Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, what would you sacrifice for the sake of
Speaker 1: a big scientific discovery. Oh, that's a good question. I
Speaker 1: would give up something juicy. I don't know, weekends, evenings, maybe,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, a pinky toe. I'd probably give
Speaker 1: up a pinky toe. Really, you wouldn't sacrifice your life
Speaker 1: for science. You wouldn't risk your life for a big breakthrough.
Speaker 1: I would love to reveal something deep about the universe,
Speaker 1: but now I'd like to live to see it. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think scientific breakthroughs are worth
Speaker 1: sacrificing your life. Well, you know, some of my my history's
Speaker 1: most famous scientists, like Marie Cree, died to make their
Speaker 1: prize winning discoveries. That's true, and I'm pretty impressed. Though
Speaker 1: I wonder if she really understood, like in advance, how
Speaker 1: dangerous that research she was doing actually was. But let
Speaker 1: me turn the table on you. Are you willing to
Speaker 1: risk your life or something like a really tasty snack?
Speaker 1: How tasty are we talking about? We're talking and long
Speaker 1: yellow and comes naturally wrapped in its own um, in
Speaker 1: its own packaging. Oh man, our snacks deadly? Now what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Well, I'm sorry to be the
Speaker 1: one to tell you, but there's something in common between
Speaker 1: Madame Curies research in your favorite snack. Have you heard
Speaker 1: the joke of what did Pierre Cree tell Mary Curry? Now,
Speaker 1: what did Pierre Curry tell Mary Cury? He said, my dear,
Speaker 1: you are positively glowing tonight. You look radiant, Oh man.
Speaker 1: I am Jorge. I'm a cartoonist and the creator of
Speaker 1: PhD Comics. I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist, and together
Speaker 1: were the authors of the book We Have No Idea
Speaker 1: and the host of this cast, Daniel and Jorge Explain
Speaker 1: the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio, in which
Speaker 1: we look at things in the universe that makes sense
Speaker 1: or don't make sense, or or are slightly confusing or
Speaker 1: very confusing, and break them down for you to make
Speaker 1: sure we understand what's actually going on. That's right, all
Speaker 1: the amazing things in the universe that will astound you
Speaker 1: and amaze you and possibly also kill you or save
Speaker 1: your life. Sometimes there are good sides to things that
Speaker 1: sound dangerous. Yeah, like bananas. Like bananas. Yes, bananas are
Speaker 1: a double edged snack, exactly as we'll get into on
Speaker 1: this podcast. You mean like you eat them and they're delicious,
Speaker 1: But then the peel you can slip on and die. Well,
Speaker 1: I assume that you're always wearing you know, safety gear
Speaker 1: when you eat a banana, right, banana slipproof shoes. No,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about a helmet. If you have a helmet home,
Speaker 1: you eat a banana, then you know it's no big deal.
Speaker 1: I see, I seem to be On the podcast. We're
Speaker 1: tag playing a subject that a couple of people asks online,
Speaker 1: but which is kind of a big deal. It's in
Speaker 1: our everyday lives. We use it all the time, and
Speaker 1: it can be both dangerous and can also save your
Speaker 1: life at the same time. It's something you hear about
Speaker 1: a lot in science and science fiction. It's something that's
Speaker 1: vaguely mysterious, and I think has suffered from a bad
Speaker 1: PR campaign. It definitely, I think is associated with something bad.
Speaker 1: But as we want to show you in today's podcast,
Speaker 1: there's two sides to every particle. So today on the podcast,
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about radiation. Is it good for you?
Speaker 1: Is it bad for you? Spicy? Mild? What is radiation anyway?
Speaker 1: Is it fizzle when you eat it tastes like bananas? Right?
Speaker 1: Is it that are those cans that put on your tongue,
Speaker 1: Are those actually radioactive? Right? No? I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think radiation sort of has a bad name in society, right,
Speaker 1: Like nobody thinks radiation and things. Oh, I could use
Speaker 1: some of that, thanks, Actually, where do I get some? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It definitely is a boogeyman, right, It's definitely something that
Speaker 1: people are afraid of. And I think the roots of
Speaker 1: it are are that it's something that's sort of recently discovered,
Speaker 1: you know, like our ancestors had no idea about radiation.
Speaker 1: It's something that it's a product of modern science. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was sort of discovered not too long ago, right,
Speaker 1: maybe a hundred years Yeah, exactly. So around the turn
Speaker 1: of the century, like eight late eighteen hundreds, people started
Speaker 1: to discover X rays and cathude rays and all sorts
Speaker 1: of other kind of rays, and they didn't really know
Speaker 1: what it was. It was this new mysterious thing. It
Speaker 1: was invisible. It could develop photographs, you could you could
Speaker 1: see it on photographic film. Um. Later they discovered it
Speaker 1: could kill you, right, Um, it could you could use
Speaker 1: it to like take pictures of the inside of the body.
Speaker 1: It was mysterious and weird. Um and so it's kind
Speaker 1: of new, it's kind of it's powerful, right, it kind
Speaker 1: of violates our everyday intuition. Yeah, exactly. And I think
Speaker 1: that's part of the the scariness of it is that
Speaker 1: it shows us that the world is different from what
Speaker 1: we understood, and that there's this untapped power, this untapped potential,
Speaker 1: which could be terribly dangerous. Right. For me, radiation is
Speaker 1: like the classic Frankenstein thing, like shows us that science
Speaker 1: has cracked open a whole new world. And it could
Speaker 1: go either way. Right, you could help you, or it
Speaker 1: could hurt you if you don't understand what what what
Speaker 1: you're doing, it could lead to dangerous side effects. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's also cracked open the world of superheroes.
Speaker 1: You know, without radiation, you wouldn't have Spider Man, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have the Hulk, you wouldn't have Captain America. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I think that that just reflects that, right. I
Speaker 1: think what you see in comic books are like reflect
Speaker 1: what the what the population is thinking about, what they
Speaker 1: are afraid of, right, which is why radiation played such
Speaker 1: a big role, you know, Spider Man, as you said,
Speaker 1: and Bruce banner and all that stuff, and these days
Speaker 1: it's more like you see a lot of ai kind
Speaker 1: of stuff in comic books, like the villain is some
Speaker 1: computer that's taking over the world or something. And so
Speaker 1: maybe radiation had its day as the as a scientific villain.
