Acute Radiation Syndrome - in Other Animals

In Other Animals

Thousands of scientific experiments have been performed to study acute radiation syndrome in animals.

An episode of MythBusters exposed several types of insects to a cobalt-60 source at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory facility, to test the myth that cockroaches would be the sole survivors of a nuclear blast. At 100 Gy, 70% of the cockroaches were dead after 30 days, as were 40% of the flour beetles. At 1000 Gy, all of the cockroaches were dead after 30 days, whereas 10% of the flour beetles survived (thus "busting" the myth). There is a simple guide for predicting survival/death in mammals, including humans, following the acute effects of inhaling radioactive particles.