AdvertisementĪll of that is to say that there's no simple way to predict the consequences of exposure from Chernobyl. Different isotopes also produce different types of radiation at distinct energies, which can be more or less likely to cause specific types of DNA damage. Iodine, for example, ends up in the thyroid, which uses it to synthesize a hormone strontium is chemically similar to calcium and so winds up in the bones etc. Exposure from an external source may be relatively uniform, but if a radioactive isotope is ingested in some way, it may gather in a specific tissue.
How this plays out in the human body is also complicated.
And, in some cases, the repair system gets badly confused and links the damaged pieces to areas elsewhere in the genome, creating a complex rearrangement. In others, large areas around the break get deleted entirely. These are often short deletions: a few bases around the site of the damage are cut away, and the two ends of the break are reconnected. In others, however, mistakes get made during the repair. In some cases, they are probably repaired properly and the cell carries on. These breaks are then handled by the cell's DNA repair system, with varying results. But it can also make breaks in both of the strands of DNA's double helix (which biologists creatively call "double-stranded breaks"). The radiation can damage individual bases of DNA, leading to minor mutations. The precise nature of the damage, however, is complicated. Radiation causes long-term problems because it can cause damage to our DNA. And another team looked at the children of people assigned to the Chernobyl cleanup and found that the damage seems to be limited to those exposed rather than being passed down. One group looked at the genetic changes found in thyroid tumors that have been linked to exposure to the radioactive iodine spewed out during the disaster. Now, international teams of researchers have looked at the genetic damage that's the legacy of Chernobyl exposures. It's estimated that thousands of people will eventually die earlier than they would have due to the cancers caused by their exposure.
Chernobyl is generally recognized as the worst nuclear accident on record, directly killing 31 people and causing widespread contamination in Eurasia.
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