Word: radon
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...invisible, odorless, radioactive gas produced by the decay of uranium in rock and soil, radon can seep into homes through cracks in foundations and drains. Some houses in the Northeast have been found with dangerously high radon levels. Last week the Environmental Protection Agency announced that the health threat posed by radon may be greater than previously thought...
Some weeks ago Dr. Otto Hahn of Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute donned his work clothes, walked into his laboratory to perform a physical experiment. With a stream of neutrons (obtainable by subjecting a pinch of beryllium to the emanations of the radioactive gas radon) he bombarded a bit of uranium. While the routine little experiment proceeded all was peace and quiet in the laboratory. There was no crash of thunder, no flash of cataclysmic lightning...
...Radon and formaldehyde are two of the gases that most concern environmental researchers, Ken Sexton, doctoral candidate at the School of Public Health who attended the symposium, said Monday. Radon, which accumulates when many building materials--particularly granite--disintegrate, is a suspected carcinogen. Formaldehyde is a component of an easily installed foam insulation product which Massachusetts and some other states have banned...
...Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico suggested the only humane solution to the uranium problem in a 1978 report: ...perhaps the solution to the radon emission problem is to zone the land into uranium mining and milling districts so as to forbid human habitation...
Calling such indoor smog an emerging health problem, the Comptroller General has cited half a dozen harmful substances detected in unusual quantities in super-sealed buildings. Among them: carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide, both byproducts of smoking, gas stoves and leaky furnaces; the radioactive gas radon, which results from the natural decay of radium, an element found in soil, rocks and other building materials; and numerous particles of dust, soot and asbestos...