Ben -   No.  Your heart rate will go up for a reason to make sure that you're pumping enough oxygen around.  If you take something like a sedative, that will reduce your heart rate then you're not going to have enough oxygen in your tissues.

Kat -   I think it would also maybe mean that you sort of notice less things that you should notice that you might need to take into account and might need to, “Oh, I need to seek some medical help.”

Ben -   And need to descend.  Yes, of course.

Kat -   I think you're asking for trouble here really.

Ben -   I think the oxygen demands of giving birth are probably a bit too much to be able to successfully do it when there’s just not enough oxygen up in the death zone, so I'm not sure.  And I think that it means that the baby in the process would get far less oxygen than it needs.  I don’t think this would work very well at all.

Kat -   So maybe, it wouldn’t even make it out alive.

Ben -   It’s quite possible.

Kat -   What a morbid question!  Thank you very much.

It's worth noting that foetal haemoglobin has a higher affinity to oxygen than the 'normal' haemoglobin we use after birth - maybe a baby would be okay in the death zone after all?

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Kat: -   We spent some time looking at geological maps of Germany in the UK and our conclusion is that a lot of Germany is made of granite and granite releases a radioactive gas called radon.  But the UK isn’t completely bereft of radioactive rocks.  A lot of Cornwall, a lot of Wales, quite a lot of the Pennines and some of the Peak district and of course, Edinburgh is made of granite and does release radon.  And there was some research I think a couple of years ago that showed that people Cornwall are actually getting quite a significant dose of radioactivity that does increase the risk of lung cancer in these areas.  And in fact, if you smoke and live in places like Cornwall that are very granity, that’s actually a much more significant impact on your cancer risk than if you just live there and didn’t smoke.  So, if you live in Cornwall or anywhere that looks a bit granity, then don’t smoke.  But as to whether the background radiation is higher in Germany versus the UK, it really depends where you live.  If you live in a very granity bit of Germany, yes it will be higher, but if you live in a very granity bit of the UK compared to a non-granity bit of Germany then obviously, it will be higher in the UK.