Radiation of avocado, banana and other everyday objects

Most people assume all radioactive materials are dangerous, if not deadly. But a new study on the radiation emitted by everyday objects highlights the fact that we interact with radioactive materials every day. The goal of the work is to give people a frame of reference for understanding news stories or other information about radiation and nuclear safety.
The researchers used a portable gamma radiation meter to measure the external gamma radiation emitted in a North Carolina home. The radiation was measured in microgray per hour (μGy/hr).
Avocados, for example, gave off 0.16 μGy/hr of gamma radiation – slightly less than the 0.17 μGy/hr emitted by a banana. Bricks gave off 0.15 μGy/hr, while smoke detectors (with their americium components) gave off 0.16. By way of comparison, natural uranium ore measured 1.57 μGy/hr.
If you’re surprised that your fruit is emitting gamma radiation, don’t panic. The regulatory level for workers – which is safe – is exposure to 50,000 μGy per year. The levels we’re talking about in your household are incredibly low.

https://news.ncsu.edu/2016/10/radioactive-avocado-2016/

Paper: http://journals.lww.com/health-phys...ons_of_Various_Radiological_Sources_to.5.aspx

Well, this make sense now:

 

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Yes I was aware. The theory of evolution states radiation from the sun interferes with gametes causing the birth of mutants. If this mutation is advantageous to the survival of the creature, until reproduction, then those mutant genes are inherited.

 

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Natural selection doesn't even work without an engine to change the entropy of the previously stable state of the system that is life. Good thing it does that; otherwise, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

 

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I don't think it quite does, actually. Darwin had no idea about radiation affecting the genome, or even about the existence of the genome itself.

As far as I am aware, all the theory of evolution says is that variations in a population of organisms, however they come about, which make the organism better adapted to its environment will tend to be preferentially inherited, due to natural selection.

We have subsequently discovered that there are various mechanisms responsible for alteration of the genome, from a variety of causes. These include errors in copying and horizontal transfer from other organisms, as well as damage from radiation and chemical agents.

 

Gregor Mendel 1822-1864, father of genetics
Charles Darwin 1809-1882, author of Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection published November 24, 1859

An awareness of different types of radioactivity and their effects on living things happened in the last 25 years of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th.

I rather think that Darwin was well informed about both the existence of and variations in the genome, even if he had no idea why there existed such variations, or the exact chemical or physical structure of DNA

Virus vectors as carriers of disease are another major cause of genetic variability needed to evolve selective immune response, as is genocidal predation, which I believe Darwin's theory covers completely. In all cases, genomic variations that are not well adapted to an environment result in genomic erasure.

 

Do all radiation affect the same way the DNA or RNA ? I assume an Alfa particle will dislocate atoms in the nucleotide then a beta or gamma and so the outcome might be different ?