Martin Pfeiffer aka @nuclearanthro joins Shelly to discuss the origin story of NORAD Tracks Santa and why it matters. Not suitable for children and may contain foul language. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us
Young scientists from the Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) Conference react to the nuclear weapon talks which opened the conference. Hear their thoughts about the role nuclear scientists play in the future of nuclear policy and disarmament. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us
With all the talk of nuclear weapons in Europe, learn about the US nuclear weapon triad with Dr. Steve Fetter. Recorded live during a nuclear physics conference, Drs. Fetter and Lesher discuss the US Nuclear Posture Review, the US Nuclear Triad, Nuclear Modernization, and the history of ICBMS.
In this episode, we take you inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone with Dominik Orfanus founder of ChernobylX and lead tour guide, Lara Graldina. What is it like inside the "Zone"? Who lives there? What can you do to help? This and more on Episode 38. Note: This episode does not discuss the disaster itself. To hear about that event, listen to Episode 16 - The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Disaster with Adam Higginbotham. Send an email to ChernobylX to find out how you can contribute to their human...
The St. Louis Baby Tooth Study has been reimagined. Using the original teeth collected from the children of the 1950s and 1960s Marc Weisskopf and his colleagues at Harvard are seeking to find new answers from old teeth. Shout out to Taz & Mookie Weisskopf who make their presence known on the recording. Note: For background on the Baby Tooth Study listen to Episode 36 first. Artwork from href=https://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/atomic-anxiety-and-the-tooth-fairy-citizen-science-in-the-mid...
Nina Gilden Seavey discusses how the St. Louis Baby Tooth Survey helped persuade U.S. President Kennedy to sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which ended above-ground nuclear weapons testing in the US, UK, and the Soviet Union. In the process, citizen science was born and children sported cool buttons on their lapels.
He was and served as the 39th President of the USA. But before his career in politics, Jimmy Carter was a Navy Nuke under Gen. Rickover. What did he do in the Navy? How did this time in the Nuclear Navy shape his policies? What would happen if someone who thought like a scientist gained access to the highest seat in the land? Find out in this episode when Shelly speaks to Jimmy Carter’s biographer, Jonathan Alter. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us...
Underground nuclear bunkers, the birth of FEMA, secret government plans for the end of the world, and more in this episode. Garrett Graff discusses his book Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself -- While the Rest of Us Die. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us...
This episode explores how we, as humans, grapple with the end of the world through nuclear literature including fiction, nonfiction, poems, etc. How do we grapple with the "end" if it is caused by humans and how do we explain nuclear events to children? Visit our webpage for a list of books discussed in this episode. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us...
The history of fusion as a source of energy is discussed along with past and current projects. Is a fusion power plant still decades away? Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us
What is a war game? How did they shape our understanding of the Cold War? Did the mathematicians or social scientists win the war of the COW game? Learn about issues surrounding wargaming at RAND and elsewhere as Shelly & John dive deep into the question, "Can wargaming teach ethics?" Find John Emery's paper here: Moral Choices without Moral Language Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us Send an email us to My Nuclear Life or visit our website mynucle...
Special episode on reducing nuclear threat with Prof. Matthias Grosse Perdekamp. Recorded when Russia was invading Ukraine.
Today's episode features the musical duo Charming Disaster. They discuss the process of writing their new album based on the life of Marie Curie and the element she discovered, stories that did not make it into their songs, and ways that this album should sound familiar to fans but is also a departure from their usual writing style. Also, Elia & Jeff dispel Shelly's notion of "Goth Rock". Preorder their new album: Our Lady of Radium Visit Charming Disaster Website Visit us at: mynuclearlife....
What role does nuclear science play in understanding art and culture? Michael Wiescher from The University of Notre Dame explains. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us
Nathan Radke and Lee Kuhnle from The UnCover Up podcast discuss Dr. Strangelove with Shelly and introduce an interesting conspiracy theory. Lee poses a question on if Nikita Khrushchev should receive story credit for the plot of the movie and backs it up with some interesting history of who could launch a nuclear attack. Wait - did Stanley Kubrick accidentally get it right? Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us...
Nathan Radke and Lee Kuhnle from The UnCover Up podcast discuss Failsafe (1964) with Shelly and compare it to Dr. Strangelove. Find out what character made Lee want to quit watching Failsafe, who the gang thinks would have a better chance at surviving a nuclear exchange: file clerks or prisoners, and what Shelly wants etched on her tombstone. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us...
