• Question: why is nuclear so deadly towards humans but not cocrotches. If we were all wiped out in a nuclear war would cocrotches rule the world

    Asked by diddykong to Alex, Ali, Kerry, Philip, Theo on 13 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Kerry O'Shea

      Kerry O'Shea answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      The reason people say this is because cockroaches have a higher resistance to radiation than humans, but it’s unlikely that they could survive after a nuclear war.

      It’s basically due to how often our cells divide. Our cells are most sensitive to radiation when they are dividing; a cockroach’s cells divide much less often than human’s cells, so cockroaches might survive better than humans for a short burst of radiation but probably not a nuclear war!

    • Photo: Philip Ratcliffe

      Philip Ratcliffe answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Oh again, nuclear is an adjective, so my question is nuclear what? Nuclear dandruff, nuclear power, nuclear threat, …, or nuclear radiation?
      Well, in part at any rate this is a myth: just after the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan at the end of the II World War it was claimed that a large number of cockroaches (note the spelling) survived. This was then jumped by the “Ban the bomb” campaigners to frighten humanity (don’t ask me why but many people appear to be more afraid of cockroaches taking over the world than actually being blown up and killed).
      However, it does appear to true that they are more resistant – though even they would be killed by the sorts of blasts that we could make these days, which a far far more powerful. The point is simply that radiation is at is most damaging to life when cells are dividing and this happens less in cockroaches.

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