People think the insurance companies are being greedy by canceling their policies, but in truth no insurer could charge a reasonable red giant premium and stay solvent - they’re on the hook for literally all the property in existence when the sun burns out.
Not on this planet! Much of the heat that drives convection in the mantle comes from radioactive decay. This paper focuses on the lithosphere, but I think the radiogenic heat source holds true for the mantle, too.
The lithosphere gets most of its heat *from* the mantle. It’s the cold lid on the hotter convecting layer. The heat all originates in radioactive decay of course though.
I keep telling people that uranium is not a fossil resource like coal or oil. It's literally everywhere, baked into the planet when it formed from hot cosmic gas and dust all those billions of years ago. Ancient trees/microbes may have formed coal and oil, but uranium is older than this planet.
Everyone checks if their coverage includes destruction by a Vogon construction fleet, but no one ever checks if it includes their star expanding into their planet’s orbit
Most insurance policies do cover it (typically under the collision with exoplanet/other large celestial body). The problem is the radiation insurance, which most skimp on if they live on a planet with a proper magnetosphere.
There are insurance companies that actually ensure. I mean the profits form 1.6k per house hold that never gets used is for exactly this reason. NOT short selling stocks to pay CEO's and investors. And secretly changing policies in the fine print. Get on this level!!!
As the suns ages, it gets hotter (like me). So, it's not 5 billion years. In about 1.75 billion years (or so), the Earth is going to leave the habitable zone and be too hot for most life:
That freaked me out when I first read it, at age 12 or so. Then I learned that 1 billion years is like 2x as much as the time that elapsed between multicellular life and today. Haven't worried about it ever since.
There is a remediation process that draws the radon from the foundation & disperses it outside the house before it has a chance to decay. It is spendy... cost me about $1,800, but got radon levels extremely low in the basement area. Checked 17 years later and still safe.
Thank you for the info 🙂. The scientist in me wants to redo the test and see if I get the same results, but the realist in me says that's dumb and I'd be throwing away money. The radon levels are high. Got to do the remediation thing.
How high were the levels and how long do you live there? I just discovered the new house that we bought has levels of 1000-2000 bq/m³.... we only live a couple of months here. But still now I'm paranoid.
5.6 pCi/L (205 Bq/m³ ?). We've been in the house 6 years. It was built in the 60's. It was a home test from the hardware store, so I'd like a 2nd test. The area here has notoriously high radon levels.
We used the Airthings Correntium Home and even confirmed the readings with the more expensive Radoff Sense, so I can pretty surely say that the readings are correct. Question is what to do about these horrible radon levels...
Rather than rely on test kits that I have to send off, I bought this electronic sensor, which tracks short & long term exposure. It was about $100 & had good reviews. This is just an example of one electronic sensor, so I am not endorsing it over another.
Good luck with that insurance claim in a few billion years (and some more few billion years until they will finally pay you). By then, the paperwork might be fossilized!
The radon scare created an industry dedicated to removing this scary, invisible stuff that could only be detected by delicate instruments. The data was based on rodent studies with questionable links to human health, but it was sufficient to create enough public alarm to make a few people wealthy
Maybe somebody lied about detecting radon to make some money, but it’s a real thing with real risks. Unless these “radon rich” moguls are sharing cash with thousands of professionals working in rad pro and health physics, why would they help sell that lie?
Interesting! I can imagine that caves did not have sealed basements building up radon as this comic points out; people who lived in caves maybe inhaled a bit less. And because toxic does not mean deadly, only a fraction exposed developed cancer the same way only a fraction now develop cancer.
And yet, using that supposition, it would still stand to reason that, given the thousands of years of living in caves, Homo Sapiens should have evolved with some level of resistance to it
We are fortunate that additional research was performed well beyond the study you mentioned; the link to elevated lung cancer was first established in Uranium miners around the 70s and since then tons of studies have been conducted in homes; some homes indeed had similar Radon levels to some mines!
Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers. I don't see how the US EPA profits from stating this. And many European countries have an even lower action level of radiation than the US.
It's funny how radon stopped being a thing after the early to mid 1990s but now it's suddenly back again.
Someone had a stockpile of radon detectors and they must have died and their heirs discovered it while cleaning out their attic. New business opportunity!
It’s a pretty common issue in Montana. The bedrock in the western part of the state is Really Old, so lots of uranium to decay! Discussing it has never gone out of style here.
Yeah, but granite countertops are usually in a well ventilated kitchen, so no build up. Unfinished basement with a pile foundation? That’s a lot of seepage into an enclosed space.
People just stopped paying attention to it. It’s always been a problem. Hell, my in-laws had no idea they had to test for it in MN and had to do a lot of work to mitigate it after they found high levels.
