What is nuclear forensics?

how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland and it's us Stuff you should Know, the Nuclear Investigators. I thought this was really neat. I did too, and I did. I had a silly title. I thought, how good is this gonna be? But then you and our article was good enough, But then you found that

great article from econom Economists. Yeah, man, that was good. Yes, yeah, our article was written by Robert william and it was great. But it gets even better. Yeah, like people should I think this is one of those like take twenty minutes out of your day and read the new detectives from the Economist just good like and we'll give you a good over here. But it just gets knowledge to have, you know, yeah, because you don't really think about this.

But there is, in my opinion, thankfully, a an international network of people who are dedicated to preventing people from getting nukes. Who should who who who shouldn't have it? Depending on who you are, right, Like, there's a there's a whole um. I looked up at this question like like is it the right of any sovereign nation to

have whatever nuclear technology it wants? And I saw, um, that's actually apparently the like you know those sites like debate dot org and like debate prep sites or something, they'll have like a bunch of different brain teasers. Yeah, something like that. Um. And that seems to be mostly

where it lives. But I found this one guy on Forbes who argued that is not the case that if you have not demonstrated a um uh like an allegiance to liberal democratic principles and freedom uh and that you're just looking out for your people at your role as

the government. That is to say, like, if you're an autocratic government, you haven't you don't have enough sovereign cred two to enjoy the right to new because this is how this guy was arguing against, like North Korea having the right to a nuclear program, right, But my thing is, I think it goes even further than that. I think that that assumes because he was also saying at the same time, if you are a friendly nation and you are liberal democracy, um, you kind of should have the

right to a military nuclear program. But like liberal democracies can change over time, the nukes are going to remain. So what was once a friendly nation may not be thirty or fifty years from now, but they're still going to have a nuclear stockpile. Or some governments dissolved. Look at the USSR, they had one of the the world's largest nuclear arsenals, still do, but then the government just disintegrated and it turned into the Russian Federation, which has

arguably much looser control over the nuclear stockpile. And we talked about this, then how easy is it to steal a nuclear bomb that episode we did. Yeah, I think after after the Soviet Union dissolved, that was that was a really scary time and continues we continue to see the ball out from that as far as the black market trade on nuclear either weapons or the technology or the information or the pieces parts the mouth parts right, as we like to say around here. And luckily, like

you said, there's a field called nuclear forensics. And as Robert astutely points out, they have sort of a three track uh challenge on their hands, which is a what they do is a monitor places and countries, um and organizations. Uh, so they can basically stop them from developing nuclear arms if they're not supposed to be people on the on the no no list. Then they track extremist groups and smugglers and try to find out where these You know, there's a lot of we'll get to it later, but

a lot of stuff goes missing, which is super scary. Yeah. Can I just interject here for a second. In two thou eleven, the US the United States announced that it could not account for fifty pounds of weapons usable nuclear material that it had previously shipped around in the world and that's just gone. They said it was enough for

dozens of nuclear warheads. And then finally, the third thing that you will do as a nuclear detective or in the field of nuclear forensics is if something does happen, if there is a radiological attack or a nuclear bomb that goes off or is launched. They are the ones who will investigate the scene just like you would any crime scene exactly. Yeah, So that's the those are like kind of the three things that in a nuclear forensic detective I guess, if is the best way to put it,

UM would be involved in doing. And there's a lot of other signs around it and research around it too, which is why you're you very rarely find somebody who is a full time at least in the u S I should say, is a full time nuclear forensics expert. Most of the time they're doing the sign ants that's

helping the field, right. So, like there's there's a project that UM Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to identify the the um elemental signature of the uranium that comes from all one hundred and fifty uranium minds that have ever existed on planet Earth. Right, So if you come across the sample of uranium um, you can you can trace it back to its point of origin. That's something that you

would do if you were a nuclear forensics expert. When you're not actually like say investigating a case or UM carrying out a routine inspection of a non military nuclear state. That kind of thing. Yeah, they're like football referees kind of right. And it's pretty cool that these guys even exist, right, that the idea that there are people out there who

are inspecting states, um and by states of men countries. Obviously, I'm using it in like the the security kind of way, right, Um, people out there whose job it is is to say, um, you are not holding up to international standards. We think that you are going down the road toward a military nuclear program that's not allowed. We're going to tell yeah.

