYFYINGLY radioactive, the shorter half life, the more radioactive thing is.

[@spindash64]

taith2 This. The longer half lives last longer specifically BECAUSE they don’t release radiation as fast

[@greensteve9307]

Good point!

[@humter]

taith2 but what about half life 3

[@psuedonym9999]

That's why Uranium is actually relatively safe, at least from a radiation standpoint. Don't go eating it or using it for plates or silverware though, it's a heavy metal like lead, and is thus poisonous.

[@ianmoseley9910]

PikPobedy That is because it is dense, so a lot of mass in a narrow cross section for armour penetration.

[@shrikantpatil4979]

A tribute to Hisashi Ouchi. May his soul rest in peace. He absorbed 17 Gray's/Sv of radiation and was forcibly kept alive as his body broke down.

[@kyledelabear7091]

Bit more than an ouchi then

[@kurtwinkelman7924]

Just read an article on his death. Pretty horiffic

[@SpicyButterflyWings]

@@kurtwinkelman7924 Same. Absolutely horrifying and disturbing to read about.

[@dunmermage]

@Ron Lewenberg I looked at a picture some times ago. DO NOT LOOK AT THE PICTURES. Definitely Not Safe For Soul.

[@celinak5062]

+

[@ReddwarfIV]

The HBO _Chernobyl_ series is not a documentary, it is an adaption of _Voices Of Chernobyl,_ a book collecting 1st hand accounts of the events. Since many of those accounts were from ordinary people, not nuclear physicists or doctors specializing in ARS, they had little understanding of the science involved and are not neccesarily reliable. It doesn't matter that we know _now_ that babies can't absorb the radiation from their mothers, if its what the doctors thought was happening at the time - because the book, and the show, are trying to depict what people thought at the time. Same with the bridge thing. It probably didn't happen, but people in Pripyat believed it did, so it went in the book.

[@Accessless]

The railway bridge [Bridge of Death] was supposed to be down wind from the open reactor in an area now known as the Red Forest, this area was subjected to enough radiation to kill a 4 square mile swatch of forest and remains a highly contaminated area to this day. I'm not going to pretend to know how much exposure a few hours on this bridge would equate to in Grays but it was reported that people that watched the fire from this bridge did not survive. Considering that the Soviet Union never released a comprehensive casualty list saying that only plant workers and few fire rescue workers contracted(?) ARS and died would be naive at best.

[@IraTheSquire]

Er, I remember reading about an English (the Guardian I think) newspaper article where one of the people who was on the bridge was interviewed, in somewhere around 2010s. In fact, there are a ton of myths about who died during the Chernobyl incident. For example, those three divers who turn on the valves to let the water out actually survived.

[@MrMediator24]

@@IraTheSquire actually, there were no one on the bridge. City (except firefighters and plant workers obviously)were sleeping shut. That's account from one of my friends, whose relative was liquidator

[@mf_from_hell]

@@IraTheSquire They actually mention the fact that the divers survived in the show.

[@alisonsheep]

Listen to the Chernobyl podcast, it'll clear things up. They go detail by detail discussing the reality and where they had to stretch events a bit for the sake of the medium. Much of the show is rooted in reality and first hand events.

[@InstrucTube]

"walks into the exact wrong room" is a great expression.

[@inthewoods5494]

Reminds me of that poor man, Hitoshi Ouchi. He received so much radiation that all of his chromosomes were ruined. They were either mutated, broken, or fused and they weren’t usable. He effectively had no DNA. He had nothing, no instructions to make ANY new cells. He rotted alive, as his body’s cells wore out and died, and couldn’t replace them with new ones.

[@maryjanehansen7947]

HUH???

[@tarantulazer]

Hisashi Ouchi*. His name was Hisashi Ouchi.

[@davidgraham3102]

The man Hirtionyun was called OUCH-i for a reason as this Mr. Mard was called ouch as sore for the restart

[@cobalt1754]

After visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, I was surprised to learn that people could actually survive radiation sickness since Hollywood usually portrays people melting and dying instantly.

[@vksasdgaming9472]

With enough radiation it happens. Except instead of melting to goo (tissues broken down by radiation) they more like vaporize because of huge heat. Countless people dead in nuclear attacks on Japan left only a shadow.

[@therflash]

@@vksasdgaming9472 That's not due to the radiation though, that's due to the heat of the explosion.

[@slipstreamxr3763]

They can, some of the Radium Girls here in Illinois lived for decades with radiation poisoning from painting watch dials in the 20s and 30s.

[@dommcmx7060]

Bruh just kill me in the Latent stage. I dont wanna become a tomato soup with bone marrow seasoning

[@lenmrt]

Read John Hersey's Hiroshima, it gives a horrifying first hand account of ARS in thousands of people. That book is hard to read and makes me physically ill at times but it is so worth it

[@whiskeypixels]

Damn good and terrifying book

[@louf7178]

And the effects were less than projected.

[@mind-of-neo]

I love the part where he describes the guy's eye as running down his cheek.

