proposes that the extreme temperatures present in the habitats of hyperthermophiles like Deinococcus radiodurans cause cellular damage that is virtually identical to damage typically caused by ionizing radiation, and that the cellular repair mechanisms that have evolved to repair this heat or desiccation damage are generalizable to radiation damage as well, allowing D. radiodurans to survive extreme doses of ionizing radiation. Exposure to gamma radiation leads to cellular DNA damage including alterations in nitrogenous base-pairing, sugar-phosphate backbone damage, and double-stranded DNA lesions. The extraordinarily efficient cellular repair mechanisms that Deinoccocus species like D. radiodurans have evolved to repair heat-damage are likely also capable of reversing the effects of DNA damage wrought by ionizing radiation, such as by piecing back together any components of their genome that have been fragmented by the radiation. Bacillus sp. producing unusually radiation (and peroxide) resistant spores, have been isolated from spacecraft assembly facilities, and are thought of as candidates that could ride piggyback on spacecraft through interplanetary transfer. Genome analysis of some of these radiation resistant spore producers have thrown some light on the genetic traits that could be responsible for the resistances observed. Radioresistance in radiation oncology Radioresistance is also a term sometimes used in medicine (oncology) for cancer cells which are difficult to treat with radiotherapy. Radioresistance of cancer cells may be intrinsic or induced by the radiation therapy itself. Radioresistance comparison The comparison in the table below is only meant to give approximate indications of radioresistance for different species and should be taken with great caution. There are generally big differences in radioresistance for one species among experiments, due to the way radiation affects living tissues and to different experimental conditions. We should for example consider that because radiation impedes cell division, immature organisms are less resistant to radiations than adults, and adults are sterilized at doses much lower than that necessary to kill them. For example, for the insect parasitoid Habrobracon hebetor, the LD50 for haploid embryo during cleavage (1–3 hours of age) is 200 R, but about 4 hours later it is of 7,000 R (for X-ray intensity of 110 R/minute), and haploid (= male) embryos are more resistant than diploid (= female) embryos. The mortality of adults H. hebetor exposed to a dose of 180,250 R is the same to this of a non-irradiated control group (food was not provided to either groups) (for 6,000 R/minute). However, a lower