And Robert has a neat little way to put We talked about mutually assured destruction many years ago, I think in a show and in nations signed the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons a k A MPT. Is that confusing a K A MPT. I think that's like the the acronyms, the abbreviation of the Non Proliferation Treaty. That's right, I think. But he talks about mutually assured destruction like this like a movie standoff where and I always equate this with reservoir dogs, like two people and

a gun or three people aiming a gun at one another. Um, if you are all three aiming the gun at one another, then there is a likelihood that no one will fire because you could all die, and maybe you will just lower your guns. And that's sort of the idea with mutually assured destruction if we all have not all, but if these nations have nuclear weapons, they know that just exchanging nuke fire. Everyone's seen war games. Uh, you can't win,

so I can't win. The trick comes in when someone else comes into that room, like in Reservoir Dogs, when Lawrence Tierney comes in at the very end and they're already pointing their guns, and then you've got a new gun on the scene, and that's when everybody dies, right, or I guess probably an even better analogy is that with the Non Proliferation Treaty, if somebody came in, if if say Barber strikes in came into the standoff and Reservoir Dogs and a complete surprise twist in the director's

cut of the movie and said, everybody, everybody calmed down, lower your guns. Here's a little her from Yental, right, and she does her little number, and it just charms everybody into forgetting their troubles and they put their guns up. And that's that. That's the aim of the Nuclear Non

Proliferation Treaty. It goes even further than that. Imagine if Babs as she was walking around doing her number from yental Um, she was like taking everybody's guns up too, and then maybe disassembling them quickly with a little jazzy number going. And um, that was that. So not only is there the non Proliferation Treaty, it was it was saying, everybody,

calm down. That's mutual is sure destruction. I guess the Non Proliferation Treaty comes in and says, not only are you gonna calm down, let's get rid of some of these nuclear weapons to us disassemble them, right, But when Lawrence Tyrney or Barber Stress and walk in with a gun a k A m P T a k A having another another nuclear player, all of a sudden, that disrupts the weird balance that is mutually assure destruction. It does,

for sure. But that which is why a lot I think a hundred and ninety nations ratified the Nuclear nonp non Proliferation Treaty UM, which says, yes, all of you guys, with all of your big nukes and everything. Get rid of some of those. We don't like them being here on planet Earth. And the problem with that is is that the the organization that was created to oversee this, the International Atomic Energy Agency. I think they're basically they

amount to nuclear accountants, right. Their whole jam is that they are UM. They go in and they say, the international community says that you can have this UM. You can have nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes, for the power generation or for your hospitals or whatever, but you can't have it. You can't have a military program. And and there you it's not hard once you have one to to have the other. Right, once you have a peaceful program down, it would not be very hard to translate

that into a military program. The i a e A Is tasked with coming to your country, coming behind your borders and looking at your your program and making sure that it's non military. And if everything checks off, they can turn around and say to the rest of the world, this country is keeping their promise and all they have is a peaceful program. Everybody can be friends with this guy. Or if they find that there is evidence of a military program, they say, guys, um, you're gonna want to

hear about this. North Korea over here is secretly working on a nuclear program and we've done our jobs. Now it's up to the international community to figure out what to do about it. Right. But here's the thing is, you know there a U N organization, So these are the above board. Let me come and knock on your door and get an invitation to come in and inspect your stuff. I got all my machines, all my gear. They can sniff out radiation, and you you allow me

in or you don't allow me in. This isn't the the clandestine uh FBI and and spy agencies that very much also do the same thing from satellites and you know, in all kinds of other ways on the ground. But the I A e A. It really depends on these UN mandates and cooperation from the country. So, for instance, and two thousand two and two thousand seven, North Korea said, um,

