Radiation

I need help understanding nuclear radiation.
I want to know what it actually does to your cells and tissue of the human body.
I tried to find it on the web...but well it didnt really answer me.
please help.

What do you mean? Nuclear radiation? Electromagnetic radiation? It all depends on what type. Some damage your cells, others don't.

Well, for something to be radioactive means for it to be in a highly "excited" state. This means that the electrons have a great deal of Energy.

Now then, you can tell that radiation means that something [namely, Energy of some form...being Gamma Radiation, etc...ElectroMagnetic waves of some type, in other words] is radiating. So, that means that these high energy photons [packets of EM radiation] are being emitted by the nuclear substance.

When these photons/waves interact with your cells, they transfer some of their own energy to your cells. This causes the electrons in your cells to jump to higher energy states. So, you have abnormal energy levels in your cells, leading to anamolies. These anamolies are cancers.

Simple enough, eh? hehe

That's just based on my own understanding, but you may be able to find out more from a Biologist instead of a Physicist.

so your cells also have enough energy to incearse the rate of cancer to?
or does it simply give you a high amount of cancer and then the energy is obsorbed by the nucleus or your body?

One aspect of cancer tumors I understand would be that the cancer sends out a chemical signal to the brain. Telling the brain it is a normal cell and it needs nourishment. A type of stem is linked to the cancer and it receives blood (nourishment). This is what causes the cancer to grow and spread.

Speaking about the UV rays, have you ever gotten a sun burn and afterward you got brown spots or marks on your back or anywhere you got sun burned? That can also cause skin cancer if you are not careful. One way to figure out if it is or can become cancerous, would be to check to see if the brown spot is a uniform color and not where half of the spot is dark brown and the other half if light brown. If it isn't a uniform color have a doctor check it.

If I was a off topic, I'm sorry.

thank you, ill also try to look up moew information for my report on the web, though it was hard to last time, ill know what to look for.

Gah, I forgot to update this. The very next day, a professor of mine spoke on this... in my OPTICS class of all places!

So, for a little deeper explanation, radiation from, say, the Sun is "ionizing" (meaning it separates atoms into positive and negative (protons and electrons)). This disrupts the DNA molecules themselves (although they are not fully ionized, really, right off the bat--just separated to the point where mutations have the freedom to occur.

So, there you have it, folks. Physics solves everything. All the other sciences are just parlor tricks ;0) MUEhahahaha

thanks, im very happy i know about radiation now
thank you all ( now i can finish my report")!