gold compounders and Radiation poisoning

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

I was wondering, with Gold Compounding (or even regular Gold I suppose) would one be able to heal the effects of Radiation Poisoning?

Testing out some new potentially dangerous materials? No problem. Heal with some gold.

Manhattan Project? Spend a few days in bed beforehand storing health, good to go.

Uh oh. Reactor Meltdown and Radiation is leaking? Good thing you have your trusty gold metalminds...

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to heal the radiation sickness, or just constantly burn gold to combat the effects during exposure? Could offer a lot more potential work for Nuclear powered energy in the Mistborn world. Although I imagine they went with a different technology route.

[king of nowhere]

I don't see why it shouldn't work. gold ferrings should have some intersting work possibilities that would not be possible in the real world.

I'm thinking for example we won't have to make animal experiments for potentially angerous chemicals or drugs. we could experiment on gold ferrings, they aren't riking anything.

[name_here]

Feruchemical gold probably would fix the symptoms of radiation poisoning, yes.

 

That said, it's still a bit problematic. They'd inhale radioactive particles and accumulate them on their equipment, and neutron radiation can make materials it strikes radioactive. I'm not entirely sure whether Feruchemical gold will actually remove poisons or just compensate for their effects, but either way it won't do a thing about clothing or gear. The metalminds themselves could end up as high-level waste.

 

Scadrial might very well opt to give nuclear power a miss. Economically speaking, it's not terribly efficent, at least at present they don't have much call for nuclear weapons, and while it does have some environmental advantages, Scadrial is pretty underpopulated in absolute terms, so I expect that by the time the downsides of hydrocarbon burning come back to haunt them they'll have a better option available.

Edited November 24, 2013 by name_here

[Swimmingly he/him]

I don't see why it shouldn't work. gold ferrings should have some intersting work possibilities that would not be possible in the real world.

I'm thinking for example we won't have to make animal experiments for potentially angerous chemicals or drugs. we could experiment on gold ferrings, they aren't riking anything.

Unfortunately, in order to prevent themselves from dying a poisonous death, they would have to tap gold, thus screwing up the data. I would rather use willing Thugs in studies, myself. More of them, they're cheaper, they already work in dangerous circumstances, and they can recover more easily than other people. Plus, if we get any human rights protesters knocking on the door of my evil CEO lair, I've got a bunch of brainwashed security guards ready to go!

[name_here]

No, gold ferrings would give you better data than Thugs. You can have them not tap gold until absolutely necessary, and then count any instances where they need to tap it as a severe and likely fatal reaction. Thugs resist the effects of poisoning, so even a dose fatal to ordinary humans might not produce a detectable effect on them, rendering the data useless.

[Swimmingly he/him]

I see... still, cheaper, and I can say, "totally tested on humans in clinical trials" as well as "and barely any of them died" and probably, in very small letters, "_{pewter allomancy recommended for users}".

 

Come on, I'm an evil CEO in this scenario.

[Moogle]

That said, it's still a bit problematic. They'd inhale radioactive particles and accumulate them on their equipment, and neutron radiation can make materials it strikes radioactive. I'm not entirely sure whether Feruchemical gold will actually remove poisons or just compensate for their effects, but either way it won't do a thing about clothing or gear. The metalminds themselves could end up as high-level waste.

 

Scadrial might very well opt to give nuclear power a miss. Economically speaking, it's not terribly efficent, at least at present they don't have much call for nuclear weapons, and while it does have some environmental advantages, Scadrial is pretty underpopulated in absolute terms, so I expect that by the time the downsides of hydrocarbon burning come back to haunt them they'll have a better option available.

 

Given that we've seen other magic systems 'reject' foreign materials, I would bet that Feruchemical gold (potentially Allomantic pewter) would indeed cause the body to reject the radioactive particles. As you note, though, this wouldn't be terribly useful if they were still stuck on your clothing, but surely you could just go into a special shower and start tapping Feruchemical gold and let the water wash it all off. You'd have to store the contaminated water, but at least someone isn't dead.

 

As to nuclear energy: everyone in Scadrial is very close together. Burning coal and other fun things is going to cause a lot of pollution, which means plenty of deaths. Pollution is, I believe, responsible for something like 200,000 deaths in America alone each year. (Don't quote me on the exact figures). Global warming is not the only disadvantage to burning hydrocarbons! I could see nuclear energy being used if only because of how it produces clean energy. Living next to a nuclear plant is way way way better than living next to a coal-burning plant.

 

But really... why bother with nuclear or coal when you have Iron Ferrings? Allomancy and Feruchemy are basically free energy. I suppose it'd be a really really boring job, though...

Edited November 24, 2013 by Moogle

[thblackdeth he/him]

I just want to add a bit of the science I know to this discussion. "radiation poisoning" is not like a typical poison you would imagine. It does not "get stuck in clothing" per say. A radioactive material shoots out particles very fast. Think of them as atomic sized bullets. These bullets hit your atoms (in your body) and screw them up. It can brake down your DNA and other "building blocks" for your body. Thus, your body loses its ability to repair its cells to some extent and loses the proper function of other cells. The more radioactive something is the more little bullets that are shot from the material. The size of the particles also have an effect on the danger, which differentiates alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. 

 

So, fundamentally, provided the gold had all the DNA sequences stored, I could picture it healing you perfectly with no issues. If the gold relied upon your bodies DNA for the structure, and simply advanced cell repair, then you could be in trouble still.

 

There is also the question of how will the radiation affect the metalmind. The particles emitted will do the same thing to the gold as it will to your body. It will get bombarded and it will be "damaged" in a sense. I wonder if this would be a way to corrupt metalminds or screw with sDNA. I would hope that sDNA is safe in the spiritual realm, but perhaps it is tied together. 

[Oudeis he/him]

Upvote. FOR SCIENCE!

[name_here]

I just want to add a bit of the science I know to this discussion. "radiation poisoning" is not like a typical poison you would imagine. It does not "get stuck in clothing" per say.

This is kind of true yet also not. Alpha, beta, and gamma radiation does fly in a straight line and not hang around, true, but radioactive dust can accumulate in clothing or be ingested or inhaled, and often the greatest danger comes from the dust rather than the hunk of material it broke off from, as alpha and beta radiation penetrates very poorly. This is why you see decontamination showers in media, to wash off the microscopic pieces of radioactive material. Also, neutron radiation can convert atoms into unstable isotopes and is the mechanism behind chain reactions. As a result, reactor components and protective gear for reactor workers can become hazardous waste.

[Satsuoni he/him]

Heh, this discussion reminds me of my university days We studied this stuff. IIRC, essentially, there are roughly three types of radiation poisoning:

1. Acute radiation poisoning (leading usually to "death under the ray") - radiation affecting your whole body more or less at once, and your body more or less melting (well, sustaining enough damage that you'd die). Such results, our teachers claimed, were observed on some interns that went to check on reactor during Chernobyl accident (yeah, our Uni was devoted to nuclear power, so some professors were around for cleanup, apparently). The possibly scariest thing here is that your brain dies last. But Feruchemical gold can fix that easily enough - that is just a lot of physical damage.

2. Radiation burn - as mentioned above, alpha and beta do not penetrate far, so they usually just burn skin off - which is potentially survivable. Unless, as name_here said, you inhaled/ ingested some - then the area burned  would be your lungs or digestive tract, and you'd probably die, since you'd stop being able to actually absorb oxygen/ lose protection provided by stomach lining. The Feruchemical gold can heal that, but I doubt it would purge  the matter from your lungs completely - you'd probably need to tap it for a while, until the radiation is weak enough. About radioactive isotopes - most of them have low enough half-life, the chain reaction uses special fissile materials, like u-238, so the ones in the body would decay to stability quickly enough - within a few weeks, probably. The main problem is having a chunk of relatively stable isotope, like cesium or plutonium inside your body. So in the end, a bloodmaker would have to wash his lungs, or better yet, wear a mask, after all.

