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Related Concept Videos

Biological Effects of Radiation02:59

Biological Effects of Radiation

All radioactive nuclides emit high-energy particles or electromagnetic waves. When this radiation encounters living cells, it can cause heating, break chemical bonds, or ionize molecules. The most serious biological damage results when these radioactive emissions fragment or ionize molecules. For example, α and β particles emitted from nuclear decay reactions possess much higher energies than ordinary chemical bond energies. When these particles strike and penetrate matter, they produce ions...
Isotopes and Radioisotopes01:28

Isotopes and Radioisotopes

In the early 1900s, English chemist Frederick Soddy realized that an element could have atoms with different masses that were chemically indistinguishable. These different types are called isotopes — atoms of the same element that differ in mass. Isotopes differ in mass because they have different numbers of neutrons but are chemically identical because they have the same number of protons. Soddy was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1921 for this discovery.
An isotope containing more...
Nuclear Transmutation03:20

Nuclear Transmutation

Nuclear transmutation is the conversion of one nuclide into another. It can occur by the radioactive decay of a nucleus, or the reaction of a nucleus with another particle. The first manmade nucleus was produced in Ernest Rutherford’s laboratory in 1919 by a transmutation reaction, the bombardment of one type of nuclei with other nuclei or with neutrons. Rutherford bombarded nitrogen-14 atoms with high-speed α particles from a natural radioactive isotope of radium and observed protons being...
The Availability Heuristic01:08

The Availability Heuristic

A heuristic is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, and the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):
Truncation in Survival Analysis01:09

Truncation in Survival Analysis

Truncation in survival analysis refers to the exclusion of individuals or events from the dataset based on specific criteria related to the time of the event. This exclusion can happen in two primary forms: left truncation and right truncation.
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Radioactive Decay and Radiometric Dating02:48

Radioactive Decay and Radiometric Dating

Radioactivity is a spontaneous disintegration of an unstable nuclide and is a random process, as all the nuclei in the sample do not decay simultaneously. The number of disintegrations per unit time is called the activity (A), which is directly proportional to the number of nuclei in the sample. The decay constant (λ) is an average probability of decay per nucleus in unit time.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Multi-Tracer Studies of Brain Oxygen and Glucose Metabolism Using a Time-of-Flight Positron Emission Tomography-Computed Tomography Scanner
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Are the risks from tritium exposures being underestimated?

F Paquet1, H Métivier

  • 1Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire, Scientific Division, BP3 13115 Saint Paul lez Durance Cedex, France.

Journal of Radiological Protection : Official Journal of the Society for Radiological Protection
|May 21, 2009
PubMed
Summary

Tritium

Area of Science:

  • Nuclear Engineering
  • Radiation Biology
  • Health Physics

Background:

  • Tritium is a key radionuclide in fusion reactors, posing known toxicity risks.
  • Assessing tritium's health impacts is challenging due to dose assessment difficulties and limited human exposure data.
  • Current risk assessments rely on International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) models using weighting factors for radiation types.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the necessity of revising the weighting factor for tritium beta emissions.
  • To address arguments suggesting tritium's potential incorporation into DNA and its biological consequences.
  • To provide a scientific basis for the current ICRP weighting factor for tritium.

Main Methods:

  • Comprehensive review of existing research on tritium's biological effectiveness.

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  • Analysis of tritium's interaction with biological tissues, including potential DNA incorporation.
  • Comparison of tritium's relative biological effectiveness (RBE) with reference radiations like gamma emissions.

    • Main Results:

    • Extensive research indicates tritium's RBE is comparable to gamma emissions.
    • Evidence does not strongly support a significantly higher biological risk from tritium incorporation into DNA.
    • The current ICRP weighting factor of 1 for tritium beta emissions is supported by scientific data.

    Conclusions:

    • The relative biological effectiveness of tritium does not warrant a revision of the current ICRP weighting factor.
    • Maintaining the established weighting factor ensures consistent and scientifically grounded radiological risk assessment for tritium.
    • Continued research is essential, but current evidence supports the ICRP's established safety protocols for tritium exposure.