Speaker 1: But like you were saying, in society, we still think
Speaker 1: of it as as bad, right, Like nobody, um wants
Speaker 1: to get any of that radiation, That's right. I think
Speaker 1: if you say radiation, people think cancer, or they think
Speaker 1: nuclear bombs, or you know, evil scientists and lab coats
Speaker 1: cackling maniacally, right, not good things. But we're wondering, do
Speaker 1: you think people really understand radiation? Like do they know
Speaker 1: what it is, what it means? And is it all
Speaker 1: that bad? All? Right? Where it comes from? Right? How
Speaker 1: to make it? How to avoid it? Um? Are you
Speaker 1: getting some right now? Yeah? So we were wondering too
Speaker 1: people have understanding. The answer is yes, you are being
Speaker 1: radiated um right now. You listen to this podcast, right,
Speaker 1: and so you're listening, you're getting sonic radiation right now.
Speaker 1: But I'm not just from our the brilliance of our
Speaker 1: thoughts and words, but you are literally right now bathed
Speaker 1: in radiation. Probably unless you're in a lead box somewhere,
Speaker 1: in which case you probably have other problems. Then we
Speaker 1: have to ask, yeah, what are you doing in that
Speaker 1: lead box? What did you to deserve it? Right, it's
Speaker 1: probably your fault. Yeah, Well, as usual, we got curious,
Speaker 1: and so Daniel went out into the street as people
Speaker 1: random people on the street. What is radiation? That's right?
Speaker 1: And here's what people had to say. How would you
Speaker 1: define or describe radiation? What is radiation? The one form
Speaker 1: of radiation I know is like extray. They emit radiation.
Speaker 1: I know there are other forms also, Yeah, there's like
Speaker 1: EUV and other times. All right, cool, thanks very much.
Speaker 1: What is radiation? Um, it's some kind of like some
Speaker 1: kind of force or like chemical kind of that can
Speaker 1: like go through things like an experience, Like there's radiation.
Speaker 1: M R. There's radiations and it goes through things. Well,
Speaker 1: radiation is bad, I think if you absorb it. But
Speaker 1: isn't radiation just like the splitting off of like the
Speaker 1: breaking a part of like particles and atoms, And so
Speaker 1: they become like like isn't that kind of like related
Speaker 1: to free radicals or something? And what is radiation? A
Speaker 1: little bit about it? About radiation, but specifically UV radiation,
Speaker 1: which causes diamondine dimers, which is obviously cause of skin cancer.
Speaker 1: So that's a major concern. But then you have the
Speaker 1: ozone layer, which can block some harmful radiation is photon.
Speaker 1: So nope, well I don't know, like it like gives
Speaker 1: off like I don't know, it comes from somewhere, but
Speaker 1: like give you cancer and stuff like I don't know.
Speaker 1: Do you know what it's made out of? Like what
Speaker 1: you know? I don't know what it's made out of? Cool?
Speaker 1: What is radiation? I don't know. I think that makes
Speaker 1: superheroes or something. I don't know. I don't know. It's bad,
Speaker 1: it's bad, Okay, alright, great, alright, So I like the
Speaker 1: person who said that it's the thing that makes superheroes.
Speaker 1: I was like, yes, something, here's something good about radiation.
Speaker 1: It gives these superheroes exactly. I mean, that's what we
Speaker 1: should do. We should just like take a bunch of
Speaker 1: our soldiers and radiatum and see what happens. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: let's not do that. What could go What could go wrong? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what could go wrong? But a lot of people just
Speaker 1: kind of immediately went with that it's something bad. It's
Speaker 1: not good, definitely bad. Right, radiation, Big Radiations lobbying firm
Speaker 1: has a lot of work to do on changing the
Speaker 1: public perception of radiation. Oh man, I wouldn't want that job.
Speaker 1: I work for Big Radiation. You know. What they need
Speaker 1: to do is come up with like a cute anthropomorphic
Speaker 1: character for radiation and have, you know, smile and bounce
Speaker 1: around and the scream with a little Diddy playing in
Speaker 1: the background, like a cute little cancer seal or something exactly,
Speaker 1: a cute little wave or a cute little particle. Maybe Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm a proton. I'm here to help to give you
Speaker 1: cancer treatments, right, m I don't know. But but a
Speaker 1: lot of people just kind of had the idea that
Speaker 1: it's some sort of energy, some something that moves the
Speaker 1: propagates and goes through things. Right, that's yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: A lot of people were on the right track. A
Speaker 1: lot of people are on the right track. Faith thought
Speaker 1: it was bad. Some people didn't really know. So people
Speaker 1: listed an example of radiation, right, which is good, totally solid.
Speaker 1: I'd give them a solid it be on that answer. Um.
Speaker 1: And one of the guys whom I asked is actually
Speaker 1: a physics professor in my department costed on the street
Speaker 1: to ask him this question, and I gave a pretty
Speaker 1: good answer on the spot. So, um, I think we
Speaker 1: can we can break it down for people. What is radiation? Yeah,
Speaker 1: break it down from Dana, what is radiation? Radiation most
Speaker 1: generally can either be a particle or wave, but it's
Speaker 1: basically just energy moving through space, right, So it can
Speaker 1: be like photons, right, Like light is radiation. You know,
Speaker 1: all kinds of light, from radio waves to visible light,
Speaker 1: to X rays, to ultra violet light, to gamma rays
Speaker 1: that we talked about in a previous podcast, those are
Speaker 1: all examples of radiation. So basically light, you're saying. But
Speaker 1: like we covered in a previous podcast, light of different
Speaker 1: frequency have different names, but it's basically basically all this light.
