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:
“To safeguard one’s health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness indeed.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“I would hope that parents and grown children could be friends. When a friend confides in you that she’s going to do something that you think is most inappropriate, foolhardy or even dangerous, wouldn’t you as a friend say so—in a calm, supportive way? Yet I have to be so careful what I say to my children. I have to walk on eggs to be sure I’m not hurting their feelings or interfering with their lives.”
—Anonymous Parent of Adult Children. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)
“A little health now and again is the ailing person’s best remedy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)