Radiation has many applications in science and medicine. It is used to induce mutations in plants to develop new varieties that are hardier and more resistant to pests. Food is irradiated to kill microbes and extend shelf life. The sterile insect technique releases sterile insects to control pest populations. In medicine, short-lived radioactive isotopes are used as tracers in diagnostic scans and tests. Radiation therapy also uses isotopes to treat cancer. Radioactive dating employs isotopes' decay rates to determine the ages of materials, helping date archaeological and geological samples.

1. Radiation Application

2. Marie CURIE
• Radium
- was added to the dial of
wristwatches to make
them glow in the dark.
- use to cure cancer.

3. George de Hevesy
• A student who was working
on naturally-occurring
radioactive materials.
• Suspecting that the food
served to them at the
boarding house was actually
recycled food, he “planted”
trace amounts of the
radioactive material on a
particular dish.

4. • Gold Foil Electroscope

5. FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
3 Major areas where ionizing
radiation is used in agriculture are:
Mutation plant breeding
Food Irradiation
Sterile insect technique

6. Mutation
plant breeding
• Ionizing radiation has been used for
several decades to produce new genetic
lines of rice, sorghum, garlic, wheat,
bananas, beans, avocado, and peppers,
all of which are more resistant to
pests and more adaptable to harsh
climatic conditions.

7. IR 64
- was produced by
Treating its breeder seed
with three mutagens,
namely:
• Diepoxybutane (DEB,
0.006%)
• Fast Neutrons (FN 33Gy)
• Gamma Rays (GR, 250 Gy)
IR 64

8. FOOD IRRIDIATION
• This is the process of exposing food to
ionizing radiation to destroy
microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, or
insects that might be present in the
food.
• Irradiation is known as a cold process. It
does not significantly increase the
temperature or change the physical or
sensory characteristics of most foods

9. Food Type Dose (kilo Grays)
fruit 1
poultry 3
spices, seasonings 30
OTHERS
Eliminating all the icroorhanisms
and panthogens in food
10,000

10. Sterile insect technique
• This nuclear technique is used to
control the reproduction of pest that
destroys fruits and vegetables crops.
• A method of biological control,
whereby overwhelming numbers of
sterile insects are released.

12. DIAGNOSIS and therapy
• In medical diagnosis the strategy is to
keep the radiation dose as low as
possible while gaining the most
information. How is this possible ?
By using small amounts of short-lived
radioactive isotopes injected to the
patient’s body –a technique called
radio isotopic tracing.

13. DIAGNOSIS and therapy
Thyroid-related disorder
– Iodine 123 – a gamma
emitter

14. DIAGNOSIS and therapy
• Technetium 99m
– The radioisotope is used to diagnose diseased
organs.
– The half life of the isotope is very short, 6
hours.
– Technetium-99m is used is used in many cases.
It is more widely used, over 20 million already,
to do bone scans, kidney scans, heart scans,
and lung scans.

16. DIAGNOSIS and therapy
• Radioimmunoassay
(RIA)
– detecting the hepatitis
virus from blood
samples.
– detecting the presence
of drugs and in a range
of other substances in a
sample of patient's
– blood.

17. DIAGNOSIS and therapy
• Radiation Therapy
~ Commonly used to treat
cancer.
* Iodine 131 – is used to treat
thyroid cancer.
* Some cancer treated by the
gamma rays from an external
cobalt-60 source, others using
internal beta radiation.

18. RADIOACTIVE DATING
• Using the decay curve and the isotopes
known half-life the age of the sample
can be estimated
• Radioisotopes are use as “nuclear clock”
to determine the age of objects on an
archeological, geological, and astronomical
time scale.

19. RADIOACTIVE DATING
Uranium Dating
– used to determine the age of the Earth,
the moon, or the solar system.
– can be used to determine the age of the
rocks.

20. RADIOACTIVE DATING
Carbon Dating
– Carbon-14 dating is a way of determining
the age of certain archeological artifacts of a
biological origin up to about 50,000 years
old. It is used in dating things such as bone,
cloth, wood and plant fibers that were
created in the relatively recent past by
human activities.