Post
Region: Empire of Andrew
(Ionizing radiation refers specifically to radiation energetic enough to ionize particles they come into contact with and includes nuclear radiation as well as electromagnetic radiation of a high enough wavelength, changing their chemical properties, which damages skin cells and damages their constituent chemicals used in the production of new DNA for repairing cell damage. Life makes a bunch of filler data for DNA that does nothing to try and minimize mutation when repairing cells as it would reduce the statistical likelihood any particle in the DNA happening to get Ionized and change properties would produce an actual change instead of hitting some filler data and doing nothing. However, this only reduces the statistical likelihood and doesn't actually protect the cells from the damage in the first place. Tanning is yet another adaptation to reduce cancer risk, specifically from ionizing radiation from the sun against the skin. But as always, it's a reduction of risk and doesn't negate the risk entirely. Furthermore not everybody has the genetic traits to tan, and technology to initiate tanning processes in those who can get tans already exists on earth. Humans do not inherently need radiation for immediate survival, but ionizing radiation exposure is a natural consequence of human life as the sun must be braved, and food must be obtained and ingested which can contain some radioactive isotopes of the elements needed for human biology. Luckily on the food front, most of the dosages of radioactive elements are very low limiting the risk from that vector. The only risk I can think of for this plan is slowing the rate at which life evolves on earth by reducing the rate at which mutations occur planet-wide, but safe general-purpose genetic modification technology is basically right around the corner for most of the earth powers and will be achieved within the next 40 to 60 years in the advanced tech progression of the EoA universe. Also it wouldn't completely stop natural evolution, as there are multiple vectors from which one will suffer some cell damage for which repairs are run and could cause mutation from a failure in the repairs.)