Speaker 1: It's all. Yeah, there's lots of different kinds of light, right,
Speaker 1: which which comes because they have different they wiggle at
Speaker 1: different speeds, right, wiggle really really fast, the gamma rays
Speaker 1: that wiggle really really slow, their radio waves that wiggle
Speaker 1: in the middle of their visible light, and all light
Speaker 1: is radiation because it's energy moving through space, right, Like
Speaker 1: when the sun makes light and shines it on the earth.
Speaker 1: It's irradiating the earth. So next time you go out
Speaker 1: and like enjoy the sun's warmth, you are like absorbing
Speaker 1: radiation from the sun. Right, And so every photon you absorb,
Speaker 1: every photon that hits your eye technically is radiation, but
Speaker 1: it's not a particular frequency range where it's not a
Speaker 1: particular type of light. Like all light is considered radiation,
Speaker 1: Like the the light bulb in here in my house,
Speaker 1: in my room, that that that is emitting radiation that
Speaker 1: I'm receiving and I'm using it to see that's right.
Speaker 1: And here again we run into the same problem that
Speaker 1: we run into like all the time in this podcast,
Speaker 1: where we have a name that people use in language, radiation,
Speaker 1: and then we have the physics term, right, which is
Speaker 1: a technical definition, so the technical definition, and like in science,
Speaker 1: all light is radiation. Practically, when we you know, colloquially,
Speaker 1: when we talk about radiation, what we mean is damaging radiation,
Speaker 1: radiation that can hurt you, right, But technically light is radiation, right,
Speaker 1: all light, visible lights from the life of the photons
Speaker 1: in your room is also radiation. That's probably not what
Speaker 1: people mean when they say radiation, but technically it's true.
Speaker 1: And you know there are other things that are also radiation,
Speaker 1: like sound. Sound waves is radiation. It's acoustic radiation. Right.
Speaker 1: So I'm talking to my microphone, I'm irradiating this microphone,
Speaker 1: and then I'm irradiating your ears and you listener are
Speaker 1: being irradiated by our sonic vibrations right now. Wow. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that you're saying to physics technical definition, it's really
Speaker 1: just anything that moves and propagates through space. Yeah, anything
Speaker 1: that transfers energy. It can be particles, it can be waves.
Speaker 1: Some things are particles slash waves slash weird quantum mechanical things.
Speaker 1: We don't really understand. All that stuff is radiation. So
Speaker 1: that includes you know, protons and electrons and neutrons and
Speaker 1: alpha particles which are just helium nuclei. It even includes
Speaker 1: things like gravitational radiation, right, like gravitational waves that were
Speaker 1: detected recently by Ligo, that big interfrometer that saw the
Speaker 1: ripples in space and time when black holes collided. That's
Speaker 1: radiation also. So basically you're saying that anything that moves
Speaker 1: is radiation. It doesn't matter if it has energy, if
Speaker 1: he has no mass, anything that moves through space is radiation. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: me walking down the hall, I'm radiating down the hall.
Speaker 1: You know, I never thought of that, but yeah, you
Speaker 1: are radiation, that's true. I am a peper here, Danny.
Speaker 1: So radiation can't be all bad, right because it includes
Speaker 1: people nice people like you. So there you go, there
Speaker 1: you go, case closed, case closed. Radiation is not all bad. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But so from a technical point of view, radiation is everywhere.
Speaker 1: It is. It's all around us. Um. And you know
Speaker 1: sound is radiation, light is radiation, all this kind of stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: One person said, you know radiation is a chemical or
Speaker 1: it's a force, right, It's not. It's not really a
Speaker 1: chemical or force. Um. People do get treatment for cancer
Speaker 1: that's called chemotherapy, and some people think that involves radiation.
Speaker 1: It doesn't involves chemicals, which is it's called chemotherapy. Um.
Speaker 1: So radiation is not like a chemical you inject in
Speaker 1: your body. It's not a force. It's not like gravity
Speaker 1: or the electromagnetism or whatever. But though some of the
Speaker 1: particles that transmit those forces, like photons, are radiation, so
Speaker 1: it's not like its own force or its own chemical.
Speaker 1: So there are things that are not radiation. It's not
Speaker 1: everything not radiation. Yeah, there are things that are not radiation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and actually we live in a time in the
Speaker 1: universe when there isn't very much radiation. What. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you look at the history of the universe, like the
Speaker 1: really long scale history of the universe, the very early universe,
Speaker 1: there was a huge amount of radiation. Like if you say,
Speaker 1: take all the energy in the universe, right, what is
Speaker 1: what's in the universe that has energy? Well, there's matter, right,
Speaker 1: matter has energy, there's radiation, radiation has energy, right, and
Speaker 1: there's things like dark energy, mysterious forces that are expanding
Speaker 1: the universe we don't understand. Well, the interesting thing is
Speaker 1: that through the history of the universe, different slices of
Speaker 1: that pie have been dominant. So in the very early universe,
Speaker 1: most of the energy in the universe was in a
Speaker 1: radiation like big bang, huge explosion. Mostly it's just a
Speaker 1: bunch of photons. Oh, I see. But then something changed, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: some of that energy to transformed into something else has right,
Speaker 1: A lot of that energy is transformed into matter, right,
Speaker 1: And the universe spread out and cooled, right, and a
Speaker 1: lot of those photons were absorbed, right, they were sucked
Speaker 1: up by matter um which is no longer ionized like
Speaker 1: formed atoms, and those atoms could absorb photons. So for
Speaker 1: in the very first period of the universe, or like
Speaker 1: the first um sixty years or so, the universe was
Speaker 1: radiation dominated. Most of the energy in the universe is radiation.
Speaker 1: Then for billions of years it was matter dominated, like
Speaker 1: most of the energy and the universe was stored in
Speaker 1: matter um, and radiation was a smaller piece of the pie.
