Death lurking in your kitchen

Oh, I love this! Food for one of my favorite conspiracy theories. From an article in the NY Times about granite countertops (Andy sent us the link):

"The E.P.A. recommends taking action if radon gas levels in the home exceeds 4 picocuries per liter of air (a measure of radioactive emission); about the same risk for cancer as a half a pack of cigarettes per day."

and

"Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking and is considered especially dangerous to smokers, whose lungs are already compromised."

I remember reading a story many years ago about a study done of cigarette smokers who had died of lung cancer. The researcher found high levels of radioactive lead in their lungs. Where did the lead come from? It doesn't normally come from plants or from the atmosphere. He traced it to the fertilizer that the tobacco farmers were using on their plants.

Fertilizer is big business, and we certainly don't want to blame big business for cancer, so we'll blame tobacco. Of course we ended up blaming big business (the tobacco companies) anyway, but I think all this means is that the chemical companies had political ties into the military industrial complex and the tobacco companies didn't.

Naturally, this researcher was never heard from again. I may be the only one carrying his standard.

Here is a chart I found that illustrates the decay of Uranium (U) to Lead (Pb) via Radium (Ra), Radon (Rn) and a whole bunch of other elements. I wish the text was clearer, but I had to blow it up so I could see it.

The vertical axis shows the number of protons (Z), the horizontal axis has the number of neutrons. Beta decay is a neutron emitting an electron and turning into a proton, which causes the element to move one place to the left AND one place up. Weight does not change, though the electron may leave at relativistic velocities.

Alpha decay has an alpha particle (essentially a Helium nucleus) leaving. You loose two protons and two neutrons, so you move two places down and two places to the left. In both cases the number of protons change which pretty much determines what element you are. Notice that atomic weights change by 4, but are not multiples of 4. I smell another conspiracy here.

Updated December 2014 because the Hungarian decay chart vanished.