How X-Rays Work

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Listen, laugh but not least with MC Jin on the iHeart Radio App Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey Chuckier, we're almost done everybody with the science playlist. I hope all of our egghead friends out there got into this one. This one was, I feel like a quite a while ago.

But it's about x-rays. It's called how x-rays work, and it's super nerdy and super fascinating. Give it a listen. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from How StuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Choprine as always. There's Jerry over there. Fiddling around with stuff. So it's stuff you should know the podcast. Not stuff you should know the movie.

That's right. Yeah. We were sworn secrecy about that. They'd be a good movie. They'd be a bad movie.

I don't know, man. It could go either way.

I always see, I imagine it, like, strange brew.

Oh, yeah. Yes.

“They could, uh, they could base it on the stuff you should know.”

Tell all book I'm writing. Oh, yeah. That would be exciting. That would be very exciting. I'm looking forward to that book, like, a lifetime movie the week.

Do you like, um, switch people's names? Like am I, um, Joe? Yeah. Joe Clark. Yeah, exactly.

Now, uh, it is sort of like, uh, like, uh, did you see the, say by the bell movie on? Oh, I didn't screech right a book. It was based on a book by screech, right? Yeah.

It wasn't like all sex and drugs and stuff. Oh, it was, you know, it was a bunch of teenagers and Hollywood. So sure, that was some of that in there. But it was, I didn't read the book. But the movie was bad and not nearly as salacious as you wanted it.

Right. I remember a lot of people being disappointed. And by remember, I mean, I recall the like two weeks ago when people were talking about it when it came out. It's dark. I'll watch Emily and I'll watch some of those, um, just terrible, terrible biophics occasionally on TV.

And it's, it can be fun. Like we watched the, uh, who is the one, uh, actor, uh, Brittany Murphy, the Brittany Murphy story? Oh, really does she have a heck of a story? Is she alive still or does she die? And now she passed away.

That's right. Under kind of weird circumstances, um, because she and her husband both passed away within weeks of each other. Weird. And there are all these strange claims that her house was poisoned, uh, that they were poisoned. And, um, yeah, it was, it was fun.

What's your take on it? Oh, I don't know. You're just, the movie wasn't very good. Who played Brittany Murphy do you remember? Um, somebody bowing wasn't it?

No, she's in all of those. Someone who didn't look very much like Brittany Murphy. Do you remember going? But I was right. The action and cut your guy was pretty good though.

I got to say Steve Jobs played him. They should have just gotten action and cut your plate himself. He's not doing much. He's on my two and a half men. No, no, no.

That's got to require 15 minutes of work a week. He's selling cameras.

“Do you remember when that whole two and a half men thing was going down?”

We were in LA. And for the, the one and only time in my entire life, I see John Crier. That day. Oh, during the, the Charlie Sheen mountain. Like, the day of the meltdown, like, it happened at night.

And within eight hours, I saw John Crier for the first time in person at a McDonald's. Did you all duckie? No, I left him alone. He looks stressed out. Well, yeah, he's probably like, my career is going down the tubes.

But little did he know. He's a survivor. Yeah, his career is just fine. Yep.

Yeah. So we're talking about, right? Yep. That was the lightest part of this podcast. I like this one.

This one. It's one of those things where if you can just hang on by your fingernails, it can click. And then you lose it again.

But that means that it could click again later on. That's what I like about it. Good. I'll leave that to you. I got lots of other stuff about it.

Oh, you did. I totally understand. Good, good. So have you ever broken anything and needed an X-ray? Or has it all just been dental stuff?

You know, I did never broken a bone.

Not good. Yeah, I mean, I've had my injuries were always stitches. I was always getting busted open. Oh, yeah. Rocks and sprinklers.

And I was always getting cut. Yeah. And so back up. But I never broke a bone. That's great.

Yeah.

“You should probably knock on one more time just to be safe.”

Yeah. So yeah. All of my X-rays too have been like just going to the dentist or whatever. You never had a bone broken. I don't want to say because I don't even know if knocking on wood will do it.

That would just be so horribly interesting if both of us broke a bone after this. Yeah. And we're at the age where like you should break bones when you're kid where you're like, yeah, whatever. I get a cast at this age.