Speaker 1: And then for the last five billion years or so,
Speaker 1: those got outstripped by dark energy, this new mysterious thing
Speaker 1: which is expanding the universe and now eats seventy of
Speaker 1: the whole pie, the energy budge of the universe. Now
Speaker 1: we live in a dark energy dominated universe. Wow, so
Speaker 1: weird to think the universe is changing, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's it's a composition, what it's made out of is
Speaker 1: not constant. He sounds like somebody talking about your niece
Speaker 1: or nephew. You're like, you got so big, I can't
Speaker 1: believe you, Like, whoa, how did you get so so harry?
Speaker 1: What exactly used to be all radiation? And now you
Speaker 1: got these energy Now you're this emailed team I don't
Speaker 1: get it. Yeah, the universe is evolving and we don't know,
Speaker 1: like what's the next epoch of the universe, Right, Is
Speaker 1: dark energy going to go away? Is something else going
Speaker 1: to turn on and swamp dark energy? Radiation is gonna
Speaker 1: come roaring back? Or you know who knows? Right? But
Speaker 1: I like, I like sort of how you said that.
Speaker 1: There's sort of the official physics definition of radiation, and
Speaker 1: then there's the kind of cultural societal definition of radiation yea,
Speaker 1: which is kind of specifically which specifically means something that
Speaker 1: energy that's somehow causes damage or effects your bodily functions
Speaker 1: or your your cellular the things in your body. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: you can think of damaging radiation. It's sort of like
Speaker 1: really fast, super tiny little bullets. Each one can cause
Speaker 1: a tiny little bit of damage. And I think that's
Speaker 1: the kind of radiation people are most interested in. So
Speaker 1: let's focus on that for a minute, right. And there's
Speaker 1: kind of there's different kinds of radiation that can damage you, right.
Speaker 1: So for example, gamma rays, these are just high energy photons,
Speaker 1: but they have enough energy that they can penetrate through
Speaker 1: your skin and they can eye eyes. Ionizing means that
Speaker 1: it deposits enough energy on the electron in an atom
Speaker 1: that the electron it like escapes, right, It's like gets
Speaker 1: escape velocity, and so it can fly off and the
Speaker 1: atom then becomes an ion. And that's bad. It changes
Speaker 1: the chemistry that's happening inside your body, and it can
Speaker 1: change your DNA and can cause mutations and all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff. But wait, what about regular light, like from
Speaker 1: a light buelb. Why isn't that Why doesn't that one
Speaker 1: cause any damage? Because it's absorbed by your skin. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have enough energy to penetrate your skin. The higher
Speaker 1: the frequency, the higher the energy. So gamma rays have
Speaker 1: more energy than normal visible light. Normal visible light, you know,
Speaker 1: stopped by your skin. That's why your skin, that's why
Speaker 1: your body is not transparent, right because light can't pass
Speaker 1: through it. That's why you're not invisible. If light could
Speaker 1: pass through you, you would be invisible that you know of.
Speaker 1: But what do I mean that doesn't emit enough energy
Speaker 1: like it it gets to the cells in my skin
Speaker 1: and it doesn't another energy to puncture through to wiggle around.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Yeah, it's absorbed by the energy
Speaker 1: by the very outer layer of your skin, which is
Speaker 1: basically dead cells, right, and so it doesn't penetrate into
Speaker 1: anything important, whereas ultra violet light and gamma rays, those
Speaker 1: are the things that give you cancer and the reason
Speaker 1: they give you cancers because they go deeper into your skin.
Speaker 1: And so the way to protect yourself is like be
Speaker 1: inside because then the house absorbs the energy of the
Speaker 1: gamma rays or the UV light or wear sunscreen, right,
Speaker 1: because that has things in it that are good at
Speaker 1: absorbing um those kind of that frequency photon. So it's
Speaker 1: not it's not a it's is it an energy thing
Speaker 1: or like a frequency thing? You know, Like we had
Speaker 1: an episode about why is the sky blue and you
Speaker 1: said that the light it's because blue light is at
Speaker 1: the right sort of wavelength of that of the size
Speaker 1: of the molecules in the atmosphere, Is it something like
Speaker 1: that or is it just just energy, Just it just
Speaker 1: barrels through. It's just energy. Yeah, Just think of the
Speaker 1: body is like a bag of water, right, and it
Speaker 1: eventually gets slowed down and absorbed, and it's just a
Speaker 1: question of how deep into the body it gets. And
Speaker 1: so if it if it stops at the outermost layer
Speaker 1: where it's all just dead skin, then it doesn't really
Speaker 1: do any damage. Or you know, it gets stopped by
Speaker 1: your clothing, right, like visible like gets stopped by your clothing. Um,
Speaker 1: but if it gets into that bag of water and
Speaker 1: penetrates and you know, can ionize something important, then yet
Speaker 1: it can cause cancer. Well, it's interesting to me that
Speaker 1: it's not just like like gamma rays and X rays.
Speaker 1: It's also like radiation harmful. Radiation can be also like protons, right,
Speaker 1: and which is what I'm made out of and you're
Speaker 1: made out of. Like the things we're made out of
Speaker 1: can also be radioactive and and not good for you,
Speaker 1: that's right. And so like as we said before, like
Speaker 1: a proton can be good or bad. It can be
Speaker 1: part of a tasty snack, or it can come bringing cancer.
Speaker 1: And the only difference is that is whether it has energy.
Speaker 1: Like if I shoot a proton at you, and I
Speaker 1: could deposit a lot of energy in a part of
Speaker 1: your body, that's bad. Right, Think of a proton, it's
Speaker 1: like a tiny bullet. I mean, I could hand you
Speaker 1: a bullet. It's not going to kill you, right. A
Speaker 1: bullet by itself doesn't kill you. If I shoot a
Speaker 1: bullet at you really really fast, right, then it's gonna
Speaker 1: hurt you. Right, it's gonna deposit all of its energy
Speaker 1: in your body. It's gonna tear a hole in you.
Speaker 1: So it's the energy that that particle has that's the problem, right,
Speaker 1: not the particle itself. You're saying, bullets don't kill people.