I'm pretty sure it was always a hyped up "problem" to begin with. It's like mold mitigation or asbestos removal. More about making money on people worrying over something than about any real health risk. In fact, as with asbestos removal, it's often better to leave it alone.
I owned a townhouse that had asbestos shingles. Someone once tried to scare me into a massive removal job. But it's safe as long as I didn't pulverize it and breathe it in.
That's why I always have a window open. Don't want to be an extreme exposure casualty. The propane heating tank next to my bed during a long power outage was for that.
A look at how Radon gas is produced from Uranium containing rocks and how this can represent a threat to human life if the levels in our buildings reach dangerous levels, especially to smokers. https://youtu.be/V0dOg34-6w0
Fun fact: scientists didn't understand why the Earth still had a molten core. If it was really as old as the stratigraphic rock layers indicated, it should have cooled and solidified all the way through, long ago.
That was before they discovered radioactivity, which of course produces heat.
We all know that radon works it's way up through bedrock and hundreds of feet of clay , silt and loam only to stop in your basement and give you cancer.
Oh please!!
Tends to be a problem with newly built houses that use loam as a building material. In old-fashioned houses (like half-timbered), Radon never built up due to the lack of tight-closing windows and doors.
You could use https://m.xkcd.com, and a link to view the alt-text is next to the strip title, or (on Android at least, not sure about iOS) a long-press on the image pops up a box of image properties, including the alt-text.
Yeah, hey, I've been a single dad for over a decade. A lot of stuff that I loved just had to get put on the back burner for a while. He's 14 now and I'm kinda coming back to life and catching up on a lot of things.
Such amazing levels of detailed technical expertise like this out in the world, and yet vast numbers of people don’t know what a “tariff” is. Make it make sense.
Of course not. Never suggested anything of the sort. Quite the opposite, in fact; which I was expressing my amazement at the extent of diversity when it comes to what people are willing/able to put their minds to.
My sister's house had radon (common in her area) but sufficient ventilation. What's missing from the alt text is that it's not the short half-life, gaseous radon itself which is "deadly": it's the decay products once they are inhaled as dust.
Could some kind person please post the alt-text? I googled what alt-text is, but can’t figure out how to access it on an iphone. I want to admire what y’all are admiring!
Like a current policy with companies who are seeking ways out of their responsibilities through their small print that shouldn't be there in a company that suggests hope for devastation and then lets hope down because there is not enough money for the corporations and make lying a rich trait
Moving to another planet is the best option for remediation, of course. But if that's not in your budget at the moment, you can always try sealing the cracks in your floors and walls and increasing ventilation in your home 😅
Shouting into the void but, met you once at a party briefly and your humor gives me faith. Thank you so much and I hope it brings you joy to keep up the good work.
Were you trying to just make a pun or were you trying to suggest that Radon-222 is not in fact part of the U-238 decay chain? The former, ha; the latter, maybe look it up?
Radon is the easiest fix. Cut a hole in the slab, stick a PVC pipe down there, use a fan to suck the air from under the slab and blow it outside the house. Radon never enters the house that way. Radon mitigation people charge like $1,000 to do this.
Comments
:-)
Did you know every one who has ever eaten a pickle eventually dies.
Therefore; pickles will kill you.
https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100051
In breast milk ~0,42 ug/Litre (in Sweden).
Its everywhere but harmless tiny amounts.
https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1476-069X-11-92/tables/1
"Eat fewer bananas."
Alt text.
Seems kinda funny
-- Roseanne Roseannadanna
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2013.13788
Maybe somebody lied about detecting radon to make some money, but it’s a real thing with real risks. Unless these “radon rich” moguls are sharing cash with thousands of professionals working in rad pro and health physics, why would they help sell that lie?
Someone had a stockpile of radon detectors and they must have died and their heirs discovered it while cleaning out their attic. New business opportunity!
If someone ever figures out they can make a buck scaring people by sweeping a Geiger counter over granite counters, look out.
You just explained why the whole radon game was a joke. It's a gas, and in any well-ventilated house it's not an issue.
“two weeks “
That was before they discovered radioactivity, which of course produces heat.
Oh please!!
https://jabde.com/2025/01/13/the-patriotic-table/
Must be some web standard.
I do wish xkcd regular site would add a button to reveal the alt text (as it does on its m. mobile site)
Radon is awful. sorry to hear about your area.
Keep it up!
https://youtu.be/2p_8gx-XHJo?feature=shared
Thank you for sharing your genius with us over the years.
You helped fill the massive void Gary Larson left.
(PLEASE don't tell me you have an XKCD for THIS too...)
Alt text: https://explainxkcd.com/3037#Transcript
Well, shame and violence, but I don't believe we need to go that far. Maybe a noogie...