Right, drag. Yeah. I remember reading like a Tom Clancy novel and like some kid got an arm torn off or whatever. And one of the surgeons was like, if the arms in the same room is the kid, it can be healed. Right.

That doesn't hold true in your Tom Clancy's age. No. So you are familiar with X-rays. So you've seen them before. You've watched ER surely.

Yeah. I mean, I've had X-rays for like the dentist. One's like he said and then just other various like chest X-rays for sicknesses and things like that. Right. I think maybe a little frivolous to be honest.

Yeah. And kind of dangerous really. Yeah. Conceivable. Sure.

Which we'll get into later.

“Did you, were you familiar with X-rays at all beyond that?”

Did you know that they were invented or discovered? Exidently? Yeah. I did know that. I did not.

That's one of the few things I know. I saw a little like quicky short on some like it might have been an actually science channel. I looked all over. The most I could find was a dude on Siemens describing it in the most flat ethic. I watched one person go one of his videos.

Yeah. I got to five and five when low and I was like forget this. Yeah.

If I've never loaded for me.

I watched the other 14 though. And the whole time I was going, man. These are a minute long. Please join them all together into one subsequent video. I don't know.

It was so weird. Yeah. It was pretty silly. And he was good. He was just very dry.

Yeah. And they spent zero pennies on any kind of soundtrack or anything. Like if he grabs papers, you hear papers rustling in a classroom. It was pretty straightforward. Yes.

But that's a very wind about roundabout way of getting to. It's discovery in 1895 by a German physicist named Villhelm Rintgen. Nice. And he was testing whether cathode rays could pass the glass. And he saw that the fluorescent screen was glowing.

When he turned on his electron beam. What wasn't a big deal. But he was like, wait. He's got cardboard around it. Right.

There shouldn't be any visible light escaping. Which is silly to think of now. Well, yeah. It is.

“But you have to put yourself in his shoes.”

Like X-ray, he hadn't been discovered because he was literally on the verge of discovering them right then. That's right. And yeah. So he was like, this is very curious that this is fluorescing. Yeah.

And he noticed other things were glowing. And eventually he started putting other objects between the tube and the screen. They glowed. The screen dead. That is.

Finally, he put his hand there. I read his wife's hand. Oh, really? He's like, either way. Come in here for a second.

No way. And it saw bones projected. And then I guess probably poo pooed his pants. It's a man. I think I wanted something here.

Yeah. It was really that quickly. Right. He was like immediately the application was clear. It wasn't on those things where it took 20 years.

Right. He's like, hold on. You can see bones. This could be really helpful. Yes.

And he wanted Nobel Prize. Very rightfully so. The first one ever for physics. And he named him X-rays because he didn't know what the heck it was. No, exactly.

I kind of signing your name. He probably, I think he assumed that later on. Future scientists would fill in the blanks. But they were like, no, we're cool with X-rays. Well, he probably thought that someone would eventually call it like the

Runtkin ray or something. He wasn't much of a self promoter. No. He was just like all his calm X-rays as a placeholder. And he didn't patent anything.

You know, he never like made money on note.

And then just his wife had hand cancer. Really? No. I was laughing. No, she didn't have to be fair.

It's got to be out there.

It was a first time it was really put to practical use.

The first Balkan war? The one around war war one? Well, no, 1897. Oh, that Balkan war. I didn't know that existed until just now.

And they said we can see bullets and trap no one's stuff now. Which is helpful. It is extremely helpful. So like this guy, Runtkin discovers X-rays and their most practical application in one fell swoop basically.

Yep. And a little further study revealed that X-rays are actually just another part of the Electromagnetic spectrum of which radio waves, microwaves, what we call visible light. What else is on there? Well, I've got my handy wallet, Electromagnetic spectrum card.

Yeah. And X-rays fall between gamma rays and ultraviolet rays on that spectrum, which are all below. Well, you say below. I don't know if it's not really an above or below situation. Visible light and then infrared microwave and radio waves.

“So it would be a higher lower frequency because that's how the whole thing's divided.”

Yeah. So like the visible spectrum of light consists of electromagnetic radiation that has a frequency of wavelength that our eyes are sensitized to. So we can pick up visible light. But there's plenty of other stuff on the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation.