Speaker 1: It's the protons. Kinetic energy kills people. Bullets people don't
Speaker 1: kill people. Physics stuff. Technically that's true. Oh man, oh man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be in trouble with the physics community after
Speaker 1: that comes out. You can deposit kinetic energy on somebody
Speaker 1: with lots of things, right. You could use a brick,
Speaker 1: you can use a bullet, you can use a rock like,
Speaker 1: you could even use a banana. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 1: But the thing that kills somebody is the kinetic energy transfer. Right,
Speaker 1: you hit somebody with a car, right, doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a small thing. You deposit a lot of kinetic
Speaker 1: energy on somebody, you're going to hurt them. Now, proton
Speaker 1: is basically just a super tiny bullet. And so if
Speaker 1: a uranium atom shoots out a proton a really high
Speaker 1: speed and it hits you, then you know it doesn't
Speaker 1: cause you make you bleed, but it can knock out
Speaker 1: some atoms and do some damage internally, which screws up
Speaker 1: the chemistry, and then it can give you cancer. Right,
Speaker 1: And I think specifically the problem is when it hits
Speaker 1: like a DNA molecule inside of you, that's when the
Speaker 1: mutations happen. That's what really kills the cells. Right, that's right.
Speaker 1: And again though it's not always bad. Right if one
Speaker 1: of your you know, sperm or eggs gets hit by
Speaker 1: a proton and it changes the DNA that you're passing
Speaker 1: on to your kids, maybe that's what makes your kid
Speaker 1: like the next Michael Phelps or Albert Einstein. Right, mutations
Speaker 1: can be good. It's a critical part of evolution that
Speaker 1: we have mutations to explore the evolutionary space. Radiation is
Speaker 1: an important part of how evolution works. So you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's bad, but also sometimes it's good.
Speaker 1: And I think we touched it. We talked about this
Speaker 1: a little bit in a previous cast, which is that
Speaker 1: it's kind of a sweet spot, right, Like, if if
Speaker 1: our planet had been in an area of the galaxy
Speaker 1: where there was a ton of radiation, then you probably
Speaker 1: couldn't develop living things. But at the same time, you
Speaker 1: need a little bit of radiation to kind of stimulate
Speaker 1: all that evolution and mutation to that, to that animals
Speaker 1: and species can evolve. Yeah, it's I think it's a
Speaker 1: difficult thing to study, right. It would be fantastically interesting
Speaker 1: to get to like simulate the Earth with more or
Speaker 1: less radiation and say, like would life evolve more rapidly
Speaker 1: with more radiation because things would mutate faster or everything
Speaker 1: you just get cancer and die off more quickly. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's a huge complex question because it's so
Speaker 1: interconnected with you know, ecosystems and how things live and
Speaker 1: die and eat each other. So I think it's really
Speaker 1: complex thing that I think physicists are attempted to simplifying superheroes. Um.
Speaker 1: But you touched on something interesting, which is that you
Speaker 1: know where the radiation comes from, right, Like, Um, A
Speaker 1: lot of the radiation that we worry about comes from space.
Speaker 1: It comes from our son. Our sun is a huge, huge,
Speaker 1: um factory of radiation. I mean, some of that radiation
Speaker 1: is good, like the light that you soak up when
Speaker 1: you're enjoing a nice day here in southern California, or
Speaker 1: the protons that make up the solar wind right that
Speaker 1: that that are really dangerous for astronauts. So what's more
Speaker 1: dangerous to be next to like a uranium stone or
Speaker 1: mine or to be out in space? Floating around out
Speaker 1: in space is really dangerous. Yeah, there's a huge amount
Speaker 1: of radiation out there, and the reason that we are
Speaker 1: protected from that radiation is because of our atmosphere. Our
Speaker 1: atmosphere absorbs most of it, like the protons and the
Speaker 1: gamma rays and the UVY light, most of that is
Speaker 1: absorbed by either the ozone or other parts of our
Speaker 1: atmosphere and protects it. It's like a huge shield. But
Speaker 1: of course it doesn't protect you from all of it. Right,
Speaker 1: A lot of uvy light makes it to the surface
Speaker 1: and can give you a sunburn and maybe even skin cancer. Right,
Speaker 1: But definitely out in space. Out in space is a
Speaker 1: very high radiation environment. All right, let's get into a
Speaker 1: bit more. But first let's take a quick break. All Right,
Speaker 1: we're talking about radiation, and we know that it's um
Speaker 1: It's basically anything that moves around with energy kind of right, Like,
Speaker 1: it can be protons, or it can be electrons, or
Speaker 1: it could just be light that hits you and imparts
Speaker 1: energy on you. That's right, and a lot of it
Speaker 1: comes from space. We're saying the atmosphere protects us, but
Speaker 1: you know, the atmosphere is not super thick, and the
Speaker 1: higher up you go in the atmosphere, the less atmosphere
Speaker 1: you have to protect yourself, which is why every time
Speaker 1: you take, for example, of flight across the country or
Speaker 1: around the world, you're actually getting a pretty serious dose
Speaker 1: of radiation. Really so that the plane doesn't protect you
Speaker 1: like the shell of the plane. No, the shell the
Speaker 1: plane is not enough to stop protons and really high
Speaker 1: energy photons from penetrating. You need to be like really
Speaker 1: thick lead. And remember airplanes are designed to be light
Speaker 1: so that they can fly right and be fuel efficient.
Speaker 1: And so for example, this is why UM flight attendants
Speaker 1: and pilots are limited in how many flights they can
Speaker 1: take because otherwise they all get cancer. Wow, because of
Speaker 1: the radiation. Radiation. Yeah, and you know those folks are
Speaker 1: exposed to more radiation than people who work at like
Speaker 1: nuclear power plants. Really. Yeah, no, it's a serious amount.
