Over-populated or under-developed?

The real story of population growth

This article is more than 3 years old

The world population looks set to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, but what’s
behind the big numbers? We look at the complex demographic shifts in play

From skyrises to traffic jams: our densely populated planet – in pictures

Carla Kweifio-Okai and Josh Holder

Tue 28 Jun 2016 11.22 BSTLast modified on Fri 11 May 2018 13.10 BST

People shopping at a market in Lagos, Nigeria. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP

Global population hit 7.3 billion midway through 2015, an increase of 2 billion since 1990. It
will continue to climb steadily, according to forecasters, reaching 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050,
and 11.2 billion in 2100.

But there is more to the population story than unprecedented numbers. The rate of growth is
continuing to slow – the overall growth rate has been falling since the 1970s – and demographics are
shifting.

Here is what the data shows beyond top line projections.

Globally, women are having fewer children than ever before

“The number of births has peaked, or has levelled off globally,” says John Wilmoth, director of
the population division in the UN’s department of economic and social affairs. “Some countries still have
increasing numbers of births but for the world as a whole, we’re not adding people to the population
through births. We’re mostly adding to the population because people are living longer.”

Almost all countries have experienced reductions in family size, with 46% of the world’s population (pdf)
now living in countries with low levels of fertility, where women have fewer than 2.1 children on
average. This includes all countries in Europe and Northern America and significant parts of Asia and
Latin America.

Eight percent of the world’s population live in high-fertility countries that have experienced limited
reductions in fertility and where the average woman has five or more children in her lifetime. As the
graphic below shows, low-income countries have the highest fertility rates as a general rule, with Niger
the highest at an average of 7.6 children per woman.
 Radioactive decay types article
What are nuclear reactions?

Sometimes atoms aren’t happy just being themselves; they suddenly change into completely different
atoms, without any warning. This mysterious transformation of one type of element into another is the
basis of nuclear reactions, which cause one nucleus to change into a different nucleus. Just like chemical
reactions cause compounds to turn into other compounds by swapping their electrons, nuclear
reactions happen when the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom change.

Some types of nuclear reactions can actually kick protons out of the nucleus, or convert them into
neutrons. Since we know what to call an element by looking up its number on a periodic table and then
reading off its name, when the atomic number (number of protons) changes, so does the name of the
element. This makes nuclear reactions look somewhat like alchemy: an atom of potassium (atomic
number 19) can suddenly and unexpectedly transform into an atom calcium (atomic number 20). The
only sign that anything has changed is the release of radiation, which we’ll talk more about in a little bit.

Even more strangely, nuclear reactions often occur almost entirely randomly. If you have a single
nucleus that you are certain will eventually decay into a different nucleus, you still have only a rough
idea how long it will take for you to see it happen. You could be sitting watching the nucleus for
anywhere between a few seconds to your entire lifetime, and at some point it would suddenly decay
without any warning! However, depending on the type of nucleus, you can predict how long on average
it would take to decay if you watched many nuclei at once. So while the average time to decay is a
measurable number (for potassium it’s over a billion years), the exact time of the decay is entirely
random.

There are three types of nuclear reaction, each of which cause the nucleus to shoot out a different, fast-
moving particle (like a photon or electron). These released particles are a side effect of the element
changing its atomic number or mass, and they are what scientists generally mean when they warn about
nuclear radiation, since fast-moving particles can act like tiny bullets that poke holes in your body.
However, much nuclear radiation is actually harmless, and it occasionally can be harnessed to provide
new type of medical or diagnostic tools.

Why do nuclear reactions happen?

Not all elements undergo nuclear decay over timescales that we can observe. Some elements take
millions of years to decay. In fact, most living things primarily consist of isotopes of carbon and nitrogen,
which have such incredibly long lifetimes that they will essentially never decay within the lifespan of the
organism. This is necessary because the biochemical function of each of these atoms is specifically tied
to its atomic number: if a nervous receptor specifically seeks out and binds a carbon-based signalling
molecule, then it won’t work if that carbon spontaneously changes into beryllium.
Different atoms of the same element can have different masses. For example, an atom of carbon
(atomic number 6, so six protons) can have either 6 neutrons or 8 neutrons. The former case is more
familiar from chemistry class, since a lot of the common light elements used in biology (like oxygen,
carbon, and nitrogen) have the same number of protons as neutrons. But it turns out that the case of
carbon having 6 protons and 8 neutrons, while not as stable as 6 and 6, is stable enough that it can
actually occur in nature in observable amounts. Because the 8 neutron nucleus and the 6 neutron
nucleus are technically both carbon, we call them different isotopes of carbon.

Since protons and neutrons have roughly the same mass, the more common version of carbon is called
carbon-12 (6 protons + 6 neutrons). The heavier isotope is called carbon-14 (6 protons + 8 neutrons).
But when you look up the mass of carbon on the periodic table, it says that the mass is 12.011 atomic
mass units (amu). This is because if you went out and weighed a huge batch of carbon atoms, most of
the atoms you would find would weigh exactly 12 amu. But within that huge batch you’d occasionally
find a carbon-14 nucleus, which would skew the average of your measurements to a value slightly higher
than 12.

