only nonliving things are radioactive?
91616
Nuclear medicine is a subspecialty within the field of radiology. It comprises diagnostic examinations that result in images of body anatomy and function. The images are developed based on the detection of energy emitted from a radioactive substance given to the patient, either intravenously or by mouth. Generally, radiation to the patient is similar to that resulting from standard x-ray examinations. \n\nNuclear medicine is practiced on animals including humans.\nRadiaction has a half life.  People can leak radiation too.
659409
viruses are considered non-living because they do not meet all the criteria of the generally accepted definition of life.\n\nalso, viruses are not typically considered to be organisms because they are not capable of independent reproduction or metabolism. this controversy is problematic, though, since some parasites and endosymbionts are incapable of independent life either. \n\nhowever, according to the united states code, viruses are considered to be microorganisms in the sense of biological weaponry and malicious use.\n\nso, in essence... \n\nif you follow the united states code that considers viruses as microorganisms, then the viruses which has rna as their genetic material are the only organisms with rna genome.
990256
Non-living. It cannot reproduce by itself, cannot regulate homeostasis, depends/hijacks other hosts for reproduction. It's mostly leftover/waste DNA of some bacteria/protist that ejects their DNA into the air with a protein capsule to reproduce, although this didn't work.
1092084
Anything living has DNA
921793
background radiation is naturally occuring radioactive elements that exist in nature.\n\nWhy is it present... good grief that's a good question. God, this is where you would step in with an explanation lol
629035
There may be some, but it's too little to be a health concern.  Even the ambient radiation at Bikini Atoll is not extreme; the danger comes from the local trees (and any local crops), which would take up and concentrate radioisotopes in their tissues.
958216
Is all basalt radioactive , No. Might some basalt havae radioactive isotopes, yes maybe.sometimes
730255
Everyone who owns a luminous watch, countless doctors and hospital employees with x-ray machines and drugs made with radio-isotopes, the sterilization industry, the hazardous waste treeatment facilities...\n\nWe'd be executing a lot of people, maybe we should rephrase that to say that anyone with no legitimate reason to have the radioactive material goes to jail.  If the radioactive material is used for a murder or terrorist activity they can be prosecuted under existing laws.
851600
Theoretically, it will just keep halving for all of time, but this is just statistics. When there's too few atoms of the radioactive element, for statistics to apply, the half-life is no longer valid.\nFor practical uses, it is assumed that the element is roughly gone after 10 half-lives, so after 10-12 hours the effect should be negligible
163467
Probably most of it comes from radioactive decay.
433955
radioactivity is the spontaneous emission of alpha beta or gamma rays from a radioactive substance to attain stability.\nthey can be used as tracers to know the path of ne reaction\nsome of them can be used to treat cancer like co-60. and uranium is already used in nuclear reactors for generating electricity.
157223
helium neon argon krypton xenon radon\nyou probably do not need to know ununoctium because it was just discovered, is radioactive, and radioactively decays in a few seconds.
1023546
Radium and polonium are primarily alpha emitters (an alpha particle is essentially the nucleus of a HELIUM atom, without electrons), as the previous poster noted. But they also emit gamma radiations, and many of the isotopes are beta emitters. There are even a few cases where they emit positrons (for example, Polonium 186).
159810
Don't be ridiculous, radioactive stuff doesn't glow. However, Hollywood screenwriters think it does. \n\nIn some instances high-energy radioactive particles will cause other stuff to glow, but that's an exception, not the rule. On old radium watch dials the radioactivity from the radium would cause zinc sulfide to fluoresce, but you cannot see the radioactive particles themselves. Radium by itself will not "glow green" and you cannot see electrons or alpha particles unless they react with something (e.g. the phosphor screens in oscilloscopes).
623757
Maybe prokaryotes. But I'm not sure... I think there's still a debate about them cause they're not really living creatures... They are "alive" when they are inside a host, but otherwise, they're just lifeless proteins.. :)
678624
The greatest threat of radioactivity to life as we know it is damage to the gene pool, the genetic make-up of all living species. Genetic damage from radiation exposure is cumulative over lifetimes and generations.\n\n     Some biomedical effects of radiation are well known. If the exposure is great enough, as it was for 200,000 people in Japan in 1945 and for the clean-up crew in Chernobyl, death can occur immediately or within days.\n\n     Even low-dose exposures are carcinogenic after extended exposure (Gofman 1990). The current generation, the one in utero, and all that follow may suffer cancers, immune system damage, leukemias, miscarriages, stillbirths, deformities, and fertility problems. While many of these health problems are on the rise, individuals cannot prove either increase in "background" radiation or specific exposure as the cause. Only epidemiological evidence is scientifically acceptable to impute cause. Perhaps the most extreme outcome over time would be simply the wholesale cessation of the ability to reproduce. Radiation is a known cause of sterility (Gofman 1981).\n\n     The quality of life of vast numbers of us may be affected by the increased burden of radioactivity we all bear. Many victims of radiation sickness do not show up in the statistics because the kind of symptoms experienced, while disabling, are not as significant as childhood leukemia, or stillbirths, or cancer, or birth defects. Nevertheless, lives of countless people have been affected by radiation exposure.\n\n     Beyond the physiological effects, the mental and emotional consequences of the trauma of exposure to invisible environmental contaminants in general, and radioactivity in particular, has been documented (Vyner 1988). One can only speculate about the spiritual consequences (Schell 1982; Lynch 1995).\n\n     "Background radiation" is a measurement of the accumulated radioactivity in the atmosphere from all sources combined: the sun, the earth, and all man-made explosions, leaks, accidents, purposeful ventings, and dumpings. The term, however, implies naturally occurring radiation is of no real concern. But before the Atomic Age there were no comprehensive measurements of naturally occurring radiation, so the use of this term obscures the reality that we already live in a contaminated world, and that radiation's effects are cumulative and irreversible.
547737
kiki is right, and most other answers wrong. 'Decay' is only applied to radioactive elements, and not all elements are radioactive. Many have *isotopes* that are radioactive, but aren't the stable form of the element. For example, carbon 14 is radioactive carbon and decays; Carbon 13, the stable version, will never do so. \n\nStable elements can go through fusion or fission, effectively changing them into something else (for example, carbon fuses at about 600 million degrees K), but that is *not* decay, since decay involves *spontaneous* emission of radiation, and that event only involves external factors, like a star exploding, and is not a property of the element - so, again, that can't be called 'decay'.\n\nSo, no, not all elements decay over time, only the ones that have no stable isotope - all elements above 83, bismuth.