In the book, The Ear, The Eye, And The Arm, radiation can come from an internal object, or an extrenal source. Ionizing radiation (which is a kind of radiation that contains a lot of energy and can separate the things it passes through into ions) effects living tissues in the body. It does this by altering chemical bonds. Chemical bonds hold together molecules, and molecules help tissues in the body survive. By altering the chemical bonds's composition and structure, it can harm the tissue's cells' which can cause the tissue to not function properly.

One of the things that happens when radiation hurts the cell's in somebody's body is cancer. Radiation starts to make a mutation in the cell's DNA, which causes an abnormal cell. The abnormal cell that has been changed by radiation start to grow and divide too much, which causes more cells to be abnormal. A tumor forms which can possibly progress into cancer.

Cancer is one of the side-effects of radiation, but like in the book, The Ear, The Eye, And The Arm, radioactivity can affect you if you have a baby. However, unlike in the story, the child who's mother or father who had been exposed to radiation will not cause their child to have amazingly large and useful ears, or to feel people's feelings. There is a larger chance that a mutation in their DNA will occur, causing them to get cancer. This isn't just possible for the first generation, but also for many generations afterward.

Cancer is one of the main and most severe affects of radiation. However, there are some other, smaller affects that can be caused by radiation. This all depends on how many doses or rems your cells take in at a time. Here are some of the things that may occur if you get exposed to a certain amount of doses at a time:

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One of the most powerful and terrifying examples of how radiation can harm you is when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some of the terrible things about radiation that the survivors experienced was black rain a couple hours after the bomb was dropped. There were also loud blasts, which turned out to be thunder. Another woman describes hearing moaing and groaning, people shouting out and crying. A man who was not too far from where the bomb was dropped describes seeing a flash of light, followed by darkness. The sun seemed more like the moon. The man had burns and was covered in blood. A man describes burns on his hands with which he was trying to rescue people, and severe burns throughout his body. He describes sparks falling. He explains that there were other men in worse condition than him. A man with glass stuck in his eye, and someone who couldn't see even though his eyes were wide open. Many people seemed to have gone mad, talking about bright flashes, and extreme terror. There are many different experiences that were caused from the A-bomb that was dropped.

Radiation can cause some good things. X-rays, which can help to see if your healthy are an example of helpful radiation. You do have to be cautious about certain things that can cause ionizing radiation, for example x-rays can be used to see if your healthy, and to take pictures of your bones. For example, a lot of people go to the dentist, and the dentist will take pictures of your teeth. Before (s)he does so, he puts a large, heavy vest on over you. This vest is actually to protect you so that you won't be exposed to the radiation from the x-ray!

As you can see, radiation has both positive and negative affects on humans. Some of them are scary, and some of them are safe. All of them can relate to the book The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm.