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Issue 15 Understanding Science

From Röntgen to Damadian: demystifying radiation and explaining radiology and nuclear medicine

Co-author: Mario Zelić

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

Marie Curie

Radiation is a word that incites fear in a lot of people. Much of that fear originates from a misunderstanding of what it actually is, what it does and what it does not. “Radiation” is a very broad term, generally used to represent any emission of energy by a source of some kind. However, there are many different phenomena that fall under that umbrella, and they come in varying degrees of rarity and of danger. Even those that may be seen as “dangerous” in some respects can be more useful than harmful – which is why medicine has both treatments for those who suffered too much damaging radiation, and treatments utilizing the purposeful irradiation of a patient.

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Issue 15 Science Shoutout

How we know what we know

If you have ever sat in a science class, you might be familiar with the classic science-teacher opening to an introductory lesson on a new topic. Quite typically, you are not given an immediate outline of the new concepts, but rather briefed on how and why we came to know them in the first place. If you are to study the classical law of universal gravitation, you first need to know the story of how an apple supposedly decided to study the crown of Isaac Newton’s head. You might think this is somewhat silly. Why turn a physics lecture into a history class? Well, there is a reason for this trend, and it is not to fill time.

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Experimental Issue 15

Questioning our past (posts)

Co-author: Mario Borna Mjertan

Greetings, S3 blog reader! We have prepared something special for you – an interactive quiz! The questions are varied, from physics to medicine, so don’t worry if you are not familiar with some terms, and try to answer anyway.

Each question has only one correct answer. When you choose the answer, you will see whether you got it right and get an additional explanation. Beneath each question there is also a link to the text from our blog that deals more with its respective topic. Have fun!