And all of it is delineated by the frequency, the wavelength. So at the highest end, you have gamma rays. Yeah, that means the squiggly line is very close together. Exactly. And then on the farthest end, you have radio waves. And that means the squiggly line is far apart.

Exactly. And that is called Chuck Science. That's good stuff. Yeah. So back in my wallet.

X-rays right next to the... What else you have in there? I just have my perhaps blue ribbon membership card, which actually do. Do you really? Yeah, but I've had it for like 20 years.

Wow. When you, you've got it when you're like seven, eight. Yeah. And flatter me. So X-rays fall, I guess we're about in the sort of...

Well, yeah, the higher and the higher frequency as far as the electromagnetic spectrum goes.

But the point is, is that it is ultimately the same thing.

It's a, it's a type of electromagnetic energy that is carried on a photon, which is a particle of what we would call light. Yeah, and we've talked about photons a plenty in the show. And the same like photons produce the visible light that we can see. The photons blast out from the sun.

How long does it take? It takes like a hundred thousand years to get from the core to the surface. And then like eight minutes to get from the surface to earth. That's right. Man, I love that fact.

So this is the only part I understand. So I'll lead with it.

“If you want to imagine an atom, a nucleus of an atom,”

and rings around that atom, addium? How do you say? That's a new word. An atom, as orbitals, when an electron drops to a lower orbital, it releases energy in the form of a photon.

And the electron will always drop to the lower orbital.

That's right. So like if an orbital is, if an electron is kicked off of a lower orbital, an electron in the higher orbital goes, yeah, and drops down to that one. Yes, and depending on how far it drops, it's going to determine the energy level of that photon.

That it releases as energy when it drops, right? Yeah, because it doesn't have to drop more than one orbital. Right. You can skip down. I don't even know how far.

But a long way. Yeah, I can. And like you said, the greater the distance between the two orbitals, or the greater the energy differential,

“the greater the energy that photon when released will have, right?”

That's right. We said photons are the energy carriers of the electromagnetic spectrum, and depending on that energy, or the frequency, the wavelength of that photon, that determines what kind of photon it is, right? Whether it's a radio photon, or an x-ray photon,

or a photon that we can see that's in the visible spectrum. That's right. Sometimes when these photons are flying around, they will collide with other atoms. And sometimes those atoms absorb that photon's energy,

and then kick it up to that higher level again. Right. But it has to be from what I understand, and I saw that there's like, of course, it's science. So there's like atomic science.

So there's little exceptions to this in that. But from what I could see Chuck, there is the energy of that photon has to exactly match the energy differential between one orbital and another on an atom.

So that it can kick it up, so that it hits that one electron on the lower orbital, kicks it up to the higher orbital, and thus transfers its energy,

that that photon was carrying, right?

That's right. But if it's a little less,

“it's not going to have the energy to kick that electron up,”

which makes sense to me, right? Yeah. But if it's a little more, this is what it doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't kick the electron up,

and then the photon carries on in a diminished energetic state. It just doesn't do anything. It doesn't interact with that. It has to be exactly like

the energy differential between orbits is eight. Yeah. So a photon has to have an energy of eight, or else it's not going to do anything with that atom. That's right.

Okay. And so depending on the, well, let's say you have a radio wave. They don't have very much energy, so they can't move electrons

between these orbitals. They just pass through things.

X-rays are super powerful.

Right. There's lots of energy. So they can pass through things, which is key if you want to check out your bones from outside of your body.

It is. And we're going to explain exactly how right after this. [Music] Hey, I'm Hota-Katby.

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No matter the era. Drink chance brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to drink chance from the black effect podcast network

on the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Okay, so we're back Chuck. Can you tantalize everybody by saying that this difference in absorption

is what produces x-rays, right? Was that tantalizing? I was tantalizing. Okay. And I even know what's coming.

All right. That's how excited I am about x-rays. Good. So consider this. Like different atoms have different atomic weights.