[@krashd]

"All I see is this crispy kid with the runny egg eyes!"

[@Willam_J]

The passage that I’ll never forget, was when he was trying to help someone to stand, and the skin from their hands, slid off like a glove. He was standing there, holding someone’s hand skin ‘gloves’ in his hands. I haven’t read the book, in over 30 years, but I’ll never forget that part.

[@NotThatRichard]

If I ever get "severe diarrhea", I will probably just look forward to the dying part.

[@josephburchanowski4636]

IIRC, if you eat a sizable amount of extremely radioactive material, such that it quickly results in cell death of nearby tissues. You can quickly die from dehydration due to having intense diarrhea due to your intestines dying. Quite literally death by nuclear diarrhea.

[@NotThatRichard]

@@josephburchanowski4636 "severe nuclear diarrhea" is now on the list of "just let me die please"

[@VioletDeathRei]

@@stevenutter3614 I would say more like bloody membranes, which deep in the intestinal track actually come out almost black from having time to coagulate. Think of it more like pooping concentrated death.

[@CraftyTeo]

we with IBS simply call that 'tuesday'

[@SayHelloHelli]

CatManDude we with IBD call it a hobby that’s practiced around 30 times daily

[@Oncus2]

The problem with data for Chernobyl is that it's difficulty to tell whether that's the full data or has it been covered up to save the reputation of the SSSR.

[@hosseinebrahimi3451]

Finally. Someone decided to tackle my 4AM question that wouldn't let me sleep. Thank you SCIENCE SHOW.

[@tangerinecrawdaddy5598]

Hossein Ebrahimi frick, it’s 3 am, I should probably sleep

[@mr.personhumanson6871]

*And if the exposure was more than 50 grays, the patient could move really quickly...* Me: _Wait, I thought you said no super powers_ *...through all the earlier stages to reach the manifest illness stage.* Me: _Oh_

[@filipzaf5631]

"i dont get whats so hard about cancer, im already at stage 4"

[@samanders2676]

Reality is a buzzkill, ain’t it!

[@777Rowen]

A movie that has a good portrayal of radiation poisoning is from the movie “When the Wind Blows”. It’s a powerful and heartbreaking film. Fantastic explanation of how radiation poisoning works.

[@thomasboys7216]

Oh god, I can't believe I watched that as an 8 year old and thought it would be as happy as "The Snowman". Never trust an artstyle as an indicator of content.

[@HalfShelli]

What you pronounced as the “PRAH-drum-ul” stage is actually the “prō-DRŌME-ul” stage - the word “prodromal” being the adjectival form of the medical term prodrome, which means “an early symptom of an illness or disease”. Just a little FYI which will never come even close to compensating you for all the things I’ve learned from your amazing videos!

[@michealoflaherty1265]

I need to study up on my radiation units. Ive seen: Curies Roentgens Sieverts Becquerels Rads Grays I remember the Manhattan project scientist, Louis Slotin, being described as having a 3D sunburn.

[@avi8aviate]

All I know are Sieverts and now Grays.

[@TheFilwud]

At work I use Grays (energy absorbed), Sieverts (measure of harm to a person), becquerels (measure of activity). The SI units. Other older units like curies, Roentgens and rads seem to still be in use in the States and maybe in Russia.

[@silverdrag0n_]

it would be easy if you could convert between them, but i guess that would be stupid

[@inthewoods5494]

Sieverts is the one I’m familiar with

[@Keithustus]

There are so many units not only because of SI v. nonSI units but also because there are so many aspects of radiation to measure: activity/count of the radioisotope, how much energy that computes out to, how that energy affects living tissue based on what type of radiation it is, etc..

[@ayylmao5416]

"no documented cases in the closest town" Soviey union wasn't exactly known for caring for their citizens and transparency

[@royalpotato4106]

@Spookay T'is Me I would take this with a grain of salt... The History Channel isn't exactly known for being reputable anymore.

[@emmettdonkeydoodle6230]

Royal Potato maybe but there have been actual studies regarding radiation exposure both from Chernobyl and the Tzar Bomb And as it turns out, MANY MANY MANY people got sick located many miles away from the detonation sites. And, as stated above, the government workers outright refused to link the cases. There are many cases where patients were intentionally misdiagnosed in fear that medical records may be accessed by a foreign entity. I haven’t seen the documentary they listed, so I can’t say anything on its credibility, but there are studies out there investigating this very phenomenon and much of the findings encourage us to rethink what we know about the radius of exposure in blast zones. In saying that, there’s also other studies investigating how the feral dog population is faring in Chernobyl. They’ve found that most of the dogs are not radioactive and the ones that are have very little radiation. They have normal instances of cancers that would be found in the general dog population (though some found them to be slightly raised) and that they, other than lack of food, are in good health. These studies also challenge what we know about radiation sickness and exposure, So... there’s just a lot we don’t know,

[@xxxthwagdrakexxx4672]

A bit much like the cia or sometimes our own government has shown when it experiements on its own people

[@allmhuran]

The studies which drew these conclusions weren't done by the USSR, they were done by the UN, WHO, and IAEA. There are 27 confirmed deaths due to ARS, and 3 more due to trauma directly related to the explosion. All of these people either worked at the plant, or as liquidators. Estimates for the longer term are obviously more difficult and varied, and credible estimates hover around 5000. Bear in mind that this count is a statistical measure, and includes people whose life spans are statistically likely to be reduced by any amount from their otherwise expected lifespan as a result of the incident. It doesn't mean they had decades wiped off their lifespans. Any source trying to claim death tolls in the tens or hundreds of thousands is spreading nonsense or propaganda, presumably hoping to profit from sensationalism and fear.

