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Intense gamma radiation can kill bacteria and other microbes. This makes it useful for sterilizing medical equipment.
each new generation in developed countries comes into the world with fewer of these native populations (microbes). They're actually missing some component of their microbiota that they've evolved to have.
Microbes — living things so small they cannot be seen with the naked eye — are indispensable to all life on Earth. They produce more than half of Earth’s atmospheric oxygen; the bacteria among them are responsible for putting nitrogen into a form plants can use; and bacteria and fungi are the most important “decomposers” of the natural world — they break down dead organic matter, such as tree branches, and recycle the resulting elements back into the Earth.
Experiments which investigated the effect of X-ray doses up to 60,000 rad on the further expectation of life of triploid and two classes of diploid adult female Drosophila melanogaster are described. Low doses produced an increase in the further expectation of life of triploid and of one of the classes of diploid females, but higher doses produced a linear reduction in lifespan with increasing dose.
The longevity of adult male and virgin female Drosophila subobscura exposed to single doses of X-rays 4–8 days after eclosion has been investigated. When kept on a maize meal-agar-molasses medium which was replaced every 4 days, males showed a nearly linear reduction in lifespan with increasing dose; females showed an increase in lifespan after doses of 8500, 17,000, or 34,000 r. Evidence is given that this increase in longevity is correlated with a decrease in fecundity after irradiation.