Speaker 1: And I actually know this because you know, I work
Speaker 1: on this app that detects particles using your phone, and
Speaker 1: some of the best data we get is when we
Speaker 1: fly around the world, like we fly to Discern all
Speaker 1: the time in Switzerland and back, and we take these
Speaker 1: long flights, we run the app. You don't put it
Speaker 1: on airplane mode like you're supposed to know. We put
Speaker 1: it on airplane mode. But then we turn on our
Speaker 1: app and we can see those particles like we can
Speaker 1: see them zooming through the through the device. So it's
Speaker 1: it's definitely a lot of radiation up there. Um, you have,
Speaker 1: do you put on some block whenever you get on
Speaker 1: an airplane. Sun block won't help you from protons man
Speaker 1: or from Gama raise. No, protect you from the UV light,
Speaker 1: but not from Gamma raise and not from protons. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of those up there. Um. So you know,
Speaker 1: if you're the kind of person who's like, you know,
Speaker 1: not sure you want to take a dental X ray
Speaker 1: because of the radiation, but you're happy to take a
Speaker 1: flight to Thailand. Remember there's a lot of radiation on
Speaker 1: those flights. Wow. Does that mean that people who fly
Speaker 1: a lot age faster, possibly they're definitely an increased risk
Speaker 1: for cancer? Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, exactly. I think that. I
Speaker 1: think that's something a lot of people don't realize that
Speaker 1: there's radiation sources in our everyday lives. Right, You don't
Speaker 1: just have to avoid nuclear plant meltdowns or nuclear weapons
Speaker 1: or evil scientists like their sources of radiation in our
Speaker 1: everyday lives. Not just an airplane though, also a lot
Speaker 1: of things that we eat have radiation. Yeah. I heard
Speaker 1: um something near and dear to me and that our
Speaker 1: listeners are probably tired of hearing about, which is the bananas.
Speaker 1: Bananas are very radioactive. Yeah, I would say very radioactive,
Speaker 1: but they are. They have potassium in them, and the
Speaker 1: potassium is of a kind that radiates it it decays
Speaker 1: and it shoots off radiation, and so of a kind
Speaker 1: is it. So there's different kinds of potassium. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: more and less stable versions of potassium. You know. Potassium
Speaker 1: has isotopes, just like every other element, which means you
Speaker 1: can have like more or less neutrons, and the exact
Speaker 1: configuration of protons and neutrons in the nucleus determines how
Speaker 1: stable something is and whether or not decays by shooting
Speaker 1: off a proton or a neutron. Um And so somehow bananas,
Speaker 1: when banana plants make bananas, they somehow gather a lot
Speaker 1: of this kind of radioactive potassium. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get a lot of angry emails
Speaker 1: from big Banana supporters, so let's be specific about it.
Speaker 1: On the radiations that he called the big banana of
Speaker 1: Big Banana, I think I've seen that movie, actually Big Banana.
Speaker 1: But the radiation exposure from consuming a banana is approximately
Speaker 1: one percent of the average daily exposure to radiation. So
Speaker 1: you're getting radiation from the sun and just from you know,
Speaker 1: natural radioactive elements in the earth and stuff, and so
Speaker 1: eating banana does increase your amount of radiation, but really
Speaker 1: by a tiny amount. So go out there and eat
Speaker 1: a hundred bananas and don't worry about it. But you
Speaker 1: told me something cool earlier, which is that a truckload
Speaker 1: of bananas, like if I have a truck full of bananas,
Speaker 1: will actually cause a false alarm when going through a
Speaker 1: radiation detector. Yeah. They have these things at ports because
Speaker 1: they want to see if like terrorists are gonna try
Speaker 1: to smuggle in uranium to make a dirty bomb or something.
Speaker 1: So they have these scanners that look for radiation inside
Speaker 1: shipping containers. If you have like a truckload or a
Speaker 1: shipping container full of bananas, it'll set one of those
Speaker 1: things off. Like, this is real, people, Banana really are radioactive.
Speaker 1: So if the agent is like, are you carrying a
Speaker 1: dirty bomb with you? You can be just like, nope,
Speaker 1: just the banana bomb. That sounds pretty dirty to me too.
Speaker 1: It's slippery but not dirty, that's right. And um, and
Speaker 1: there are other natural sources of radiation, you know, just
Speaker 1: in the earth and the rocks around us, there are
Speaker 1: radioactive elements, not in huge quantities, but you do get
Speaker 1: some radiation from the trace amounts of uranium, for example. UM,
Speaker 1: in the earth crust, you do get radiation from just
Speaker 1: radioactive elements that are decaying slowly over time. But none
Speaker 1: of them so now. But none of these is dangerous, right,
Speaker 1: Like potatoes, kidney, beans, sunflower seeds, nuts, they all radiate
Speaker 1: kind of like bananas, but it's you know, maybe not
Speaker 1: that bad for you. That's right. You should not change
Speaker 1: your diet based on this podcast. I mean that's a
Speaker 1: general rules and we have no expertise in nutrition or
Speaker 1: dietary science. Um, but specifically, you should not be worried
Speaker 1: about the radiation from food, right. Um. Also, your body
Speaker 1: is pretty good at regulating this stuff, and so like
Speaker 1: you'll take in that radioactive potassium and then you'll pass
Speaker 1: out some more. So your body maintains like a steady
Speaker 1: state amount of these chemicals because it needs some. Right,
Speaker 1: So you're saying I can keep eating French fries as
Speaker 1: much as I'm saying French fries won't give you cancer
Speaker 1: due to the radiation. That's all I'm gonna say. No,
Speaker 1: don't kill you. They'll kill you in other ways. What
Speaker 1: you're saying, that's right, You could definitely think of creative
Speaker 1: ways to die from French fries that are not getting cancer.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, let's get into this idea of whether
Speaker 1: radiation is good for you or bad for you. But
Speaker 1: for us, let's take a quick break al right, Ianne,
Speaker 1: break it down for us? Is radiation good for us
Speaker 1: or bad? Frisk? Well, you know I think both, right, Um?
Speaker 1: The classic cancer is yes and no. So radiation is
Speaker 1: good for you in some ways and it's bad for
Speaker 1: you in other ways. You know. Let's remember what radiation
Speaker 1: can do, right. Radiation can break the bonds in your atoms.