[@BigUriel]

@Spookay T'is Me Firstly Ukraine would have no interest in covering any of this up, Ukrainians hate Russians and would jump on the opportunity to dig up dirt on the Soviet Union. Secondly it's some proper tinfoil hat level stuff to think that a few Russian scientists on Putin's payroll would "muddy the water" in an international organization that is made up predominantly of western scientists and publishes peer reviewed studies. Also on the actual subject of the consequences of radiation, there have been countless events over the past century where people have been exposed to levels of radiation and its effects were documented. It wasn't just Chernobyl and nuclear bombs people get exposed to radiation all the time, its effects are well known, and the media in general still continues to treat the subject like some boogeyman and blows the dangers of radiation way out of proportion. The idea that radiation is this incredibly dangerous thing because you can be exposed to enough of it to die in a matter of days is a straw man of the same caliber as saying that water is incredibly dangerous because you can fall in the middle of the ocean and drown. Cases of people exposed to enough radiation to die from it are rare, even in nuclear power plant accidents. The vast majority of people are exposed to far more ionizing radiation from tobacco smoke than they will from living next to a nuclear power plan their whole lives.

[@moggy3269]

I've always been so interested in radiation in general and this video was a welcome surprise to just pop up in my notifs

[@notasian7620]

Me too something mysterious about it

[@LENZ5369]

I wish more people were legit interested in learning about radiation, it's the only way to move the needle on the anti-nuclear sentiment in most/many developed countries.

[@nochannel1q2321]

How KZbin Channels Get Fallout from Meltdowns and Nuclear Weapons Wrong

[@UDumFck]

If you're interested, then you definitely should look into 'radiation hormesis'. Not only are low doses of radiation not only less dangerous than people believe but actually beneficial! Yes, beneficial. Look at why airline pilots, people in Denver, people in Taiwan exposed to cobalt-60 have much LESS cancer. Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis

[@danielduncan6806]

Buy a Geiger counter and walk around your house with it, pointing it at everything. You will find that pretty much everything has an amount of harmful radiation. Your interest will quickly turn to boredom. If your interest does not turn into boredom, instead it will turn into irrational fear, and you will just die, scared and huddled in a corner. Because fact is, radiation is literally everywhere. Radiation is a normal part of life on Earth, it always has been, and it always will be. The kind of interest you have in radiation is silly(silly, being kind here), it is no different than someone being interested in air.

[@LincolnRon]

10:03 So a canister of toxic waste doesn't actually turn a rat and four small turtles into talking human sized mutants?

[@itsohaya4096]

Not with that attitude

[@matthewwriter9539]

I was exposed to 0.8 gy radiation walking into my living room when my wife was watching Fifty shades of grey.

[@hadarawilson5947]

I was exposed to .001 gys by being abducted by grey aliens

[@AAjax]

This was very thorough, and I love the tropes vs reality angle - would love to see more of that. Great job, SciShow!

[@Bigfoot_With_Internet_Access]

I'm pretty much safe from radiation out here in my woods

[@adamarens3520]

Just Some Bigfoot With Internet Access except for background radiation.

[@Phootaba]

Everyone knows that's exactly where the secret radio active research is conducted! *duh*

[@krashd]

You're safer from radiation when indoors.

[@uegvdczuVF]

Liar! We all know you used to be human and radiation mutated you in to Bigfoot! How else would you have internet access in the woods...

[@drabberfrog]

How often do you comment on KZbin video? I see your comments all the time!

[@Nosirrbro]

0:40 Not technically true, in cases of extremely rapid bursts of radiation in criticality incidents, like what happened in the Tokaimura accident, severe skin burns just from the radiation itself can cause that (there are a lot of photos of the person closest to the Tokaimura criticality incident, don’t google them)

[@GabZonY]

that's why he added the qualifier that it would be safe to hug a person with radiation sickness only if they've changed clothes and had a shower first

[@Nosirrbro]

GabZonY Literally just got to that part of the video and then deleted that part, and then saw your comment... I should know better than to post before finishing the video...

[@ise1441]

@@GabZonY But that's also not inherently true. there are cases where this has happened despite the change in clothes and showered.

[@UniCrafter]

@Optical Clarity gammas bad, but alpha and beta emission is way worse, and people around them would be safe, even skin is thick enough to stop alpha, and a cm of flesh should stop beta

[@timrosencrans7955]

Optical Clarity that’s exactly why gammas aren’t much of a worry. The vast majority will pass right though you with no effect.

