August 6th 1945 “Little Boy,” a nuclear warhead developed in the Manhattan project, was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb had one objective… to kill. The initial 80,000 people that were closest to the center of impact were the lucky ones. It was a flash to them and then death. A more agonizing experience was felt by the 120,000 that suffered from severe burns and radiation sickness. Most would rather die from the initial explosion then suffer with the slow and painful experience of radiation sickness.
What initially happened with the explosion is that the impact launched a wave of ionizing radiation particles. The particles tore out at high speeds and in great density. The particles, being as small as they were, passed through human bodies with no problem. However doing this with the amount of particles being projected out literally microwaved the victims in milliseconds. As the particles spread out more though they began to spread thin and not so many made it out far enough to kill people. This is where radiation sickness comes in. The radiation patches that passed through people farther away from the impact didn’t kill them right away. The intensity of the radiation wasn’t enough to kill them however when the particles went through the person’s body it literally knocked other particles out of the way. This usually wouldn’t be a problem except that the radiation particles hit DNA as well. This mutates the DNA and ends up leading to cancer and other bodily function problems. If one survived this it was later observed that birth defects in the children of these survivors were incredibly serious and gruesome. This detonation left the city or what remained of the city inhospitable for decades.
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nother tragedy of sorts was the Ukrainian Chernobyl incident in that occurred on April 26, 1986. The detonation of a nuclear reactor gave a different kind of radiation blast not so much to the effect of the Hiroshima incident but it produced 90 times more radioactive material into the atmosphere. The original blast only killed about 31 people however the production of radioactive material has already killed about 30,000 people from cancer. Not to mention many thousand square miles of land had been contaminated due to this incident and 500,000 people were directly affected. It’s expected however that nearly 5 million people have been exposed to radiation due to the blast. All these people have a possibility of getting radiation sickness and their children may have had birth defects or had a higher chance of getting cancer.
“So what exactly does radiation sickness do?” you might ask. Well as mentioned before the radiation blast knocks your DNA molecules out of line causing them to mutate; but there are other side effects that go along that you may notice. The thing with radiation is that it can come from a lot of places and let’s say you didn’t know that there was a radiation spot around. How would you know if you had radiation sickness? Common side effects of radiation sickness are nausea, headaches, stomach pains, fatigue, fever, and redness of skin (almost like a sunburn or worse depending on the amount of exposure.) But all of these 
depend on how much radiation an individual is being exposed to. Take for example the headache may be a minor everyday headache with a small dose of radiation maybe even after the effects or an x-ray. However a large dose of radiation will make this headache unbearable and torturous. Also there is always the chance of death with each dose of radiation or at a less degree cancer. Nevertheless radiation sickness is a very bad ailment that one would not want to experience.
Through the pain and suffering that some of the victims of Chernobyl, Hiroshima, and other events involving radiation sickness it is clear that the effects are devastating. The incident at Hiroshima showed us exactly how devastating the effects of a nuclear blast can be and also how radiation sickness can affect many who don’t die in the initial blast. An even better example of radiation sickness was Chernobyl where many thousands of people have become ill from the production of radioactive material that was projected out into the atmosphere. Lastly we looked at how radiation sickness directly affects the human body and the results are nasty. With all these in mind think twice before deciding where you would rather be in the event of a nuclear bomb.
How do you think radiation sickness can be cured?
Do you think it’s possible for completely safe nuclear plants? Why or why not?
How can we help prevent radiation sickness?
I’ve always found Chernobyl fascinating, from the explosion of the nuclear reactor to the aftermath. Not only was radiation sickness spread through the air, but it spread through the water and the soil, and infected people in surrounding cities. So there were millions of cases popping up just from the Chernobyl incident alone. Chernobyl was in fact the largest nuclear accident to happen until the 2011 accident.
Sources:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Chernobyl-Accident/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster
I learned that the detonation of a nuclear reactor gave a different kind of radiation blast not so much to the effect of the Hiroshima incident but it produced 90 times more radioactive material into the atmosphere. I think there is a sepecial type of plant out in the world that is immune to radiation which we could eat and it would take the radiation out of our stomach after treatment and we wil be healthy again. I think that no matter what they do there will always be some radiation leaking from the nuclear plants. I think we can help radiation sickness by finding new ways to treat diseases so
we don’t have to rely on radiation to cure us. Here is a website I found about radiation that I used to help out with finding information (http://www.webmd.com/cancer/what-to-expect-from-radiation-therapy).
the question I chose to answer is “How can we help prevent radiation sickness?”
American people are stocking up on Potassium Iodide which acts as a blocking agent. Preventing yourself from being exposed to too much radiation would be a good way to prevent radiation sickness. Making sure you don’t have things on you that will give off a lot of radiation to your body, like for example your cell phone.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-16/tech/30016026_1_nuclear-reactor-nuclear-power-plant-chernobyl
I thought that the blog was very informal. It had a lot of details describing radiation sickness. The article seemed to have some errors. It would have been nice if the pictures would have been referenced. I thought that the pictures were interesting, but i would want to know where they come from and what they are. In treating radiation sickness there have been new discoveries regarding a certain bacteria. The bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans can survive doses of ionising radiation that are thousands of times stronger than doses that would kill a human being. The bacteria could be used in applications such as increasing radiation resistance in animals and reducing radiation sickness in space travel.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=104&sid=cf4fe170-698c-4e17-ba2c-f59aedfbe90d%40sessionmgr113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=sch&AN=27198924
I thought that your piece was very informing, and that there were many positives about your writing structure. I thought that it was very beneficial that you included prior examples, in history, of how nuclear attacks and incidents have affected people. It made the topic relevant and created a bridge to your target audience. It also served as a great attention getter. The information presented was also very well thought out. You did a great job of explaining how radiation works, and its possible effects on people.
There were also some parts that could be improved. This would help the effectiveness of your blog. There were some grammatical errors, along with run-on sentences. It was also very repetitive.
Overall the blog was very good, and got me thinking. I ended up doing some research for myself, and this is what I found. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/radiation-sickness/DS00432. I was able to confirm your research.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html
Yes there can be a safe nuclear reactor or plant. China is working on how to build a thorium-based molten salt reactor system. In other words it is a salt system in which when the water depletes the radioactive material is exposed and there is high heat produced but the plug will melt and submerse the nuclear waste in a safety tank beneath the plant. They are working on such a power plant after the disaster of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The Thorium based molten salt reactor system will be most effective because it will not deteriorate after being bombarded with radiation.
This blog helped me better understand the effects of radiation. I had no idea that the effects could be so severe. Now, to provide answers to some of your questions…there is no basis of a setting for a safe amount of exposure to radiation. Therefor we really don’t know if there can be completely safe nuclear plants. Many plants do take safety measures but we still don’t know if it could potentially affect the neighboring communities. Power plants are designed to prevent abnormal and even dangerous events from occurring. Many power plants do take every precaution to keep neighboring communities safe. Some safety measures that can be put into action include; shut down of operating reactors, cool down for the reactors to remove heat from nuclear fuel, and containing radioactive materials. These are all good ways to keep others safe. With that I still believe that no amount of radiation is good for anyone and that there can always by “glitches” in the system.
Sources:
http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/understand/health_effects.html
http://www.fepc.or.jp/english/nuclear/power_generation/safety_measures/index.html