Question

Compare and contrast both densely-ionizing and sparsely-ionizing radiation.

Answer 1

Explanation:

Radiation biology is the study of the effects of ionizing radiation on living organisms, when this radiation is absorbed in biologic material, ionization and excitations occur in a pattern that depends on the type of radiation involved, considering how far the primary ionization events are separated in space, radiation can be sparsely ionizing (for example, an x-ray or a gamma-ray) or densely ionizing (for example, a proton or an alpha particles).

DNA is the most critical biological target because of the limited redundancy of the genetic information it contains, most lesions are reparable, but those produced by densely ionizing radiation are generally less reparable than those produced by sparsely ionizing radiation. Densely ionizing (high LET) radiations, therefore, typically have a higher relative biological effectiveness.

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