[@TheRadicalOwl]

Looks like Stargate SG-1 got it pretty spot on with Daniel Jackson towards the end of the fifth season.

[@JNCressey]

So you're saying the path to ascension is to get irradiated?

[@WouldntULikeToKnow.]

My first thought when I saw this video. Good to know there are still other Stargate fans out there!

[@Jocken333]

Daniel's situation was somewhat referential to the deaths of Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin. Those situations of physically handling a large radioactive mass are generally in the >50gy "nothing anyone can do" category.

[@thestargateking]

Radical Larry SG1 was also one of if not the first sci-fi show to use the idea of black holes with time dilation.

[@sanityisrelative]

I came looking for this comment. Thank you.

[@s.mcdade8233]

At first I thought you were talking about on the train, I was like, "this seems like a very specific movie we're talking about".

[@lexer_]

I complained about a previous video that didn't properly explain this part. This kind of seems like a companion video about exactly this. Now I am happy and content. Thanks, SciShow. You are doing a great job.

[@jaykaufman9782]

Great video! You did a great job of explaining a complex subject.

[@DJduje]

As a radiation professional who deals with the technical aspects of radiation emergencies, I approve of this message. Radiation is an interesting topic that most people have very little understanding of. You mentioned how 0.7 Gy is a lot of radiation, and you are absolutely right, but even at those levels ARS is not likely. You usually can only tell that a person received 0.7 Gy by testing their blood. A little more radiation and symptoms are more likely (1-1.5 Gy), but death is not likely until ~2-2.5 Gy (basically a threshold). Interesting fact: the highest whole body dose received during the Fukushima incident was 0.67 Gy, with one worker, and nobody got ARS. Most of the public received near background levels. There are no anticipated discernible effects from radiation exposure at Fukushima. Thank you so much for mentioning the fact that no one off site of the Chernobyl plant got ARS. Ugh, the show HBO Chernobyl got so much wrong. That's what you get for basing the show off a book that only uses flawed first hand accounts that aren't verified. Interesting fact about Chernobyl: only ~15 deaths from cancer (all thyroid cancer, which shows the importance of iodine tablets) have been attributed to the incident as of 2017 (www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2017/Chernobyl_WP_2017.pdf). That makes the total radiation death toll of the worst nuclear power plant accident ~47, so far. That number is unlikely to climb much higher than 100.

[@nickkei2838]

As a Japanese resident, I really thank you for posting this comment. There is a lot of people out in the world that claims Tokyo has radiation issues and the Olympics should not be held.

[@dannore8077]

Wait so stargate sg1 had the most accurate radiation death

[@defiantnight2668]

Yep

[@greensteve9307]

Apparently! :)

[@runakovacs4759]

The Expanse is also pretty close! Altho no death there. They basically had internal bleeding after being highly active for a few hours following exposure in the 50 Gy range IIRC. Wound up getting treated for a long with transfusions and stuff. And then treated life-long with pills to compensate for permanent damage.

[@temporaneo617]

I was going to comment that

[@Yora21]

Metro Exodus also has a good moment of two characters getting severe ARS. Though I think even with a super dirty bomb, being exposed for a few hours 20 years after the explosion wouldn't affect them that severely. But aside from the time compression, it seems pretty good.

[@bjjblackbelt513]

Love your videos keep them coming! Thanks!

[@daveayerstdavies]

The worst movie mistake relating to radiation is the conflating of radiation exposure with radioactive contamination.

[@autopartsmonkey7992]

yes..getting hit with a blast of gama rays might not be so great...but its prob not gona be as bad as having some active iodine absorbed into your thyroid. which is what actually killed most people who were nuked..

[@autopartsmonkey7992]

@@moralesriveraomar233 no...you are a moron it seems....google it before you comment at look like an idiot...it took 10 seconds fool...So the short answer is that sticking your head inside a particle accelerator should cause a burn hole straight through your skull. Or, if you're lucky like Bugorski was, you'll skip the head hole and just have to deal with a slew of other health problems

[@autopartsmonkey7992]

@@moralesriveraomar233 In fact, even a block of copper weighing 6,000 tons would instantly melt into a liquid when exposed to so much energy.

[@moralesriveraomar233]

This guy stuck his head in a particle accelerator (accidentally) and survived: curiosity.com/topics/anatoli-bugorski-the-man-who-put-his-head-inside-a-particle-accelerator-and-survived-curiosity/ It wasn't the LHC or something like that but it happened. As for the iodine you could survive as the video said, but you can get cancer for that

[@michajastrzebski4383]

​@@autopartsmonkey7992 yeah, alpha emmiters inside your body are the worst. Hard to get out, and high particle mass/energy. Also, neutrons are not the best to get hit with. Gamma photons are very penetrating and can hit you even in cover, but that also means they will more often also penetrate YOU and go on flying, instead of depositing their energy into you.