Yeah. They have different densities. They're just different. Like different atoms are different. And atoms also have what are called

differences in radiological density. Right. Okay. So a really high energy, high atomic weight,

very dense atom, is going to be able to absorb a lot of energy. Small atoms that may be our looser and have a lower atomic weight

are going to get kicked around by any old photon that wants to come along. Yeah. And that's key. Like I said,

if you want to see bones because your soft tissue, if you've ever noticed when you have an x-ray, you'll see the bones. But you know,

the rest is sort of a grayish black mess. Exactly. Because your soft tissue has smaller atoms. Your bones.

Calcium atoms are much larger. So they're going to absorb

It's exactly right. And they do it really well. Exactly. So imagine you have, let's say Chuck,

let's go back and hang out with Chuck. Right? Oh, man. Let's get back in the way back. She's been a while.

Okay. Look at him over there. So here we are in France and this cave. It has his hand up against the cave wall, as you'll see. Yeah.

And in his other hand, he's got that little straw filled with pigment, red pigment. And he's blowing it on his hand. Right?

Sure. And now that he moves his hand away, there's the outline of his hand. Like it's called a stencil, right? Exactly.

He just made an early stencil.

He's like a banksy, basically.

Right. Like a caveman, banksy. But if you look at the back of Chuck's hand, don't get too close. But look at the back of his hand.

Yeah. Yeah. It's covered in red pigment, right? Yeah.

“So if you want to equate this to an x-ray,”

the hand absorbed all of that pigment, right? And the stuff that passed through, left the picture on the cave wall. That's kind of what happens with an x-ray. Except with an x-ray photograph,

the x-ray photons are absorbed by the denser calcium-rich bones. Yes. And they pass through the softer tissue. So the picture that we have is the outline,

the silhouette of the bones, because the x-rays made it through the tissue. Didn't make it through the bones. They made it through the tissue. And onto the x-ray plate,

which absorbed the picture in negative. That's right. And I'm glad he said picture, because that's all it is. On the other side of the human being,

you know, that they're shooting the x-ray at, there's a camera. Mm-hmm. And you're just going to get a regular negative,

and they could make it a positive, but they leave it as a negative, because you really don't need the positive image. Right.

“And that's what they'll put on that little screen”

to show you your cracked femur. Exactly. And they can see the crack because some of those x-rays will make it through the gap. That's right.

Right. So all you're seeing is the result of x-rays that made it through the tissue. We're absorbed by the bone, so those don't make it to the plate.

The ones that make it to the plate cause the chemical reaction that gives you your negative, your x-ray. And it's pretty simple, really, like if you think about it,

at least in principle. It's also extraordinarily difficult to conceive of, but if you understand the principle behind it, it makes utter and complete sense. Yeah, and it's a pretty focused shot that they're using there.

It's not like they don't fill the entire room with x-rays. You know, they've got a thick lead shield around the whole device, and it contains everything. It's got a little small window. This just gonna let that narrow beam pass through

through a series of filters and basically hit you,

wherever they want to hit you. Yeah, and the reason that they use lead is because lead is an extremely dense element. Yes. Right?

Sure. Oh, god, I hope so. With a very high atomic number, which means it can absorb tons of energy. Right?

“Yeah, that's why you're gonna wear a lead apron.”

If you're not, you know, if you're getting your skull done, you're probably gonna wear an apron in your chest. Sure. So this lead is being bombarded with x-ray photons and electrons, and it's just taken it.

It's fine. And it's not being able to, it's not able to pass through because it doesn't have high enough energy. But yes, when they put that little window in the x-ray generating machine,

it passes right through there in a concentrated beam. And check, let's talk about the machine, right? So, and this is basically what we use as x-ray machines is essentially what rootkin was made, was experimenting with when he accidentally discovered them.

Because if you look for x-rays, like they propagate naturally, but I think like 20% of the x-rays on earth come from humans. Oh, really?

Yeah, like we generate a lot of x-rays. They don't come, like you don't find them normally on earth. They're coming from outer space to us. Okay, hence x-ray astronomy. But the ones here on earth that are generated on earth,

it's not like rocks put out x-rays or something like that. Right. We do. We humans put them. Humans and lead aprons put out x-rays.

And they use this machine like rootkin made. Yeah, what you have in the machine, you have an electrode pair, a cathode and an anode. And that's inside a good old fashioned glass vacuum tube,

which, um, it's amazing how vacuum tubes are still like the best way to do many of these things.

