How Can Radon Hurt You?

So tonight's blog idea comes from my roommate who has lived in the Central states with a basement his entire life and had only heard of one Radon, Radon Randell, quarterback from the TV show Blue Mountain State. Since it is a fairly large concern with a fairly simple solution, I'll go ahead and talk about it but leave the heavy lifting to the EPA. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive element that is a stage in the decay chain from uranium and thorium to lead. Natural uranium and thorium, having half lives of 4.468×10⁹ years and 1.405×10¹⁰ years respectfully, were all created when the earth was created and decay continuously. Eventually, they both reach lead and are stable, but it's this steady production of radon underground that slowly leeches upwards that is dangerous. Because it is such a heavy gas, it tend to stick to lower areas, thus, without air movement it will settle in depressions. 

The most dangerous part of this is that is slowly gathers in basements and without ventilation, it will stay there, growing in concentration, as the unsuspecting  homeowner breaths it in continuously. Because it has a fairly short half life of ~3.8 days and emits alpha particles, it is fairly harmless unless ingested or breathed in. Once inside your lungs or stomach, the cells there aren't able to deal with the emitted alpha energy and are damaged, leading to cancers. 

<sup>Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer following smoking. Studies of this are further complicated because it's hard to study the effect of radon on lung cancer because the results are so obscured by smoking. The upside to the dangers of radon is we've grown accustomed to it's constant presence as a species. This means that once you can reduce its levels to near background, then you've done about as much as you can to reduce your risks. 

So, TLDR: solution to pollution is dilution. In this case, ventilate your house to the outdoors and move on with your life to more serious concerns like the radiation from the bananas in your kitchen. For more on if your county is at a larger or smaller danger, check out this map from the EPA. Also, test kits for your house are free or cheap so its worth it to check them out! 

Plenty of things in the world can kill you, this is thankfully one that can be mitigated easily so you can keep on being 'Murican.

-Michael</sup>