[@dylc5604]

Hollywood says you can survive a nuclear explosion by hiding in a fridge*

[@NeverSuspects]

You can! As long as that fridge is in a bunker built to withstand the indirect blast from a nuclear weapon and the fridge doesn't latch shut and only have a handle on the outside locking you in so you eventually suffocate.

[@michaelcarrinton585]

If its lead lined; Yes. Have to get me one of those.😂

[@BigUriel]

Hollywood also says that if a nuclear explosion happens nearby the radiation exposure is a real concern. It's not, if a nuclear explosion takes place that close the shock wave and the fourth degree burns are what you should really worry about. If a nuke goes off in your town and you end up dying of cancer you're a lucky man.

[@ianmoseley9910]

Were lead lined fridges ever a thing? Would have thought it would be a hazard (heavy metal poisonong)

[@slithra227]

@@ianmoseley9910 Well you see until a few decades ago we didn't actually know that lead could kill us

[@maryjanehansen7947]

i've been so interested in radiation ever since learning about the radium girls last year. unfortunately i keep freaking myself out learning too much or seeing horrific images of people afflicted.

[@carolynallisee2463]

Thank you for this video- I studied chemistry when younger, and all I knew about ARS ( which I knew as Radiation Sickness) was what I'd seen in films and TV. It's nice to have information conveyed in a clear, calm objective manner, something which seems to be getting very rare these days!

[@erichimmelblau877]

The Expanse is the only TV show I've seen that gets radiation exposure right.

[@brynawaldman5790]

One thing I found unsettling is that the scientists who stayed on shift at Chernobyl, attempting heroically to shut it down, got real dark tan, quickly, at night. Now a tan doesn't make you sick, but it gives an idea of how their bodies were getting bombarded.

[@papaelf420]

"the brain's vomit center"

[@lizichell2]

Frighteningly fascinating. Very well done, clear and informative

[@ChenaStarBoy]

I really appreciate Sci Show for producing entertaining & onbrand media. I get exactly what I expect & what I expect is fun science stuffs

[@dariengoossen9544]

I have been taking notes on this stuff... not for a grade but just because I want to be a geneticist when I grow up.

[@infraredplayer]

Darien Goossen Cool! Nice cat btw

[@lacedhexes]

I recommend reading about DNA repair mechanisms, it's cool

[@slanderousstyx1873]

I wish you the best with your aspirations!

[@seagreen42]

Oh good, another radiation video just before I have to move and pack radioactive samples at work :/

[@mrreymundo5383]

This was very well presented and full of useful facts. Thanks!

[@GetGoodAtThat]

Now this was done VERY WELL! Good job guys. All radiation sickness curiosity satisfied! 👏

[@inigobirden2155]

When it comes to radiation often people see the events of incidents and assume the effects from critical exposure apply to lesser exposures and it is not the case, however the effects from critical exposure are quite extreme and the symptoms of damage can include literal burns from the radiation which when trying to clarify what radiation sickness truly is should be mentioned. I think this video's main goal of clarifying things was not met because in order to explain why the depictions are wrong one has to go over the major differences of what kinds of damage the radiation does, at the moment of exposure and over time and how depictions can mix up the two.

[@pills-]

This

[@jamielonsdale3018]

9:13 is probably referring to the Bridge of Death near Chernobyl

[@autopartsmonkey7992]

urban myth...or fake news...one or the other.. never happened

[@Reynosorex]

Great Video! I now understand more about the radiation myths

[@kiloalphahotel5354]

Thanks for the vid. Always great.

[@carpemkarzi]

Thx for this video, will save me time next time I see the usual misinformation..I can save my voice and just send them to this video. Great vid as well

[@fuckablepancakes]

“My son wesly kinda glows”-the lorax movie

[@ArsenalCOYG-tr6do]

Great video! Very informative thanks 🙏

[@pieterboning]

I really love these videos!!!!

[@klardfarkus3891]

ARS is not the only health risk associated with radiation exposure.

[@therflash]

Cancer is the other risk, and that's pretty much it. 100 millisieverts in a year probably increase your chance of getting cancer further in your life by about half a percent, although we don't know the exact values. So, with the 0.7 grey he was talking about, you'd get a mild ARS, from which you'd be almost guaranteed to recover, unless you had some other conditions too. After that, your chance of cancer in your life will increase by about 3.5%. That doesn't sound too bad to a single person, but ofcourse, if it's an entire city that gets 0.7 grey per person, statistically, there are gonna be a lot of cancers in the decades to come.

[@purplealice]

In 2010 and 2011 I was treated for cancer with radiation beams from a LINAC (which fired high-energy electrons at a "target" to produce X-rays). I had two separate sets of treatments, each consisting of 25 greys spread out over 25 days (more or less). The first one was after a hysterectomy, and they irradiated pretty much my entire pelvic region. I developed gastrointentinal distress (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and pain) after the first few treatments. The other 25-grey treatment was after breast cancer, and I got nasty and painful skin burns that did go away after the radiation treatments were finished. And all my friends asked me if I had developed any superpowers, but I didn't. I am now dealing with some long-term aftereffects of both sets of treatments, which I was only sort of warned about. But when someone says, "You shouldn't eat certain foods, because they're preserved from spoilage by being irradiated", I say, "That's okay, so have I."

