Mea Culpa: trust the science on radioactive gas

Questions of language and style in last week’s Independent, reviewed by John Rentoul

This holiday park in Northampton might have escaped being flooded during January’s Storm Amid, had thieves been able to tow it away in time (Getty)

In a report of the closure of cells at Dartmoor prison because high levels of radon had been detected, we tried to explain what the gas is and why it is dangerous. We said: “It is thought to occur more often in areas with high concentrations of granite, such as Dartmoor.”

As Roger Thetford wrote to point out, “is thought to” implies that this is mere speculation, when the presence of radon in such areas is an established scientific fact that has been known for decades. There is even a government map of affected areas. We would have been fine just saying “It occurs more often…”

Blade in the water: A headline on Wednesday said: “Magnet fisherman pulls Viking weapon from river.” Two problems with this. One is that I do not think that magnet fishing is well known enough to appear without explanation, and the other, as John Harrison pointed out, is that this happened last year.