Well, it allows things to travel at the speed of light easily. That's right. And it allows guitar amps to sound great. I didn't know these vacuum tubes in that. Oh, is that a cathode tube?

Yeah. Yeah, like the best amps are still made with vacuum tubes.

So it's kind of like this old technology that's still superior. Right. They're all pumped out by hand by a 90 year old man in Tennessee. Mr. Marshall. Yes.

No. So the cathode is a heated filament just like you might see in a light bulb. Mm-hmm. And the machine's going to pass a current through that and heat that thing up. And then it's going to spit electrons off that surface.

And it's going to hit a disc made of tungsten. And it's going to draw those across a tube.

It's basically the tube is sort of the key piece.

Right.

“Because you've got the positive and the negative charge, the cathode and the anode, right?”

Yeah. And that difference that electrical charge draws as electrons down to the anode. Yeah. With a lot of force. Yeah.

And that force means that when those electrons hit the tungsten anode, it knocks a bunch of electrons off. The bunch of x-rays in the process and you have a whole box filled with x-ray radiation. A box full of x-ray. That's exactly what it is.

Yeah. There might as well be like a footprint to this thing. Like an old sewing machine. For as technologically advanced as it is. There may be for all I know.

I don't know what goes on in that other room. Right. Yeah. And I'll true. There's some dude in there.

Like his right leg is three times more muscular than his left leg. Because that's the only one he uses. So in addition, like I said to x-rays being created, the other x-rays, other photons can go on and knock more electrons off. Right.

You have a process of chain reaction starting. It's like one gets hit and then that's it. And a photons create it and it just hangs around until it's beamed out. Right. But you're just generating this huge amount of x-rays.

And the x-rays are also continuing to propagate themselves. Because they're knocking more electrons free. And the more free electrons you have, the more interactions you have. Right. Right.

So one of the ways that more electrons can be knocked off. You don't even need a direct transfer of energy where a photon is absorbed or knocks an electron from one orbit to another or knocks it loose entirely. A photon actually has this really cool capability of just orbiting close by the nucleus of an atom. And when the nucleus basically draws it into its orbit, the photon just takes a hard left turn.

Yeah, it just bumps it off its course.

“But even like the Dodge Viper has to like slow down to take a left turn, slow a little bit, right?”

Just a little. Just a little. Yeah. But that little bit in photon world means a transfer of energy from the photon outward. Yeah.

Yeah. And then the photon like the photon takes that left turn and the energy is transferred to the atom. Yeah. And one of the byproducts, if this sounds like it's going to create a lot of heat, it's because it will. And in order to combat this, they rotate this anode to keep it. It would just melt down if you kept it in place.

Yeah. And apparently there's a cool oil bath that helps absorb heat as well. Right.

I never have heard of that either.

It sounds oily. A cool oil bath. Yeah. It doesn't sound refreshing at all. It sounds like the opposite of refreshing. Yeah. Cool and oil don't really go together. No.

Yeah. And I misspoke that's an electron that can be drawn to into the nucleus of an atom.

“Appropriately enough because they orbit nuclei anyway.”

Right. But it doesn't have to hook up with that atom. When it takes that hard left, it emits the photon, like you said. That's right. And like I said earlier, there's a camera on the other side of the patient.

And it's going to record that pattern of light when it passes through the body. And it's not so different from a regular camera. And in the end, you're just going to get a picture, like I said, a negative image. Yeah. And if you hook it up with a computer that allows you to take x-rays basically in slices. You can come up with computerized tomography.

Yeah. Yeah. A-K-A-C-T. Right. Let's see T-Scan. Exactly.

If you get a breast exam, you're using a type of x-ray called mammography. Yep. And then there's a fluoroscopy, which the man in the extraordinarily dry presentation from

Siemens said was basically like moving picture.

It's like a movie. Exactly. And then he showed us what the movie is, but the flip book. Great. That whole flip book trick.

And if you listen to this podcast, I'm sorry. I just want to apologize for both of us. Siemens guy. Oh, yeah. Like, hats off to you for doing that at all.

Yeah. Because he's probably saying, well, at least I was correct and everything. Exactly. It's a good point, sir. But with fluoroscopy, it's basically like a movie of an x-ray movie.