[@shanesmith3453]

They never really mention the fallout before you start treatment, huh? I had none! 10 years after treatment, my burns have remained as open ulcers that have never closed, bleed every day & skin / grafts die away.

[@purplealice]

@@shanesmith3453 At least I don't have any more cancer.

[@G4rr3tt]

Thank you so much for this!

[@WiseGuy02]

I wouldn't hold up Chernobyl as an example of truthful reporting.

[@m2heavyindustries378]

I wouldn't hold you up as an example of unbiased non-Russian propaganda either, and yet here we are

[@tangerinecrawdaddy5598]

zonescat lmao they’re both talking about the real incident, not the television show

[@PaintHerWhite]

Or anything on CNN.

[@Croz89]

I saw the thumbnail and thought the London Underground was radioactive!

[@adamallen1097]

In the 2019 HBO Chernobyl series wasn’t the wife of one of the firemen told she couldn’t touch or be close to him because she was pregnant, as a baby in development is very vulnerable to radiation?

[@CharxGaming]

I thought it was cause they thought she might get irradiated

[@theheadone]

the skin and clothes block most radiation. It's really only gamma radiation and x-rays that can penetrate skin and likely (as he said in this video) there is no way that he could've been emitting that unless he was still wearing contaminated clothes and they didn't wash him. edit: if she would've for some reason breathed in or swallowed something that was contaminated then maybe, but there is still some tissue separating the baby from that unless it got into her blood stream or digested, I'm a bit more unclear on how that'd work.

[@josephburchanowski4636]

Yeah they said that in the series. It is factually untrue. The show decided to reenact some famous stories of Chernobyl, yet didn't go through much effort to see if they are true. The husband wouldn't have been radioactive unless he didn't get showered yet, as such the baby was perfectly safe. There is a lot of false stories about Chernobyl that are quite popular. Another thing the series got wrong was they said the steam explosion if the molten core touched the water it would cause a 2-4 megaton steam explosion. It is kind of laughable how wrong the number is. The biggest thermal nuclear bomb in the US arsenal right now is only 1.2 megatons of TNT. Meanwhile at worst (assuming the highest possible corium temperature) the steam explosion at Chernobyl would still be below 1 kiloton yield. Likely less than 10 t yield of TNTs; so off by maybe a factor of 200,000. Also as bonus with hindsight (yes everything I said earlier was presuming no hindsight knowledge of Chernobyl; merely using knowledge available at the time). The steam explosion would be precisely zero in yield as the corium cold down too much while melting and mixing with the concrete that if it were to contact water, it would do nothing spectacular other than boil it.

[@slappy8941]

Lots of nuclear physicists in this thread...

[@CobaltHex]

@@josephburchanowski4636 remember that the show is re-enacting a group of people who were not taught anything about radiation. so even if its not true in reality, that doesn't mean the show is portraying it incorrectly

[@USMC-es4yy]

Well explained!!

[@krzysztofczarnecki8238]

Getting irradiated in hopes of getting a useful mutation is like repetitively hitting a keyboard with your head and expecting to write a useful program that way.

[@MacTechG4]

It seemed to work for Microsoft ;)

[@kuutti6777]

And don't forget Daniel Jackson's radiation poisoning in Meridian(SG1)!😊

[@mosquitobight]

I like how the radiation sickness turned Captain Kirk and the landing party gray and wrinkly in a matter of hours, and the synthetic adrenaline treatment changed them instantly back.

[@gv1685]

This video got me an A on my essay a few months ago. Thank you.

[@NealB123]

Excellent video. Good explanation of ARS.

[@n0username0n]

The tv show The Expanse had it displayed pretty well! Worth a watch! Aha

[@theclockworksolution8521]

n0username0n I thought they got the symptoms pretty accurate, but when the two guys literally just plug into a machine and it just "makes them better" (I know they said they can't have kids or whatever, but going from almost dying to that being to that?) that made me roll my eyes. You don't just "get better" like that from ARS, especially if you got sick THAT soon after being irradiated, which means you have a pretty hefty dose... their DNA should've been totally rekt after that...

[@Keithustus]

@@theclockworksolution8521 it’s the future, so they can flush out radiation-damaged tissue much better than we can now.

[@rickseiden1]

All I could think of this whole video, and I'm surprised you didn't mention it, was The Demon Core.

[@Articulate99]

Always interesting, thank you.

[@dylanfinch2951]

I got radiation blisters on my back one time when I forgot to wear sunscreen in the pool.

[@woodfur00]

"We wouldn't have superhero movies if we let reality get in the way of a good origin story" is quotable.

[@PiscesPeanut]

*Legasov has been summoned*

[@brendakrieger7000]

Thank you setting the record straight

[@malachichampion]

I've been looking for a breakdown of exactly how radiation...breaks down a person. Thank you sci show!

