There is a very common opinion that the cockroaches are so tenacious that even the consequences of a nuclear explosion are in no way. We decided to check if this is so.
The myth that the raids were not afraid of radiation was distributed long before the advent of the Internet. Mention of this is in artistic literature. A selection of “10 living creatures capable of surviving a nuclear war” is popular on the network, where cockroaches occupy the second place. It will be replaced by users "Picabu"it is found on popular science resources, even published it by the media (for example, "Vesti.ru"). Sellers of funds from cockroaches and at all They saythat these are the only creatures that can survive a nuclear explosion. People are interested in this in the services of questions and answers (1, 2, 3).
To begin with, the fact that the nuclear explosions will definitely not be able to survive directly: the temperature in the epicenter Maybe Reach several thousand degrees Celsius, which will destroy all living things. If we talk about the consequences of the nuclear explosion, that is, the effects of radiation, then the cockroaches still have some chances. But are they so great, as is commonly believed?
The very first appearance of this myth attributed Media reports on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - allegedly in one of the cities they saw surviving cockroaches. After that, the New York Times issued an article that said that not the USA, not the USSR, not China, but ... cockroaches will win the third world. But the fact is that people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki not everyone died instantly, but many of the survivors soon died of radiation illness. The health of the cockroaches, which they allegedly saw there, of course, no one followed, so we do not know whether they really survived or died a couple of hours after meeting with reporters.
In 1959, American scientists conducted study On the influence of radiation on American cockroaches (Periplaneta America). It turned out that the exposure to radiation of 20,000 for cockroaches is fatal. In 1963, scientists Mary Ross and Donald Kokrain Studied The impact of irradiation is this time on the German cockroach (Blattella Germanica). This, by the way, is the very red cockroach, Prusak, well familiar to the inhabitants of our strip. It turned out that 93% of the immature individuals die already at 6400 are glad, females become completely fruitless when exposed to 3200 rad, and significant inhibition of reproductive function (which ultimately can also lead to extinction of the species) can already be observed when exposed to 400 rad.
Scientists note that a dose of ten times less would be fatal for a person than for cockroaches, in this sense they are much more tenacious than we are. But at the same time, they can not be called record holders even among insects - there are species that the fatal dose for radiation will not even bother for cockroaches. For a person, a fatal dose is already at 400-1000 are glad. During the bombing of Hiroshima, people received Dose Radiation in 950 is glad.
Why are cockroaches less susceptible to radiation than people? Biologist from Massachusetts University Joe Kunkel Binding This is that the radiation causes the greatest harm during cell division. And if cells in the body of cockroaches are divided only during molting (once a week), then the human body cells are constantly divided. Accordingly, the radiation has the most destructive effect on these insects only 48 hours a week (so many molting lasts), and all 24/7 on a person. It is easy to calculate who will suffer from radiation stronger.
To check whether the cockroaches are so resistant to radiation, as is commonly believed, our colleagues from the American television program “destroyers of myths” also decided. They put them experiment: All the same German cockroaches were divided into groups and acted on them with varying degrees of intensity - 1000 rad, 10,000 are glad and 100,000 are glad. The experiment lasted about a month, and in the end survived half of the individuals from the first group and 30% from the second. From the third group, where the effect of radiation was maximum, no one survived. Thus, we can conclude that yes, some of the cockroaches can survive a nuclear explosion (being far enough from the epicenter), but it depends on the power of the bomb.
By the way, the flour beetles, which also took part in this experiment, showed themselves more tenacious (as many as 10% of these insects survived the exposure of 100,000 bears). Fruit flies, on which they also acted with radiation, could compete with survivability with beetles. But they were affected by the fact that their life expectancy is only about a month, so at the end of the experiment they all died - and it was impossible to find out how to blame the irradiation was.
It is worth noting that there are more than 4000 species of cockroaches, and studies were carried out on only two of them. Therefore, it is impossible with complete confidence that the conclusions made by scientists are fair for all these insects. Perhaps some of them are even more resistant to radiation than scientists now think.
At the same time, even if we assume that the radiation was sufficient power to kill people, and the cockroaches were still able to survive, some researchers believe that they will survive us for a short while - at least those who have long lived side by side with a person, for example the same German cockroaches. Canadian science popularizers shot a documentary "The consequences: the world after people", published on the National Geographic channel, where they expressed the opinion that only six months after the disappearance of people, billions of cockroaches would die. They argue that cockroaches are heat -loving creatures that survive in the northern latitudes only thanks to heating houses. If there are no people providing such conditions, these insects will die out as soon as winter comes.
So if anyone wins the nuclear war, then obviously not cockroaches. Most likely, it will be the Deinococcus RadioDurans bacterium. This organism capable Without harm, tolerate the doses of radiation, thousands of times higher than those that would become fatal for people, for cockroaches.
Image in the heading: m/f "VALL-I", dir. E. Stanton, scenes. E. Stanton, D. Rirdon, muses. T. Newman, 2008
Half truth
Read on the topic:
- Cockroaches: ecology, behavior and natural history
- FAQ about cockroaches
- Is it true that cacti protect against computer radiation?
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