And you would do this to make sure like a hard as beating correctly, because you wanted to see it.

Because as we've said, x-rays will pass through tissue like heart tissue and muscle tissue and blood vessels and all this stuff you want to get pictures of using an x-ray.

“So you have to use something called a contrast media for it.”

Yeah. A contrast agent is basically more dense than the soft tissue. So if you want to, let's say, swallow. It's usually like a barium compound. And if you want to examine like your blood vessels or your circulatory system,

you're sometimes like going to inject that or you might drink it to see if you're doing like a gastrointestinal. Right. Like a GI tract. Yeah.

You're going to swallow that stuff, which I've never had to do.

I think my dad had to do that. Yeah. I don't think it's super pleasant. I get the impression not to. But I did as well.

Yeah. It's an old guy thing. Yeah. So I should be getting one soon. And then it allows you to see a moving image, basically how that liquid is.

If there's any blockage, there's all sorts of applications for it. Yeah. So it has a high radiological density, which means that the x-rays don't just pass right through the tissue that it's being suspended in like your blood vessels. It absorbs it for it. So you get a picture of your blood vessels, your circulatory system, which is pretty cool.

It's pretty clever. It's also extraordinarily elementary and principal. That's right. My dear Watson. And that single picture.

“I think we know we mentioned CT and mammography and all that.”

The microscopy, but the single picture is just called standard radiography. And that's when you're, you know, taking a photo of your skull. Right. Or your lungs or your bones or your teeth.

And so speaking of the lead apron thing, man, it's always made me kind of nervous.

Like if the rest of my body has to wear lead apron. But you're shooting an x-ray into my head. Am I going to be okay? Well, we'll answer that right after this message. Hey, I'm how to cut V-host to the podcast.

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Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. June is black music month and on the drink champs podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture. Like Swaley. Do you realize how legendary you are? I appreciate it. I've seen it, but I'm like master, like so much more to do, like Prince. He's got like 30 albums.

We've got like five right now. That's the rate we've got to be going. Yeah, that's a good attitude. You also hear stories from industry legends and hip-hop pioneers, like Fab5 Freddy. I directed when Naz is their early video. Which one? One love. Wow.

I literally filmed in his apartment in Queensburg. His mom's been still up in that apartment. Naz was just beginning to take off. His pop choose to live near me in Harlem. His dad introduced him to a whole lot of, you know, conscious stuff and he made a young prodigy. No matter the era, drink champs brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations.

Listen to drink champs from the black effect podcast network on the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. [Music]

Alright, X-rays. Are they bad for you? The answer is yes.

Pretty unequivocally.

“But like all things, it's in moderation as the key.”

Sure. In the 1930s and 40s and into the 50s, they had X-ray machines at shoe stores. Oh, yeah. They could extra your feet to get a better fit.

Yeah, talkative kids in class. They just shoot them with an X-ray and would it? No, no. They probably did. I've got you like twice. Well, I don't have to believe that.

Like, hey, let's look at his brain.

“There may be a mouse running around inside of it.”

Yeah. People in the 30s were dumb.

Well, it's basically radiation sickness.

It's a form of ionization or ionizing radiation. Right. So what can happen, like if just normal light hits an atom is no big deal. But when an X-ray hits an atom, it knocks electrons off of it.

It creates an ion, which is an electrically charged atom. And basically anything from cellular death to mutation can happen at that point. Yeah. And mutation can spread in it can cause cancer. Right.

Because stable atoms are neutral, right? Because they have an equal number of protons and electrons. You lose an electron. All of a sudden, you have a positively charged ion. Yeah.

And that negatively charged electron running around. It just causes trouble. And you said light visible light can be absorbed and it's no big deal. Yeah. Because visible light exists on a wavelength that's about in tune with the soft tissues of our body.

Right. So we know how to absorb it and it makes us tan and that's cool. Right. But with these ionized atoms, these positively charged atoms, like going around in your body, it can cause a lot of problems, like mutations, like cancer.

Right. Yeah. I mean, if you break that DNA chain, that's not good. No, it is itself.

And one of the results is the DNA can basically lose its ability to regulate itself.