[@TomsBackyardWorkshop]

Do a video on the effects of non-ionizing radiation.

[@louf7178]

Temperature rise.

[@sdfkjgh]

0:46 There's a Pirate joke in here, I just know it!

[@dedmanwalking14]

I always wondered what happened to the lead singer of Hoobastank. Glad to see he's still out there doing things.

[@thekornwulf]

I have much respect for the mention of On the Beach. Great book, great film.

[@TomBerryBW]

As British person I read the thumbnail as radiation on the london underground...

[@teakvandergarderen2973]

As a non-British person, I also read it that way.

[@ianmoseley9910]

Pedantically the Tube is only the bored tunnel parts, not the cut and cover.

[@UloPe]

Y U no use Sievert?

[@DeputatKaktus]

Ulrich Petri Gy is an absolute measurement of the amount of radiation energy in Joules per mass that the tissue is exposed to. Sievert measures biological effects such as elevated cancer risks resulting from the actual absorption of radiation energy. It is therefore not used when it comes to really high doses that will produce an effect that can be clearly linked to the exposure not matter what. Makes sense to me, because if you have a severe case of ARS, the prospect of developing cancer is probably the least of your worries. Maybe this comparison helps: If you expose a person that is normally fit and well to the amount of a cup of water by throwing it at the person, there is a non-zero chance that said person will drown in it. The likelihood of this happening is exceedingly low, because not much of the water (if any) will land in a critical area such as the airways. The combination of the amount of water absorbed vs the risk of drowning is roughly what Sieverts would represent. Sure, if you force the water directly I to the airways, you would get a different outcome, but this is not how water (and radiation) exposure works when it comes to non-medical cases, so I am ignoring this scenario. But if you take, say, two cubic meters of water and throw it at the same person all at once, it is almost certain that some of it will make it into the person‘s airways, making the calculated likelihood from our Sievert equivalent irrelevant. (I am also not factoring in the fact that hurling two metric tons of water at a person will cause other biological effects that are no less deadly but have nothing to do with drowning.)

[@JNCressey]

It's quite complicated how there's so many different quantities you can look at, 'amount of radiation that passes through you', 'amount of that radiation that's absorbed', and 'effective dose'

[@UloPe]

Tim Berghoff interesting, thanks for the detailed reply to my snarky comment. Strangely in Germany it seems to be common to always use Sievert when talking about human exposure. The federal office for radiation protection has tables that go up to 8 Sv.

[@DeputatKaktus]

Ulrich Petri The reason behind this is probably that Sievert describes radiation and its effects from the perspective of the „recipient“, in this case a human. Gray, as far I understand it, describes the amount of radiation deposited in an object from the perspective of the „sender“ or source. In medical applications, for instance in radiation therapy for cancer patients, radiation doses are measured in Gy. It is not uncommon to have two-digit figures of Gy administered over multiple sessions, but of course in a very small localized area. Grüße aus Bochum! 👋🏻😃

[@Globovoyeur]

The worst exposures I've read about are the cases of radiation therapy machines found at scrap-metal dealers. The people who buy them are often ignorant of what they are, and will heedlessly break them up. See the incident in Goiania, Brazil for an example.

[@RobinOnYew]

had a teacher who worked in a nuclear plant, he told me a story of a room, which could have had radiation, and when it had, people would go in it, in full lead suits. one time the sign that was suppose to announce that radiation was present was off, and the worker who worked without a suit in that room pretty much told all his loved one's goodbye and died a few days later. (physics teacher, he quit that job for a more calm lower wage job)

[@VOLAIRE]

So it won’t turn you into a super hero :/

[@ChannelMiner]

Nah, you have to give it to a spider and let it bite you.

[@neomamuro]

But it might turn you into a super villain. So depending on your views on morality, it might be a plus. So if you're an evil tyrant who dreams of destroying the world, feel free to exposing yourself to lots and lots of radiation. Mortals like me can't take that much power, but I'm pretty sure you can.

[@zachschreck]

It might activate the X-Gene, if you're a latent mutant.

[@Infinite8blue]

It's one in a trillion chance of getting super powers

[@discordant8543]

It'll turn you into Deathman(!) Your power will be..... Dying

[@DarkMephiles]

"Radiation won't give you superpowers." Well duh. Nobody actually believes that. "And there is no Godzilla." I bet you tell kids there's no Santa either!

[@catherinebirch2399]

The part about the x at a and c.f. scans was reassuring. I've often worried about getting cancer from having a dental or chest x ray.

[@WhiteRhinoPSO]

I feel like the writers of Godzilla '98 somehow went forward in time and based the early concepts for Nick Tatopoulus on this guy. Great video, I learned a lot about radiation that I hadn't known before. I am a little let down that now I'm going to have that much more trouble suspending my disbelief at video games and movies that don't portray radiation sickness correctly.

