Contagious Radiation

I recently wrote and subbed a short story (BONE THRESHER) focusing around a group of Paleontologists who discover a remarkably (almost) complete Dromaeasaur skeleton.

The skeleton is very degraded - and they suspect the degradation occurred before mineral deposits turned the bones to stone.

Turns out that the cause was contagious radiation. As a two-word statement, it might sound very intriguing; might sound entirely implausible.

As far as fiction is concerned, I feel I did the concept justice and made it as plausible as fiction tends to require science to be (think dead bodies walking).

But I am curious about people's take on this...

Some of these details as I tell them now are strongly hinted at, but not outright said. For example, in dialogue two characters talk about the fact that a human is more genetically similar to a goldfish than that goldfish is to a shark - despite the fact that those two animals are fish and we are mammals.

Not only that but the paleontologist cites how he finds the analogous structures between dinosaurs and humans to be "haunting".

Cancerous cells are formed from this radiation. These cancer cells are created in a way that happens to cause them to absorb calcium directly from the blood. Due to a negative feedback loop in our brains, the body sends signals to begin replenishing the blood-calcium levels. Because the cancer is taking the calcium from the blood so quickly, the body must dissolve its own bones to replenish the levels.

Quickly, this leads to brittle bone disease - which is the most apparent symptom of this illness. Meanwhile, this calcium isn't disappearing into thin air... instead the cancer cells are converting it into a radioactive isotope through some unknown biological/metabolic pathway. This causes the victim to gradually become more radioactive, and begin suffering from minor and then major radiation poisoning.

In addition, this radiation causes more cells to become cancerous - and causes the cells of nearby humans to become cancerous.

Thus, the radiation has effectively become infectious and contagious.

I used prions and their method of infection as a parallel description of how a non-living thing can be contagious.



So... what do you guys think? Did I do a good job of making it as plausible as possible within the realm of fiction? Also, what do you think of the idea of "contagious radiation" in general?

How would the radiation from the bones still linger in the fossil if 100% of the bones are replaced with mineral in the process of fossilization?

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That was one of my biggest objections to the idea when I created it. But I used a suspension of disbelief for that (Or hoped for it from most readers). Also, its not impossible that radioactive particles would remain in the fossilized bone - theoretically - but very unlikely.

**How could the body create a radioactive isotope?**

By some unknown metabolic or biological pathway
I left that open because it would be difficult to devise a way since the pathways I know of don't yet exist - but the amazing things organisms can do never ceases to amaze me. Seems possible on some level.

As for the sentience, I specifically made it clear in the story that was not the case. In the story, one character suggests that - this is his line...

“How can a wave of energy be contagious? It isn’t alive - doesn’t need to reproduce.”

*This is the response*

“It doesn’t have to be alive,” Dr. Gordon said. He searched himself for an analogy. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew it was coming together; but at the same time, it was all falling apart. “Prions! Prions are ingestible infectious proteins. While people argue over whether or not a virus can be considered alive, Prions are far from living. They are nothing more than a string of amino acids warped into a deviant formation. This strange form induces other, healthy proteins to change shape – and become another prion.”

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As for affecting certain analogous parts of the DNA, that is not impossible. In my time studying genetics (particularly fish genetics), I was able to learn a few things about the highly specific affect of things totally not specific in nature. That part is easier to dismiss than some of the other aspects of the logic here.

jjdebenedictis;6938703 Radioactivity said:

Indeed, which is why the vaguest parts are about the radiation and the most described parts are the biology.

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PorterStarrByrd said:

I think your understanding of physical plausability is errant. The reason readers accept the walking dead is because that has long been a pary of legend/lore/mythology. Science says no .. something deep down inside says 'maybe'. We're conditioned to consider the possibility.

With radiation we know too much science about it. It's too 'new'

something like a long dormant virus trapped in the rock and isolated during fossiization that only needs oxygen to revive taps into that fear of the dead. Could it 'maybe' actually happen?

People either understand half-lives or don't care enough about them to take them into consideration ... and science gets in the way of suspended disbelief.

wish I had said that better but I think you'll get the idea.

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I get what you are saying.

I guess all I can hope is my explanation is effective enough to suspend disbelief. I feel like it is, as I am very skeptical of my own writing when it comes to science. I tend to shoot my own ideas down well before they make it to paper because of the plausibility.

With my background in genetics and Organismal Biology, and the fact that I convinced myself of the idea - well I hope I can convince most readers of the idea.

Fingers crossed.