And it, the cell replicates more frequently than it should. And all of a sudden, you have a tumor on your hands and that can spread. It can also be a problem if that DNA break occurs in utero, because then that can lead to birth defects. Yes, sure, which is why pregnant women shouldn't get X-rays. And it can also just lead to plain old cellular death.

Yeah. If you have cellular death, then the tissues that are made up by those cells break down. And you have a problem on your hands with that as well. So here's the deal. We get exposed to radiation every day, just walking around on the planet.

Yeah. It depends on where you live, but every year, the average person is going to be exposed anywhere from one to four. It's measured in milliceverts per year.

“Like I said, depending on where you are, I think in higher elevations, it's less than it's sea level.”

So if you live in Denver, Colorado, you're going to be exposed to less. Well, yeah, because you're -- You're higher up in the atmosphere, and that makes a difference. Exactly. You have less protection, right?

Yeah. So, you know, what they want to do, medically speaking, they want to use -- They're supposed to use the minimum amount to achieve the pictures you need. It's not like the old days where they just, like, let's 20 x-rays. Yeah.

Like, let's do the minimum amount. We need to get the information that we need. A CT scan can get your -- you know, you laid down in the tube, and it rotates around you. And your whole body can be photographed in less than five seconds these days. Nice.

But, you know, there are concerns if you get too many x-rays still. Like, a dental panorama. I think what I say, one to four milliseconds per year. And it's cumulative, too. Yeah.

Like, it's not like you get one, and then, you know, eight months later,

you get another one in that first one, one away.

Sure. Like, it accumulates over the course of a year. Yeah. So here's just a few examples of how much radiation you're being exposed to with x-rays. A dental panorama is going to be 0.01 milliseconds, so not very much.

Like, two chest x-rays might be 0.1. mammogram is around 0.4. Your pelvis, 0.6. Your back upper back may be 1.0. No wonder why.

Because there's so much -- bone there? Maybe.

“Yeah, maybe you have to do with exposure to -- yeah, that makes sense.”

I got a ton of bone in my upper back. A full CT scan, it depends on what you are. It depends on what you're x-raying, but CT scan is obviously more like an abdominal or pelvis CT scan, because it'd be as many as 10 millisevers. Yeah.

So that's, like, up to two or three years worth of radiation in a single CT scan. Yeah. Which can be problematic, which is why they don't say getting the CT machine like every other week. Right. But, you know, some of the reasons you might -- if you had a traumatic injury,

they're going to X-ray you. A lot of times for disease confirmation. They'll use an X-ray machine. During surgery is a visual guide, like if you do endoscopic surgery, the surgeon's actually needs to look at something.

So sometimes it's X-ray for that.

You know, when you break a bone, it's not just that first X-ray.

Right. You're going to keep getting them to see how you're healing up. Right. The Siemens video. No.

It isn't? No. Okay. I don't think so. I mean, I look at so much stuff.

I don't think so. I mean, I look at so much stuff. Yeah. I can't wait for you. I can't wait for you.

So I did a brain stuff on C-verts and how many we can take. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of, like, it's a little alarming. Sure.

How much radiation we're exposing.

People who fly a lot too are exposed to tons of radiation. Because you're, again, higher up in the atmosphere. Yeah. So you're less protected by the atmosphere. Yeah.

Speaking of flying, of course, baggage. That is X-rayed. The food industry uses X-rays a lot. Archaeologists use it if they don't want to, like, destroy an object. And they want to see what's inside.

Or Earth sciences. They'll use X-rays for rocks to see what kind of mineral composition. So there's all sorts of applications. It's not just a medical space. Yeah.

X-ray telescopes out on on satellites. Yeah. Apparently you can see a lot. You can see things you can't detect from an earthbound telescope. Because X-rays are absorbed by our atmosphere.

So you can't, like, shoot it in the space like that. So this article makes a pretty good point if you ask me. It says, like, yes, X-rays are, like, our bad for you.

“And you should use them with care and caution.”

And one good point is to always ask if there's an alternative to an X-ray.

Just to basically say, hey, dock or Dennis, slow your roll. Yeah. Let's, is there another way we can get this information without an X-ray? I know it's the easiest, but whatever the alternative's. But then the article makes the point, like, it's still safer than the ultimate alternative.

The thing that X-rays replace, which was exploratory surgery. Yeah. Back in the day, if they thought you had cancer, they would cut you open and see. Yeah. And this is definitely better than that.

Yeah. We're a broken bone. Imagine getting that arm cut open to see how it's doing. You're like, nope, it's not broken. And we haven't invented anesthetic yet, so.

Good luck with your Dennis, by the way, because, um, I always get the feeling that the Dennis really like, no, your insurance allows us to build for so many per year. I think so. That's how many you're going to get. These X-rays are putting my kid through college.

Yeah. Uh, you got anything else on X-rays? No. That was a fine amount of stuff. I'm feeling good about it.

You feel good about this one? Sure. I do too.

“Uh, if you want to know more about X-rays, you can check out this, uh, really informative”

article on how stuff works.com. It's got some great diagrams that explain a lot of the stuff we are saying visually. Uh, and you can type X-ray into the search bar. How stuff works when it'll bring that up. Since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

Uh, this is from my buddy Poppy and Vancouver. Uh, stuff you should don't listen to them at when I was there. Hmm. And, um, Poppy, as this is, say, he's got a pretty cool job. Uh, he listened to the PTSD show and wanted to write in about another option.

That he works with, uh, he's a registered acupuncturist in Vancouver, with special training in trauma and addictions. Uh, he's a program called neurotrophic stimulation therapy. Uh, in TST and large part of the program uses ear acupuncture. And electro acupuncture to promote neuroplasticity in the brain.

He says you can't necessarily directly fix the brain, but you can stimulate the ear nerves. And we'll help the brain re-regulate certain functionality, so it can heal itself. Uh, he's been treating trauma and PTSD patients for several years.

And the evidence for his efficacy is high. Uh, it can be done with acupuncture needles alone or in combination with a mild, electrical stimulation. Um, remember we talked about, um, transcanial electromagnetic stimulation.

Yeah, transdermal cranial stimulation. He says that's one of the things that he's also using to treat PTSD, which is pretty cool. Wow. And he said it makes cognitive behavioral therapies so much easier to introduce, because it promotes neuroplasticity and the results help a PTSD suffer

to be more open to and able to receive positive social programming. So he has a program we want to promote.

“If you want to see all the components in action in this program,”

you can visit last door recovery society at lastdoor.org/intst. Or you can donate funds to help purchase a brain scanner so that they can scientifically measure the results of the program, which would really help show the validity of the therapies. And if you're interested in helping out poppies cause there,

because he's really big on treating veterans in Canada and the U.S. Um, I shortened his little URL to, uh, bitly bitly.ly/11YNLOQ. And that is from Poppy and he says Namaste. Thanks a lot, Poppy. Is it Poppy with a O, P-O-P-P-I?

Nice. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast. You can join us on facebook.com/step-you-shadow.

That's right.

And as always, join us at our home on the web.

Stuff-you-shadow.com. For more on this, and thousands of other topics, visit housedeforks.com. [music playing]

“Joy is essential, and it's also elusive, but now.”

There's a new and exciting way to start your journey

toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, How To Copy. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on air chats. Open your free-eye heart radio app search,

Joy 101, and listen now.

“Joy 101 with How To Copy is presented by CVS.”

June is Black Music Month, and on the drink chance podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Swaley. Do you realize how legendary you are? I appreciate it. I've seen it, and I'm like, "Man, I still got so much more to do. Like, friends, he's got like 30 albums. We've got like five right now. That's the right way we got everything going."

Yeah, that's a good attitude. No matter the era, drink chance brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations. That's not work on the "I Heart Radio" app. Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. It just came out.

Jamie, what did you just do? You just sit yourself up for the earlier.

I've never heard you tell this story.

I've never told this story. This must have been tucked deep deep in the Jeremy Linfile. My name is MC Jin, excited to tell you about laugh, but not least. I'll be chatting with guests from all walks of life about the power of humor when it comes to facing difficult times.

“These will be conversations that remind us all, life is hard, laugh harder.”

Listen, laugh but not least with MC Jin on the "I Heart Radio" app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an "I Heart Podcast." guaranteed human.