For reasons that are deeply related to the fundamental forces that act in the nucleus, the tendency of a
substance to undergo nuclear decay is related to both the atomic number and the atomic mass of an
element. This means that two different isotopes of the same element will have different tendencies to
undergo nuclear decay. In the case of carbon, the isotope carbon-14 wants to decay into nitrogen while
carbon-12 (which is most of the carbon in your body) would remain stable.

As a result, knowing which isotope is present in a sample of element not only tells us the sample’s
stability, but also the type of decay it will undergo.

What are the types of nuclear reaction?

Alpha Decay
During alpha decay, a nucleus actually breaks up into two chunks: a pair of protons bound to a pair of
neutrons (a collection of four particles which is essentially a helium nucleus, and is called an alpha
particle), and another piece constituting the original nucleus minus this chunk. So we can actually write
down a chemical reaction equation for alpha decay:

Ra → Rn + He^{2+}2+start superscript, 2, plus, end superscript

The radium nucleus (Ra, atomic number 88) breaks up into the helium nucleus (He^{2+}2+start
superscript, 2, plus, end superscript, the little chunk) and a daughter nucleus that corresponds to the
element radon (Rn, atomic number 86). The medical risks associated with radiation usually involve the
fast speeds at which the products of nuclear reactions move.Think of the alpha particle released by this
reaction as a tiny bullet, which can puncture soft tissues like the lining of the stomach and lungs.
Fortunately, alpha decay tends to release large, slow-moving decay products, and so it’s easy to shield
against this type of radiation.
The reaction shown above illustrates another, indirect method by which alpha decay can pose a hazard.
Radium, the element on the left hand side of the reaction arrow, can be found deep underground as a
solid rock mixed in with granite. However, when it undergoes alpha decay it turns into radon, which
naturally prefers to be a gas. The radon then seeps out of the ground and into the basements of
people’s homes, where it can enter their lungs and then decay again, releasing more alpha particles (or
other types of radiation) directly into the unprotected tissues. This method of radon exposure
represents a major lung cancer risk factor in many parts of the world.

Beta Decay
In beta decay, one of the neutrons in the nucleus suddenly changes into a proton, causing an
increase in the atomic number of an element. Recall the name of an element is determined by its atomic
number. Carbon is carbon because it has an atomic number of 6, while nitrogen is nitrogen because it
has atomic number 7. That means that a reaction that changes the number of protons in the
nucleus changes what element we actually consider the nucleus to be. This makes beta decay a great
example of how nuclear reactions can eerily transform one substance into another.

The product potassium chloride is commonly sold as a salt-substitute in grocery stores. This product
contains trace amounts of potassium-40 (K), which tends to undergo beta decay into calcium-40 (Ca).
Symbolically, this reaction looks like:

K→ Ca + e^-−start superscript, minus, end superscript + v

In addition to changing its atomic number, the nucleus creates and releases an electron (e-) from the
atom that serves to counterbalance the positive charge it gained by transforming a neutron to a proton.
The other released particle v is a mysterious particle called a neutrino, which has no charge and barely
any mass. The emitted, free electrons are the “radiation” associated with beta decay

This means that if you were to go to the grocery store and buy a jar of potassium-40 isotopes (which are
prone to beta decay) and then leave it sitting on your countertop for a couple of years, you would end
up having less potassium than you started out with (calcium would take its place). This process happens
incredibly slowly and in miniscule numbers for the potassium chloride available in the grocery store, and
so the actual health risk posed by this radiation is nil.

A related type of beta decay actually decreases the atomic number of the nucleus when a proton
becomes a neutron. Due to charge conservation, this type of beta decay involves the release of a
charged particle called a “positron” that looks and acts like an electron but has a positive charge.
Because this particle’s interactions with other tissues are easily identifiable, some medical imaging
techniques involve purposefully injecting a patient with an element that beta decays into positrons, and
then monitoring where the positrons are emitted. When beta decay creates a positron it’s called beta-
plus decay, and when it creates an electron it’s called beta-minus decay.
Gamma decay
During gamma decay the nucleus emits radiation without actually changing its composition: We
start with a nucleus with 12 protons and 12 neutrons, and we end up with a nucleus with 12 protons
and 12 neutrons… but somehow radiation gets released along the way!

The nucleus is made out of a glued-together arrangement of protons and neutrons, but there are
multiple possible ways that these protons and neutrons can be arranged. Some of these arrangements
have a lower total energy, and so a nucleus in which the protons are initially close together may shift to
the lower energy configuration after some time.

Recall that the electrons orbiting the nucleus have energy levels, and that each time an electron moves
from a high energy level to a low energy level it emits a photon. The same thing happens in the nucleus:
when it rearranges into a lower energy state, it shoots out a high-energy photon known as a gamma ray.