3. Chronic radiation poisoning : essentially, accumulated damage from previous two. When DNA is damaged, the cell can either apoptose (die) or attempt to fix it - sometimes introducing errors, especially in the cells that were dividing at the time - like blood producing ones. Errors may result in cancer. Theoretically, Feruchemical gold would fix the DNA properly, so that is not really a concern is this case.

 

So to summarize -Bloodmaker should be ok, as long as he wears a protective mask and submits to proper decontamination after.

Ah yes, and enough radiation tends to make materials brittle after a while, due to above mentioned "small holes" effect

[Swimmingly he/him]

And Miles could go swimming in the stuff and come out peachy

[Natans he/him]

Well, if the expousure are severe the problem are that the gold compounder would leak radiation everywhere for a time, not a nice way to make friends =)

Edited November 25, 2013 by Natans

[Voidus]

Feruchemical gold might be able to repair the physical damage but I'm not sure that it could repair damaged DNA, otherwise gold compounders wouldn't age.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Feruchemical gold might be able to repair the physical damage but I'm not sure that it could repair damaged DNA, otherwise gold compounders wouldn't age.

 

Not quite, I don't think. Feruchemical gold almost certainly repairs people to their Cognitive selves, which likely includes repair to DNA. I would theorize that Feruchemical gold allowing aging is likely a very separate question from whether it can repair DNA.

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

Hm. A new question to ask Brandon? Does Feruchemical gold heal the body regularly, or does it restore sDNA as well?

[Satsuoni he/him]

It repairs soul, to an extent:

 

Does a limb that has been "severed" by a Shardblade have any Hemalurgic bindpoints? If the same limb was then cut off more conventionally, would a Bloodmaker ferring be able to grow it back?

Brandon Sanderson

A severed Shardblade limb needs repair to the soul before it would function again. A Bloodmaker would be able to heal it without needing to grow it back.

It doesn't seem to do anything to  Hemalurgic changes on the receiving end, and probably doesn't regrow chinks ripped out (otherwise any twinborn with Feruchemical gold could be used as endless source of Allomantic ability).

 

Cause of senescence, however, is still unknown. Some say that it is damage to DNA, others say that it is programmed into the DNA, but AFAIK nobody is sure. Feruchemical gold doesn't heal that, but presumably, it heals cancer (which is caused by DNA damage,direct or not,) and given how much Miles smoked I'd say Feruchemical gold have to fix that, at least.

I still stay my my statement that Gold compounders live longer, but the costs start mounting when their body becomes easier to damage and natural healing less effective.

[thecatinthehat]

Cause of senescence, however, is still unknown. Some say that it is damage to DNA, others say that it is programmed into the DNA, but AFAIK nobody is sure.

 

Either way, it's due to the changes in the genome.

 

Radiation is making those changes happen more, much more frequently. To revert them, you would need to replace their DNA with some stored earlier. And it would functionally equal making yourself (a bit) younger than you were. Thus I presume healing acute radiation syndrome would need both feruchemical Gold and feruchemical Atium.

(Or else — it doesn't follow real world rules, e.g. making you able to heal damages caused by what you perceive "sickness", but not by what you perceive "aging".)

 

On the other hand, healing cancer (one instance of it) is another matter. You would need to just selectively destroy those cells with damaged genome (as it is done in real life). No replacement DNA needed.

 

That's anyway just only as I perceive it.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Either way, it's due to the changes in the genome.

 

Radiation is making those changes happen more, much more frequently. To revert them, you would need to replace their DNA with some stored earlier. And it would functionally equal making yourself (a bit) younger than you were. Thus I presume healing acute radiation syndrome would need both feruchemical Gold and feruchemical Atium.

(Or else — it doesn't follow real world rules, e.g. making you able to heal damages caused by what you perceive "sickness", but not by what you perceive "aging".)

 

On wthe other hand, healing cancer (one instance of it) is another matter. You would need to just selectively destroy those cells with damaged genome (as it is done in real life). No replacement DNA needed.

 

That's anyway just only as I perceive it.