[@EmmaAppleBerry]

I thought you meant The Tube as in London Underground!!! 😂😂😂

[@SportyMabamba]

I’m not aware of any radioactive experiments on London Underground but there were at least 2 studies using “harmless” bacteria to study the risk from biological warfare

[@Ngamotu83]

Wait. So you're telling me that I won't become a big green smashing hulk if I expose myself to radiation? Guess I better shut down my gamma ray experiment then.

[@MacTechG4]

“Mayor West, you have Lymphoma…”

[@MariaJose-ub9rt]

Im studying a nuclear medicine career and this videos helps me a lot !!! Thank you 🌟

[@georgigeorgiev4871]

Oh my God, I looked all around the internet to find some info about that "latent stage" and found nothing! Thanks a bunch! Sh*t's interesting.

[@christelheadington1136]

A movie, who's name I have blessedly forgotten, had some pink smoke leaking from a nuke power plant, and onto a school bus. This resulted in the children murdering their parents and the rest of the adults in town.

[@theclockworksolution8521]

Christel Headington *wHAt do YoU MeAN? ThAt's ExACtLy hoW RaDiaTIoN WoRKs*

[@dragonskunkstudio7582]

So I could stick my face into a nuclear reactor my face won't look like a tomato pizza?

[@uegvdczuVF]

It would not. The super heated water would remove your face...

[@avi8aviate]

Nah, the latent stage is where your games lag really badly.

[@davewave1982]

I’m a radiographer and we are all aware of radiation hazards as part of our work And I’m glad to finally see a real portrayal of actual radiation risks but it does leave the question as to why a show like the 2019 Chernobyl miniseries, which tried to be accurate, would fail on such key points as radiation sickness. Especially brings to mind the scenes where the wife who was pregnant wanted to hug her husband all the time and she ended up with radiation problems. I assume the firefighter wasn’t scrubbed well but I can’t really think of any reason a firefighter would be exposed to such a radiation hazard as to be radioactive himself. Good video.

[@theclockworksolution8521]

davewave1982 I think what a lot of people don't stop to think about with the HBO show is that the show is largely based off of a book, which itself is based off of firsthand accounts of the accident (which makes sense given the themes of human loss and suffering it decidedly focuses on). But firsthand accounts are very often inaccurate, even without intentional dramatization. The HBO show chose to stick to first-person stories, and in these first-person stories, real people like Ludmilla were told incorrect information. It's really important to remember that the HBO is trying to show what the people experienced, regardless of whether or not what they did and thought were actually true. To the real people who heard things like "your husband is radioactive so you can't touch him" from real nurses who at the time thought that was the truth, it didn't matter that that info might be wrong, because these people lived their lives thinking that it was true. When many of the children were evacuated from Pripyat in real life, and need to be housed with host families in other cities temporarily, eligible host families would constantly refuse them, because they thought that bringing a contaminated kid into their home would poison all of them (even though that wasn't true). It's just what people thought at the time of the accident, so that's how they acted. I think that in many shows that try for scientific accuracy, that fact that ARS and radiation in general was misrepresented would seriously hurt it, but HBO's Chernobyl was always about the *human experience* of the accident. As much as it WAS most likely trying to tell scientific fact, and failed on that account, in relation to the story it was trying to tell, I never found that factual inaccuracy hurt it as much as I thought it would, because, like I said, the people who told their stories lived their whole lives like this wrong info was real. To them it WAS real, and the show is much more about the human stories than the actual disaster.

[@TGNXAR]

"0.7 Gy doesn't sound like a lot." Which is why REM works better as a measure of exposure. It produces numbers in a range that humans intuitively understand. BTW, 0.7 Gy = 70 REM.

[@mattbartley2843]

Actually 0.7 Gy = 70 RADs and 0.7 Sv = 70 REMs. REMs or Sieverts are RADs or Grays, but adjusted for the type and sometimes particle energy of the radiation, and in some contexts also adjusted for which part of the body got hit, if not the whole body. Simple case: gamma or Xrays to whole body, where there is no adjustment, so REMs = RADs and Sieverts = Grays. Even more convenient units are miliSieverts. Typical yearly background radiation ~= 3 mSv, previously mentioned CT scan is typically 10 mSv, etc. (Actually the reports from the CT scans I've had quoted a dose in mGy, but since they were abdominal I don't know how that converts to mSv.) I don't get how units like Roentgens work into this though...

[@TGNXAR]

@@mattbartley2843 It's the amount of energy deposited in air by radiation. There is a conversion for this into REM (and Sv) based upon type of radiation. EDIT: Also, abdominal exposure is much more pressing, since your digestive tract REALLY doesn't like radiation.

[@chaoton]

Reports on Fukushima Plant's patient who got exposed to extreme radiation haunted me through this whole video.

[@nickkei2838]

Damadicius Phoenixia WHO clearly states that there were no casualties due to radiation from the Fukushima nuclear accident. Please check your sources.

[@cromfayer]

This makes me so sad hearing about the fate of many in our past. Though great video very informative.

[@dogwalker666]

When I worked at the Atomic Weapons establishment we were given a blister pack of iodine tablets and told if the sirens went off to swallow the tablets straight away. Then go to the shelter.