Part 1: A History/Spare Parts

          Firstly, Deinococcus Radiodurans does not actually resist the effects of radiation, but it is able to

repair DNA and proteins that have been damaged by radiation. There are several theories on how

Deinococcus Radiodurans obtained its ability to repair itself; two of these theories are more popular

and therefore more noteable than others. The first is that Deinococcus Radiodurans is at least 2000

years old, and it obtained it resistance by living in areas that  contained small amounts of radiation.

It was able to, over time, create an ability that made it immune to said radiation, similiar to how

some bacteria will eventually negate the effects of antibiotics over time. The second theory is that

Deinococcus Radiodurans originated as life on Mars, but traveled to Earth on and asteroid that was

broken off Mars during a collision between the planet and another asteroid. The bacteria survived

the collision onto the earth's surface and spread from that point throughout the globe. Deinococcus

Radiodurans's amazing healing abilities can be broken up into four parts. The first part is its ability

to construct spare strands of DNA. When a bacterium is attacked by radiation, it uses the spare DNA

as an example from which certain specialized proteins splice back together broken double bonds of

DNA. Each bacterium will contain 4-10 spare strands of DNA depending on its stage in growth. The

following page will talk about howDeinococcus Radiodurans is able to splice to pieces of its DNA

back together after they have been broken apart by radiation.