Can cockroaches and Twinkies really survive a nuclear explosion?

[Heart_of_Dorkness]

Mythbusters looked into the cockroach thing, with some interesting results(scroll down to “Cockroach survival”, about 1/3 down). Basically, they found that while cockroaches can indeed survive radiation at levels lethal to humans, other insects did better.

As for why, here’s a quick summary from Wikipedia, with more details in the source material:

The cockroach’s ability to withstand radiation better than human beings can be explained through the cell cycle. Cells are most vulnerable to the effects of radiation when they are dividing. A cockroach’s cells divide only once each time it molts, which is weekly at most in a juvenile roach. Since not all cockroaches would be molting at the same time, many would be unaffected by an acute burst of radiation, but lingering radioactive fallout would still be harmful.

Meanwhile, our cells are dividing all the time, particularly bone marrow and the immune system. So we’re f’ed.