Continuing the cancer discussion from last week, we're shifting to a more specific topic: radon.
What is radon?
Radon is a very heavy noble gas with 86 protons. It's a part of the "decay chain" (series of elements made from the decays of multiple radioactive elements in a row) of uranium, thorium, radium, and probably some other elements, all of which are found naturally in the earth's soil and rock. It's tasteless, odorless, and radioactive. [1]
Why is it dangerous?
Yeah, I said it was radioactive. But just because something's radioactive, doesn't make it a guarantee for cancer (see last week's discussion). Radon decays quickly with alpha decay, or an energized helium nucleus. Alphas can be stopped by a "shield" of a few sheets of paper, and are almost completely ineffective a getting through human skin. But here's the catch: radon is a gas, and that means it can be inhaled. Alpha particles might be mostly harmless outside of you, but when they're allowed to bounce around in your very sensitive lung tissue, things can get very bad very fast.
Humans developed with radon being a natural occurrence in the air, so we can take it in normal doses. Inhaled in a larger-than-normal concentration, however, and your cancer risks can skyrocket. An estimated 15,000-22,000 cancer deaths in America per year are believed to be caused by over-exposure to radon. [2]
How does over-exposure occur?
Time for an anecdote:
My mother is an appraiser in Florida, and a few years ago she shared with me a story about radon. In warm, sunny places like Florida, it was a growing trend in the late '90s and early 2000's to build houses with windows that don't open; fully sealed windows in houses designed to be fully dependent on AC, never outside air. So what happened? The radon concentration built up in these houses, being emitted from their foundations, and people started dying from, as she put it, "radon poisoning". Whether it was straight poisoning or cancer I'm not sure, but studies seem to support her claim. [3]
Conclusion
So this has been a little different than the usual idea: this is something you might not have known about, but is actually a radiation-related danger. So what can you do about it? It's actually really easy: open your windows. Just pop your windows open every now and again and the air in your house will change around and keep your local radon concentrations down in healthy, expected levels. Stay safe!
[1] http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/substances/radon/radon-fact-sheet
[2] Field RW, Steck DJ, Smith BJ, et al. Residential radon gas exposure and lung cancer: the Iowa Radon Lung Cancer Study. American Journal of Epidemiology 2000; 151(11):1091–1102.
[3] Field RW. A review of residential radon case-control epidemiologic studies performed in the United States. Reviews on Environmental Health 2001; 16(3):151–167.
I didn't know about the thing in Florida! I imagine it's not always as simple as just cracking open your windows. How do you know if it isn't enough? Is there something you can do if radon builds up in your home? I can guess it's also important to know where the radon is leaking in and stopping it from getting in so you don't have to worry about letting it out.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I was planning to live in a disused missile silo like these hippies:
ReplyDeletehttp://weburbanist.com/2010/07/25/nuclear-family-housing-life-in-a-missile-silo-home/
Time to look into the cost of a powerful ventilation system..
Living in a radon gas filled home with 4 pCi/L over 12 years is like smoking 10 packs of cigarettes per day or working for 5 years in a uranium mine. Radon has 20 known isotopes, of which R-226 is the most common. It is an alpha-emitter with 1601 years of half-life.Radon has a melting point of -95 °F (-71 °C) and a boiling point of -79 °F (-61.7 °C) -- obviously a gas at STP.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.livescience.com/39546-radon.html
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/chemistry/radon.html
That is quite shocking. I believe if someone doesn't know the radon levels in their house, they should definitely go out and buy a testing kit. It is better to know if you are breathing in high levels of radon than not to.
DeleteThanks for the fact dump, Kian.
ReplyDeleteNancy: Ventilation is all you need for the basements in which radon is usually an issue, but if you're really concerned about it you can get a civilian radon detector that will track radon concentrations and warn you if it's significantly above background. Same as the carbon monoxide detectors you can get for your home.