• Question: Will we be able to one day adapt the thing that enables cockroaches to survive nuclear bombs into humans?

    Asked by summer17 to Bob, Katie, Nisha, Sallie, Vee on 3 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Bob Bonwick

      Bob Bonwick answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      I’m not sure if we ever could. if we could somehow augment (adapt) our DNA to incorporate the radiation resistance seen in cockroaches what else might we take on? Would we have hard shells and a fear of the light? Also, there was a question put to us about how cockroaches survived nuclear bomb blasts; we all answered with a similar but definate reply, that the roach wouldn’t survive the blast, it would burn up. The following radiation it could survive, but not the actual bomb blast, nothing living could survive that.

    • Photo: Sallie Baxendale

      Sallie Baxendale answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      Although some cockroaches can withstand very high levels of radiation, it is the phenenomal heat that kills everything in the vincinity of a nuclear bomb, instantly. Cockroaches would be burnt up, just like everything else. But further away, the radiation would kill other things and the cockroaches would survive. It’s very difficult to change human DNA and there are lots of ethical issues about introducing animal DNA to people. By far the best way of surviving a nuclear blast would be not to have one!

Comments