Speaker 1: You can ionize, right, Um, if it has enough energy,
Speaker 1: and if it has less energy, right, then it can
Speaker 1: just sort of deposit something or just have to ionize
Speaker 1: the electron to deposit some energy um in your system.
Speaker 1: And this can be good or it can be bad.
Speaker 1: Like you know, what's an example of how radiation can
Speaker 1: be good, well at particle accelerators. We use the accelerators
Speaker 1: sometimes to treat people who have cancer because you can
Speaker 1: use it like um, you can you can shoot protons
Speaker 1: at people and shoot it just exactly at their cancer
Speaker 1: and basically just like target the cancer itself. Right, It's
Speaker 1: called proton therapy, and you can try to kill just
Speaker 1: the tumor and that works. Like you can save lives
Speaker 1: by shooting people with radiation. It's like you purposely radiate
Speaker 1: yourself because you're trying to kill something inside of you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's always the game with cancer, right. Cancer
Speaker 1: is part of you, and if you want to kill it,
Speaker 1: you have to like be willing to hurt it more
Speaker 1: than it hurts than it hurts you. Right, It's a
Speaker 1: it's a like a medical game of chicken um uh
Speaker 1: and uh. In one way to do that, it's so yeah,
Speaker 1: shoot these tiny little proton bullets inside you. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of physics that goes into that, like how
Speaker 1: how much radiation do you need and how do you
Speaker 1: angle it so that it lands mostly in the tumor
Speaker 1: and doesn't hurt the surrounding tissue. Um, there's a whole
Speaker 1: field of medical physics and people who are really real
Speaker 1: experts at that. Yeah, but I think it it's sort
Speaker 1: of targets cancer selves because of the fat that cancer
Speaker 1: cells are multiplying all the time, right, Like, just the
Speaker 1: idea that they're multiplying more than your regular cells kind
Speaker 1: of makes them more vulnerable to things like protons and
Speaker 1: getting their DNA changed. I don't know, maybe, Um, I
Speaker 1: think from the physics point of view, we just treat
Speaker 1: them as bags of water. Like seriously, we treat everything.
Speaker 1: Every human, every flesh is just like bags of water
Speaker 1: to a physicist, and we think about how much energy
Speaker 1: we deposit, and I think we just try to kill it. Um. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: it can also save your life if you dial nine
Speaker 1: one one on your cell phone, right, if there's an emergency,
Speaker 1: because radiation is basically how cell phones work. That's right,
Speaker 1: All communication relies on radiation, right, You're using electromagnetic radiation
Speaker 1: to communicate wirelessly all the time. Um, you're listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast thanks to radiation, right, and so without radiation
Speaker 1: we would have any sort of wireless communication. Um, so yes,
Speaker 1: thank you radiation for connecting the world and downloading information
Speaker 1: into our brains. And I've heard a lot of scaremongering
Speaker 1: about like the dangers of cell phones and is five
Speaker 1: G safe, etcetera. People worrying about whether their cell phone
Speaker 1: is going to give them cancer. They won't. You don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about it. That radiation is not dangerous.
Speaker 1: It's very very low energy radiation. It's r F frequency,
Speaker 1: which means it's radio waves. It's very low frequency, which
Speaker 1: means it's very low energy, so it can't ionize your atom.
Speaker 1: So you can just make them wiggle a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of gently. Bananas are more dangerous than
Speaker 1: cell phones, So don't worry about using your cell phones. Okay,
Speaker 1: what if you're like watching a movie on your phone
Speaker 1: about a superhero who got irradiated by radiation? Is that
Speaker 1: just just just that just blows your mind? Are you
Speaker 1: about to pitch me banana man? Is that what this is? Potato?
Speaker 1: It's the whole team, Potato Man, Kidney Man, Kidney bees Man,
Speaker 1: Brazil not Man, Brazilian. He's he's just called the Brazilian. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna disavow loud laughing at that joke. Seems culturally
Speaker 1: insensitive somehow. I'm not sure how. But yeah, radiation plays
Speaker 1: a big role, right, not just in communication also or
Speaker 1: in treatment, but also in diagnosis. Right. You go to
Speaker 1: the hospital and you want to see, like did I
Speaker 1: break my wrist or is it just really hurt? Right?
Speaker 1: What do they do? They take an X ray? You
Speaker 1: want to see, like, hey, what's going on inside my guts?
Speaker 1: Do I have appendicitis or not? Right? They do a
Speaker 1: cat scan. All that uses radiation to image what's going
Speaker 1: on inside your body. So, I mean, you work at
Speaker 1: the large Hadron collider, and so you you know that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of radiation out there. There definitely is,
Speaker 1: Yet you still go to work. Yet people go to work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could die every day due to anything, but people
Speaker 1: just seem to get up and go to work anyway. Right,
Speaker 1: That's kind of amazing. I see, it's like an acceptable risk. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: we don't have much radiation at the large Hagon collider.
Speaker 1: The particles do collide and they create a lot of radiation,
Speaker 1: but it's a hundred meters underground, and so we're shielded
Speaker 1: by a lot of earth. So there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of radiation risk at the at the LHC. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean just from staring at your computers along. Oh yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know there's radiation everywhere and it's just part of life, right,
Speaker 1: and so you go about your normal day, you get
Speaker 1: your dose of radiation. Um. You know you can you
Speaker 1: can use apps or you can get a dissimiter to
Speaker 1: track your radiation dose. Um. There is one thing which
Speaker 1: people should be aware of, which is rate on gas.
Speaker 1: Rate on gas is something that happens in various places
Speaker 1: around the world and on the East Coast. It's this
Speaker 1: invisible radioactive gas that seeps out from people's basements and
Speaker 1: it actually does kill like tens of thousands of people
Speaker 1: every year. So real. Yeah, that is actually something you
Speaker 1: can do to potentially save yourself from cancer is just
Speaker 1: get like a cheap rate on detector. Wow. So this
Speaker 1: this is gas that is radioactive. Like it it's gas
Speaker 1: that's breaking down and emitting all kinds of protons and
Speaker 1: particles exactly. It's emitting radiation and it's invisible and it
Speaker 1: doesn't smell like anything, and it's see up from underground.
