How Does Radiation Sickness Work?

Josh explains the science behind the healthy green glow.

[TechnicallyaNomad]

Whoa, that's amazing. I spent 4 minutes of my life learning that the best way to avoid radiation sickness is to STAY AWAY FROM RADIATION. Mind. Blown.

[thejuice]

Ok, so you told me what radiation sickness is, and how to get it, but you failed to tell me how it works. Which is the title of the video.  I wanna know what does radiation do to your body that makes you throw-up, lose hair, or get scars. How does radiation effect your cells? Does it kill them, mutate them, what?

[krixig]

I work at a nuclear operating facility (read as "nuclear powerplant") and we actually use miliRem, Rem, and Rads which are just incremental forms of each-other - miliRem being the most common unit of measure that a person ever encounters (myself included, believe it or not). Radiation sickness actually begins at around 25 Rem of acute dose, which is 25, 000 miliRem. There are probably only a few instances in history of individuals experiencing sheer Rads (outside of Fallout, of course). This is actually a huge problem when the media creates alarmist information on anything nuclear related as most people have no grasp of these units of measure. Everything sounds terrifying when you hear the world "radiation" and numbers scrolling across a meter, or a Geiger counter alarming when its set to its most sensitive level. Brass tacks, 99.9 percent of this country will never experience noteworthy dose outside of medical x-rays, and staring into the microwave while waiting for hotpockets.

[TheNavalAviator]

The Soviets forced my grand-uncle to mine uranium. He was very skinny as a consequence. He died recently aged 81 but he was so contaminated that it caused his daughter to die from cancer.

[wondellwonders]

I'm currently in vault 111. So I'm safe.

[iverhuejanus]

Smart Meters> I began getting severe headaches and  pains in the back of the head, since I moved away from the room where the smart meter was  these have disappeared, yet I am not the only one many others have had the similar complaints.

[danieldjz]

Not the best video Josh has ever put out, to say the least. I wish it were more informative and less trying to be funny about something tragic.

[rhythmdroid]

Please re-title video "What is Radiation Sickness?" or the downvotes will continue to erode the video's performance.

[zephenite]

I feel dumb for posting this. But I'm curious. Do you actually glow green once you have had enough radiation? I thought it was just some sort of thing from movies/culture.

[TheNecromancer]

I have never bin on radiation sickness levels, but i managed to get quite a big dose of it as i was visiting old mineshafts, a lot of them have quite impressive amounts of uranium oxides and different radioactive Gas stage fission in them, Visiting one for hours is no problem. Visiting several in a few days some, of them known too have very serious amounts of radon isotopes in the air is unhealthy. But i didnt suffer any symptomes or damage. Was part of a school project before A levels. We only found out later the ampunt we were exposed too and that we breathed in ...

[UberMegustador]

yeah..but what happens inside the body while you are exposed to radiation :/ what does radiation does to your body?

[ttmcookies]

I am sorry to say, there seems to be a misunderstanding: Alpha particles are actually quite energetic. They have a higher energy than beta or gamma radiation. It is this fact that lets them be easily guarded against: The propability of them reacting with air particles or any other particle is much higher than for the much less energetic beta particles or gamma "rays". Thus gamma rays penetrate much more than alpha radiation, but alpha radiation within the body (inhaled or swallowed) are much more problematic for the organs around them.

[FyberOptic]

"You can never know too much stuff."  Sounds like a good future topic of BrainStuff, because I have a feeling there is a physical limit, depending on the brain.  It would be good to know, because if there's not enough room, I'd happily give up memories of shows like Lost, while keeping all seven seasons of Star Trek: TNG firmly intact.  Or well, at least the first six.  I still need room for MacGyver, after all.

[sheimi]

"Enemy of the Russian state"... well, this aged badly. Waiting for part two, where you talk about what to do if you're in central Europe in March 2022

[gbantock]

I was exposed to radiation continuously as well as on one particular occasion when I was in the Navy. My ship had a deck (which I traversed often) that was so irradiated that it had to be ripped off and replaced.

[avamaria]

Josh how is it possible that you published this without mentioning Fukushima, and the death of the Pacific Ocean?

[matthewseneris]

Ive been exposed to radiation
Its a smelly kind of radiaton
It has a pfffftttt sound when it comes out

[haadi_bakar]

If you close your eyes, you could hear Dr Banner explaining radiation sickness to the Avengers.

[chuck]

man i truly mean this as a compliment because its better than coming off nerdy but this dudes like dropping some pretty technical stuff but hes got a way of sounding like a burn out or somethin while he does it. Its cool i have never seen anything quite list it i mean i have seen both but not together lol.

[erlinerameau]

The kind of covid you get from radiation