 

I'd go with (a variation on) the bolded option. Things just get too complicated otherwise.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Ookla the Inveterate

[Oudeis he/him]

Radiation is making those changes happen more, much more frequently. To revert them, you would need to replace their DNA with some stored earlier. And it would functionally equal making yourself (a bit) younger than you were. Thus I presume healing acute radiation syndrome would need both feruchemical Gold and feruchemical Atium.

Is that really the only way? I see two other possiblities.

 

1 Unless literally every strand of DNA in your entire body gets damaged at once, it could find your "good" DNA and copy it over to the damaged sections.

 

2 Feruchemical gold doesn't have to work like normal medical science. When you "store" your health, perhaps it also stores things like a copy of what your DNA should look like.

[Satsuoni he/him]

What Darnam said. And Feruchemical gold doesn't really work like normal healing - humans don't normally regrow brain parts without losing memories - or, well, don't regrow brain at all, for that matter (and I am relatively certain shotgun blast to the face would result in brain damage). 

@mdmilosz: The difference between being programmed in DNA and causing from changes in DNA is that in the former case the clock is encoded in your cells outside of DNA, like in the protein sequence and concentration, while the DNA is always the same.

As Darnam noted, there are almost no cases when all of your DNA is damaged at once, anyway - that is beyond unlikely, and would probably indicate that you've got incinerated

Though, apparently, there is a set of changes to DNA that can be used to determine age, but those are not errors, and play role in cellular differentiation... So they are probably not fixed.

[name_here]

Feruchemical gold apparently works off the Cognative aspect and restores people to what they "should" be. So I expect it would repair DNA damaged by radiation but not the parts that got damaged by aging, or at least not the parts inherently damaged by aging. It probably does cure cancer, since it fixes most things. However, gold compounders would still die of old age; one of the factors in aging is that DNA replication is not very good. Each division hacks a chunk off the end of the DNA sequence, and since this is part of natural aging Feruchemical gold probably doesn't revert it. For a while, the stuff that gets cut is basically meaningless because it exists to get cut, but at some point the buffer is empty and other parts get cut. Eventually you'd run out.

[Satsuoni he/him]

Feruchemical gold apparently works off the Cognative aspect and restores people to what they "should" be. So I expect it would repair DNA damaged by radiation but not the parts that got damaged by aging, or at least not the parts inherently damaged by aging. It probably does cure cancer, since it fixes most things. However, gold compounders would still die of old age; one of the factors in aging is that DNA replication is not very good. Each division hacks a chunk off the end of the DNA sequence, and since this is part of natural aging Feruchemical gold probably doesn't revert it. For a while, the stuff that gets cut is basically meaningless because it exists to get cut, but at some point the buffer is empty and other parts get cut. Eventually you'd run out.

 

Except there exists an enzyme whose sole function is to pad the buffer (since the sequence is known, it just attaches it repeatedly), but it doesn't express much in humans (excepting the immune system and bloodmaking). If it overexpresses, you get cancer If it underexpresses, well, same thing. And many cells stop dividing around age 23-25, so they stop using up the buffer. Bah. Aging is complicated.

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

While I know it's not, just think, what if Uranium was an allomantic metal? What kind of crazy power would it have? What would it's alloy be?

I'll have to think about possible cool ideas and come back later and post them. But let's hear your ideas!

[Swimmingly he/him]

It would be the something like Feruchemical gold on others (Internal Physical). It's pair would be Staballoy (depleted uranium with molybdenum) which would cause disease and sickness by touch. The complements would be molybdenum and MoW (molybdenum-tungsten alloy), which could do the same to yourself - causing a rather noted shortness in the lives of active MoW mistings. Also, the rub of Uranium being EXTERNAL physical means that, while burning it, you are getting radiation poisoning, and while you can heal others, it's killing you. Quickly burning it is advised. Uranium doctors are respected for their sacrifices, and as such only work on the most severe cases. A uranium user can charge another's Feruchemical gold extremely quickly. Allomantic chromium users are often used to "flush" the doctor immediately after they practice their craft.