Some bacterial species have impressive level of radiation resistance, so it’s a quality that can certainly be evolved much like antibiotic resistance. The most extreme radiation-resistance strategies involve the presence of multiple genomes within a cell as “backups”, this is coupled with various metabolic activities which have the goal to replace/repair the “main one” when it is damaged by radiation. Viruses, on the other hand, completely lack a metabolism and therefore will have serious trouble developing this kind of resistance.
I agree with this, plus note that UVC is actually more dangerous than radiation for bacteria, because the number of photons per watt is significantly greater and the energy per photon is already enough to do damage.
Some bacterial species have impressive level of radiation resistance, so it’s a quality that can certainly be evolved much like antibiotic resistance. The most extreme radiation-resistance strategies involve the presence of multiple genomes within a cell as “backups”, this is coupled with various metabolic activities which have the goal to replace/repair the “main one” when it is damaged by radiation. Viruses, on the other hand, completely lack a metabolism and therefore will have serious trouble developing this kind of resistance.
I agree with this, plus note that UVC is actually more dangerous than radiation for bacteria, because the number of photons per watt is significantly greater and the energy per photon is already enough to do damage.
Is number of photons greater or energy of each photon?
the number of photons per second per watt of power is a lot greater for UVC than for gamma radiation.
If the number of photons per Joule* is higher for UVC, that means that each photon carries less energy.
*A Watt is a Joule per second; sustaining a Watt of power for one second requires a Joule of energy.