3 ms·
It's particularly dangerous because it is a heavy metal and an alpha particle emitter. There are plenty of both of those in nature, and evolution can't do a lot
by brendoelfrendo 3y ago
It's particularly dangerous because it is a heavy metal and an alpha particle emitter. There are plenty of both of those in nature, and evolution can't do a lot against them. Unless you can evolve tiny shields around your chromosomes to protect them from getting bombarded by high-speed particles.
- dTal 3y agoWe evolved elaborate error-correction mechanisms instead.
- dragonwriter 3y agoWhich still suck against ingested nontrivial alpha emitters. There are lots of things that exist in nature, that humans have been exposed to, and which we don’t have particularly good defenses against beyond the intelligence that enables “if a group of humans encounters this problem, some of them will die and the others will observe this and generally avoid it”.