{"id":615,"date":"2011-08-04T23:12:27","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T13:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/?p=615"},"modified":"2011-08-04T23:17:29","modified_gmt":"2011-08-04T13:17:29","slug":"hormesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/2011\/08\/hormesis-615.html","title":{"rendered":"A little poison helps, a lot harms &#8211; &#8220;hormesis&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"zemanta-img\" style=\"margin: 1em; display: block;\">\n<div style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/commons.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Cosmicrayshower.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"cosmic radiation, interacting with air\" src=\"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/300px-Cosmicrayshower.png\" alt=\"cosmic radiation, interacting with air\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image via Wikipedia<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>You may have come across hormesis previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>charcoal water is often used when people have overdosed on their medications, but too many charred steaks increases your cancer risk<\/li>\n<li>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<\/li>\n<li>cancer can be cured by radiation therapies<\/li>\n<li>small amounts of DNA damage can lead to evolution, large amounts can kill<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Research in hormesis is growing rapidly in recent years, according to Science (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/content\/vol327\/issue5965\/r-samples.dtl\">Vol 237, 29 January 2010<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>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 &#8211; the plant grows faster, for example, or the mouse develops fewer tumors than it normally would. That &#8220;biphasic&#8221; phenomenon is known, among other terms, as hormesis.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;A search of the Web of Science database finds that citations of papers using the term &#8220;hormesis&#8221; or &#8220;hormetic&#8221; have soared from about 200 in 1999 to more than 2400 in 2009.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Come a SHTF event, I won&#8217;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\u00a0deliberately\u00a0choose to evolve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You may have come across hormesis previously:<\/p>\n<p>charcoal water is often used when people have overdosed on their medications, but too many charred steaks increases your cancer risk<br \/>\nmany ancient sites (i.e. stone circles) have people who believe that they have curative properties, yet they have heightened naturally occurring levels of radiation<br \/>\ncancer can be cured by radiation therapies<br \/>\nsmall amounts of DNA damage can lead to evolution, large amounts can kill<\/p>\n<p>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.<br \/>\nResearch in hormesis is growing rapidly in recent years, according to Science &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmic-rays","category-evolution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1823,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/1823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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