• Question: @sarah can you get radiation in Scotland. ?

    Asked by 949nveg24 to Sarah on 14 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Sarah Hunak

      Sarah Hunak answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Hi, good question. Natural background radiation is all around us. It comes from the bricks in the wall, the ground, even the food we eat! Don’t worry though, it’s in very very small amounts and nothing to be scared of.
      Some places of the world get more background radiation than others. In The UK for example, parts of Cornwall and Aberdeenshire get much more from Radon (a type of radioactive gas that’s released naturally from the ground). They get maybe 3 or 4 times more than the average UK area. There are even some places in the world that get much more than this. I went to a place called Ramsar in Iran a few years ago, they get 100 times the average UK radiation dose!! But like I said, don’t worry. It’s fascinating to investigate these things and scientists are even discovering that maybe the higher background doses could be helpful to humans who live in those areas!

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