A little poison helps, a lot harms – “hormesis”
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You may have come across hormesis previously:
- charcoal water is often used when people have overdosed on their medications, but too many charred steaks increases your cancer risk
- many ancient sites (i.e. stone circles) have people who believe that they have curative properties, yet they have heightened naturally occurring levels of radiation
- cancer can be cured by radiation therapies
- small amounts of DNA damage can lead to evolution, large amounts can kill
The last on the list is of particular interest to me. I think that evolution is partially driven by increases in cosmic radiation, that evolution and global cataclysms quite likely go hand-in-hand, and therefore the cataclysms include a component of cosmic radiation (suggesting a cause from beyond Earth). While a major increase in cosmic radiation could decimate life on our planet, a lesser increase could cause a beneficial, evolutionary rise in mutations.
Research in hormesis is growing rapidly in recent years, according to Science (Vol 237, 29 January 2010):
Many biologists have noticed that when they feed a plant or animal a tiny amount of a poison, the result is the opposite of what they see at higher doses – the plant grows faster, for example, or the mouse develops fewer tumors than it normally would. That “biphasic” phenomenon is known, among other terms, as hormesis.
…A search of the Web of Science database finds that citations of papers using the term “hormesis” or “hormetic” have soared from about 200 in 1999 to more than 2400 in 2009.
Come a SHTF event, I won’t be basking in cosmic rays, hoping to evolve. I quite like humans just how they are, and would rather observe any changes we undergo, rather than be part of the evolution/devolution. Well wishes to those who deliberately choose to evolve.