Nathan and Lee from the UnCover Up podcast join today’s conversation in discussing their favorite nuclear movies spanning over the decades, involving wars, nuclear disasters, and so much more! Amongst the 100’s of movies, they’ll be touching on just a sampling—this is a conversation you won’t want to miss! Movie links can be found on our website. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com email us...
In this episode Pete Burgess discusses the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian spy who defected to the UK. Why is polonium-210 a good poison? How do you make it? Why wasn’t the public scared it could happen to them? All of those questions and more are answered in this exciting episode. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife Send an email us to My Nuclear Life or visit our website mynuclearlife.com . Please leave a 5-star review on iTunes and subscribe to My N...
In this episode, host Shelly Lesher is joined by Neal Bascomb, author of The Winter Fortress, which tells the story of the plan to sabotage Hitler’s atomic bomb. Listen as Neal tells about the several different missions set out to destroy the Nazi atomic bomb program and how they affected the course of the World War II. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us...
Go inside a US missile silo with Col. (Ret.) Charles G. Simpson as he discusses his time as a US Air Force Missileer which started weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis and ends shortly before the end of the Cold War. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us
This episode features Don Howard, a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame with an interest in the ethics of emerging technologies. Shelly & Don explore the ethical considerations behind the Manhattan Project and building the H-bomb, and discuss question such as: Should scientists use their expertise to be involved in politics? What is the moral obligation to one’s work? How are scientists involved in human rights work? and more. Don also shares his moving ...
In this episode Shelly speaks with Thomas Haigh, a historian of computing, about the ENIAC and its influence on nuclear physics. Learn how the ENIAC was more of an experimental apparatus than a computer, the role of women in early computing, why we know so much about the secret h-bomb calculations, what Wikipedia gets wrong, and the confusion surrounding the MANIAC. All of this and more in this super-sized episode. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife...
In this episode Shelly is joined by Dr. Vincent Intondi, history professor at Montgomery College in Maryland. He is invited on the podcast today to discuss his recent authorship of his eye opening book entitled African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement. Shelly shares that while reading this book, she was uncomfortable with material, and had to process material from perspectives that she had never considered before. This interview proves to b...
In this episode, Shelly is joined by 2/3rds of The Uncover Up Conspiracy Podcast, Nathan Radke and Lee Kuhlne. They discuss the Pentagon UFO report, their joint Cold War obsession, what we can learn from conspiracy theory, and various nuclear conspiracy theories. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us...
In this episode Shelly speaks to Tiffany Nichols, doctoral candidate at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, graduate student affiliate at the Black Hole Initiative and a National Science Foundation grantee. Her research focuses on how place, surrounding environment, and laboratory are embedded in the outputs signals of The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, also known as LIGO. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife emai...
We are excited to announce our first crossover!
In this episode Shelly is joined by Adam Higginbotham, author of New York Times best selling book Midnight in Chernobyl . Listen as Shelly and Adam talk about his book and about the biggest nuclear disaster in the world. Adam takes the time to share his own research in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the many events that led up to the accident. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife...
In this episode of My Nuclear Life, Shelly speaks with Todd Tucker, author of several books including Atomic America: How a Deadly Explosion and a Feared Admiral changed the Course of Nuclear History published in 2009. Today, the story of SL-1 holds wide appeal yet remains relatively unknown. If you have heard of the explosion you might know of the person impaled by a control rod, a murder suicide plot due to a love triangle or a prank gone wrong. All of this and more is discussed in this episod...
In this episode, Shelly Lesher and Dreux Richard author of the book, Every Human Intention: Japan in the New Century, explore the post-Fukushima nuclear regulatory system of Japan and how to determine the safety of restarting nuclear reactors threatened by earthquake faults. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife...
In this episode of My Nuclear Life, host Shelly Lesher speaks with Tim and Joanna Smolko, authors of Atomic Tunes: The Cold War in American and British Popular Music. They discuss atomic music across the decades including how music influenced The Women’s March for Peace, how Soviet’s made records out of x-ray films, and how David Hasselhoff became a Cold War icon. Listen along with the Spotify Playlist or at YouTube . Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife...
