How can ionizing radiation produce genetic mutations?
Radiation may alter the DNA within any cell. Cell damage and death that result from mutations in somatic cells occur only in the organism in which the mutation occurred and are therefore termed somatic or nonheritable effects. Cancer is the most notable long-term somatic effect. In contrast, mutations that occur in germ cells (sperm and ova) can be transmitted to future generations and are therefore called genetic or heritable effects. Genetic effects may not appear until many generations later. The genetic effects of radiation were first demonstrated in fruit flies in the 1920s. Genetic mutation due to radiation does not produce the visible monstrosities of science fiction; it simply produces a greater frequency of the same mutations that occur continuously and spontaneously in nature. Like cancers, the genetic effects of radiation are impossible to distinguish from mutations due to other causes. Today at least 1,300 diseases are known to be caused by a mutation.[102] Some mutations m