Speaker 1: It's like a naturally occurring thing. So a lot of people,
Speaker 1: like the earth shifts, it'll it'll start to collect in
Speaker 1: your basement, and then people can be getting these high
Speaker 1: doses of radiation without even knowing about it, reaping it in, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: breathing it in exactly. So I can't imagine why anyone
Speaker 1: would think radiation is bad. Exactly. No, it can be dangerous,
Speaker 1: and so if that's the kind of thing you worry about,
Speaker 1: you should, or you have the young kids or whatever,
Speaker 1: you should definitely look to see if you live in
Speaker 1: a kind of place where radiant where radar occurs naturally,
Speaker 1: so you should get it checked out, because that is
Speaker 1: really a health houzard. Well, this one is interesting. You
Speaker 1: also wat down here that we use radiation to make
Speaker 1: our food safer. Yeah, exactly. If you take a slab
Speaker 1: of meat, for example, and you zap it with a
Speaker 1: bunch of radiation, you can kill everything that's still alive
Speaker 1: in it, meaning bacteria. Right, So you want to keep
Speaker 1: your meat safe, you can zap it with radiation. It
Speaker 1: will kill almost everything in there. Um, So that's one
Speaker 1: one way we can use radiation to keep ourselves safe.
Speaker 1: Of there's a twist to that, which is that you're
Speaker 1: applying artificial selection, which means you zap enough steaks and
Speaker 1: eventually all that's going to be left is bacteria that
Speaker 1: can survive radiation, and so you're like helping breed radiation
Speaker 1: proof bacteria. Well, you're something that I've never quite understood,
Speaker 1: which is that um radiation needs to be something that
Speaker 1: you can pass from one thing to the other. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like like chernobyl happen and
Speaker 1: all this radioactive stuff went out there. But it also
Speaker 1: you can also sort of irradiate things make things radioactive. Yes,
Speaker 1: that true? Yeah, the way that works, it's not like contagion,
Speaker 1: like a disease, though there's something in common. What happens
Speaker 1: is that radiation can cause other things to become radioactive. Right,
Speaker 1: It can make yours, It can make um new things unstable.
Speaker 1: So how does that work? Well, radiation, like uranium breaks down,
Speaker 1: it shoots out protons and neutrons. Those protons and neutrons
Speaker 1: can hit other atoms and make those unstable. It can
Speaker 1: cause like a chain react action. Right, So radiation can
Speaker 1: definitely spread it's not just like, oh that radiation hit
Speaker 1: me and I'm done. It can make something inside you radioactive,
Speaker 1: which could then unstable, which means it like breaks up
Speaker 1: and shoots out more particles. Right. Right. So, for example,
Speaker 1: you have like a block of metal that was at
Speaker 1: Chernobyl or block of concrete right that got irradiated a lot.
Speaker 1: Then it becomes radioactive. And the reason is that stuff
Speaker 1: inside that concrete or that that brick or that block
Speaker 1: then became unstable because I got hit by a passing
Speaker 1: particle and now it's emitting particles. Wow. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: sort of good and bad. Right. Radiation can be good
Speaker 1: for all these treatments to communicate, to kill bacteria, but
Speaker 1: it can also you know, if you get overexposed to it,
Speaker 1: it can give you cancer. Yeah, exactly. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's like everything else in science. It's an awesome power.
Speaker 1: It shows us that the universe is incredible and has
Speaker 1: so much that we have not yet understood. Um. And
Speaker 1: that power can be used for good or for bad. Exactly.
Speaker 1: It can hurt you or it can help you. Um.
Speaker 1: I think. One one of my favorite stories about life
Speaker 1: and radiation came from my wife who told me the
Speaker 1: story about this amazing bacteria they discover that can survive
Speaker 1: like almost any amount of radiation. And the way it
Speaker 1: does it is it has like fifty copies of its
Speaker 1: DNA inside it. So if radiation comes in and blast
Speaker 1: one open, it's like, no worries. I got forty nine
Speaker 1: backups and it just like repairs and it fixes the
Speaker 1: one that got damaged to right, Yeah, exactly. It has
Speaker 1: a bunch of copies and it has all these things
Speaker 1: zooming around all the time to fix mistakes. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta drive, you gotta backup of your
Speaker 1: hard drive and something goes wrong, you you recover from
Speaker 1: the backup. This thing is like fifty backups simultaneously at
Speaker 1: all times, and so we can survive a lot of radiation.
Speaker 1: So that that's something you can do to prevent radiation
Speaker 1: poisoning yourself become a bacteria. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend that,
Speaker 1: all right, Daniel, Well, I think I learned that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to stop eating bananas and going on airplanes. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you should fly less, yes, but I think
Speaker 1: you can eat bananas without worrying about it too much.
Speaker 1: Maybe you should trade, you should take fewer trips and
Speaker 1: eat more bananas. Take fewer trips to eat more bananas exactly.
Speaker 1: So there you go, folks, that's what radiation is. A
Speaker 1: lot of people did understand what radiation was. It's you know,
Speaker 1: ultra vilet light, it's gamma rays, it's particles shut out
Speaker 1: by radioactive elements, and it can certainly hurt you, and
Speaker 1: you should be on the lookout for radon gas and
Speaker 1: you should think about the flights you take. But it
Speaker 1: can also help you. So like everything in science, it's
Speaker 1: fundamentally neutral and it just depends on how it's applied.
Speaker 1: And in either case, just remember to wear your sunscreen
Speaker 1: or at least a hat. That's right. And if you're
Speaker 1: eating banana, make sure to wear a helmet or make
Speaker 1: your make a hat out of bananas. Does that does
Speaker 1: that cancel out? That sounds totally safe to me. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I totally open. Please please go ahead and send me
Speaker 1: a picture. All right, Thanks for listening, everybody. We hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that. Tune in next time, keep on radiating.
Speaker 1: If you still have a question after listening to all
Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one Word, or
Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio from
Speaker 1: More podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio,
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