Gamma rays are very high energy and are one of the most dangerous sources of radiation because
photons can pass through most common shielding materials and cause DNA damage in living tissues. But
gamma radiation also has practical uses; for example, the element technetium emits relatively low-
energy gamma decays that can be detected using a specialized scanner, and so it has found use as a
tracer element for imaging the inside of patients’ bodies.

Consider the following… radiation exposure during long-term space travel

Radiation sometimes comes up the news in the context of the risks associated with long-distance space
travel. It turns out that dying stars and all the other strange stuff in space generates a lot of exotic and
strange types of radiation---even beyond the types described above. These unusual, high-energy
particles are collectively called cosmic radiation, and in many parts of space they mostly consist of
extremely high energy photons, or gamma radiation. Recall that gamma radiation is particularly
dangerous because photons can pass through most barriers and thus travel deep into living tissues,
where they can cause internal damage (and eventually cancer).

In a spaceship, astronauts don’t have the full benefit of Earth’s thick atmosphere to protect them from
cosmic rays. This means that any long-term space travel initiative (such as a mission to mars) will have to
invest considerable resources in properly shielding the living areas of the spaceship with materials that
are impervious to cosmic radiation. The development of materials that can shield astronauts is an active
area of research!
 Radiocarbon Dating at 75
By: Matthew Wills
February 26, 2015

Carbon-14, or radiocarbon, was discovered 75 years ago by Martin Kamen and Sam Rubin at the
UC-Berkely Radiation Lab

Carbon-14, or radiocarbon—which is now widely used to date organic material—was discovered 75

years ago on February 27 by Martin Kamen and Sam Rubin at the UC-Berkeley Radiation Lab. Franz Kurie
had previously theorized the existence of this isotope of carbon, which has 6 protons and 8 neutrons.
It’s one of three naturally occurring carbon isotopes on the planet, and is found in just trace amounts
(the vast majority of carbon found on Earth is carbon-12). But those trace amounts were key to
transforming our conceptions of the past.

In 1949, William Libby and colleagues discovered that the measurement of carbon-14’s decay over time
could be used as kind of clock for the dating of organic material. Bone, wood (including charcoal), and
other plant remains could be dated to approximately 50,000 years ago. Libby was awarded the 1960
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this.

We can now officially carbon date carbon dating back 75 years.

An expert on radiation, Libby gets to the heart of the matter in this article on radiocarbon dating: “(1)
Cosmic rays make living things radioactive to a certain level fixed by the environment through the food
eaten. (2) At death the intake of food stops so no replenishment of the immutable radioactive decay
of 14C can occur and the degree to which decay is observed to have occurred gives the time lapse since
death (radiocarbon age.)”

The dating of archaeological evidence before radiocarbon was based on historical records, stratigraphy
(the study of layers of rock), and educated guesswork. Anthropologist R.E. Taylor, who calls radiocarbon
dating revolutionary, summarized a half-century of advances made in radiocarbon dating. Taylor wrote,
“It is difficult for many people to appreciate just how dramatically the advent of radiocarbon dating
transformed archaeology. Libby’s invention made the study of the world prehistory truly possible.”

Radiocarbon dating only works for organic material and only reaches a relatively short distance into the
past (at least in geological terms). The technique is still a potent one; the modern, recalibrated version
makes adjustments for the historical fluctuations of carbon in the atmosphere and other conditions.

Today, it’s one of numerous dating methods used, including those for inorganic material.
Thermoluminescence dating, potassium-argon dating, amino acid dating, and archaeomagnetic dating
can all help give us a window into a much wider span of time.
Synopsis: Social Determinants of
Epidemic Growth
August 9, 2018

A new network model reveals that social mixing and mobility can determine the areas of
a city that are critical in provoking an epidemic outbreak.

D. Soriano-Paños et al., Phys. Rev. X (2018)

The containment of infectious diseases is largely determined by our capacity to intervene at the
early stage of an outbreak. To be effective, containment measures must selectively target the
parts of the population that play a critical role in triggering a disease outbreak. A team of
researchers led by Alex Arenas at Rovira i Virgili University, Spain, has found that small changes
in social mixing and geographical mobility within a population can dramatically alter the set of
subpopulations that are critical for an epidemic onset. This knowledge could be useful in
designing optimal disease-containment policies.

The spreading of diseases is typically described using epidemic models in which parts of the
population are segregated in spatial patches and allowed to interact via the mobility of
individuals between patches. However, these models are often solved within a so-called mean-
field approximation, which misses important real-world details. For instance, certain age or
socioeconomic groups may have different mobility habits. Arenas and his colleagues have
developed a new formalism that treats these groups as multiple layers of a complex population
network. Compared to mean-field models, this representation allows a better description of
effects that are due to the population’s heterogeneity.

The team applies this theoretical framework to the real urban system of Medellín in Colombia,
where six different socioeconomic groups coexist, each with its own mobility and its own
distribution over 400 city areas. The authors study how the mixing across different classes and
the average mobility of each class influence the propagation of a disease. They find that small
changes in these parameters could abruptly change the city areas that spur an epidemic and
should be the primary targets of containment actions.