Health
Beta particles are able to penetrate living matter to a certain extent and can change the structure of struck molecules. In most cases such change can be considered as damage with results possibly as severe as cancer and death. If the struck molecule is DNA it can show a spontaneous mutation.
Beta sources can be used in radiation therapy to kill cancer cells.
Read more about this topic: Beta Particle
Famous quotes containing the word health:
“Taste is the fundamental quality which sums up all the other qualities. It is the nec plus ultra of the intelligence. Through this alone is genius the supreme health and balance of all the faculties.”
—Isidore Ducasse, Comte de LautrĂ©amont (18461870)
“He had had much experience of physicians, and said, the only way to keep your health is to eat what you dont want, drink what you dont like, and do what youd druther not.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910)
“We have two kinds of conference. One is that to which the office boy refers when he tells the applicant for a job that Mr. Blevitch is in conference. This means that Mr. Blevitch is in good health and reading the paper, but otherwise unoccupied. The other type of conference is bona fide in so far as it implies that three or four men are talking together in one room, and dont want to be disturbed.”
—Robert Benchley (18891945)