kindly leave our country, and they had to do so. Yes, you know, it's not like they draw a gun then and say no, we're here to inspect your stuff, don't you get it, right? But what they do is basically go tell the people with the guns. Right, So that's that's like a real red flag to not let the I a e A access to you look everywhere but in this room, rights, oh yeah, or to kick them out like that. That really raises red flags and it did in that in those instances to right. So, yes,

they are toothless. I mean it is after all a U N body, but they are backed up by the collective might of the nuclear military Nations UM, who say, basically, this is the state the sat is quote of the world. There's eight countries that have a nuclear program. Most of them are allies UM, and they are tasked. Those allies have taken it upon themselves to say, no one else can have a nuclear program. You're not supposed to have a nuclear program. You're not supposed to be building nukes.

We say, if you can have a military nuclear program, and we say no. And every once in a while a state that is not part of that group comes up on their own with their own military nuclear program. And when they do, the other countries have to decide what to do about it. Yeah, and they you know, the I a e A does very good work. Uh, it works to a certain degree. Like in two thousand three when they said, hey Libya, hey Iran, we have

evidence now that you have a military program going. And so Libya said, all right, I'm gonna give that up. Iran at least gave up their suppliers in Pakistan, yeah, a Q Khan, Yeah, and they do good work. They want a Nobel Peace Prize in two thousand five. However, depending on who you ask, um, like the United States may say you guys are being too nice and too lenient. Uh. Countries that are getting inspected say, well, I think you're

actually being a little bit too nosy. So it's definitely the above board approach you in style to getting this curved right there. Um, there are a lot of other ways to like look into whether or not somebody has an military program. We'll take a little break and we'll talk about those. How about that, So, Chuckers, we were talking about the above boards way where the UN politely

knocks on your door and does some inspections. And there's some cool stuff that they have going on, right, Like they install digital cameras in the facilities and they they're like set and program to take pictures if there's movement near likes uh A a piece of equipment that could turn this peaceful nuclear program into a military program, and then they're all time stamped and data and ordered sequentially, so if there's any missing, some software will catch the

fact that a picture has been deleted, and now all of a sudden, you've got an international incident. Right um. They also use laser surveying equipment to survey the layout of the um uh the what do they call the the centrifuges, the piping of the centrifuge, Because so you have to have a centrifuge to have a peaceful nuclear program. Right like you take um uranium and uranium has like points seven percent uranium in a uranium or I should

say the stuff that you find in nature. Now to have like to create nuclear fuel for a nuclear power plant, you've gotta you've got to isolate that the uranium two thirty five isotope, and you do that by spinning it in gas in a vacuum so fast that you're hitting like seventy thousand rpm s and it separates the isotopes.

And then those things are connected. All those all those centrifuges are connected by tubes of gas so that the isotopes you want all kind of mingle and migrate to the place you want them to to where you collect them, and then all of a sudden, you have three percent

concentration of uranium. Now you have UM nuclear fuel that you can use for peaceful purposes if you keep it going, if you make some upgrades to your whole composition UM and rearrange the pipes a little bit here there, and you can get that stuff up to UM concentration of uranium two thirty five. Now you have weapons grade uranium.

Now you can build nuclear warheads with that. What the i a e A Does with their laser surveys of these centrifuge gas pipes is they they survey them, digitize that and then do it again when they come a year or two years later and see if there's been any alterations or modifications to that pipe that it would indicate that they're trying to make that uranium uh even more enriched. Yeah. So this is this is the i

a e a s good work that they're doing. Uh. And this is when they, you know, like we said, go to countries that say come on in. Then there's a whole other problem that is UM terrorists and drug cartels and basically the black market, uh nuclear black market and that's a whole different deal. You can't go knocking on their door and they're not gonna say come on in. You probably don't even know where their door is, which is the whole point. So if you're wondering, like is

how big of an issue is this? How much should we worry? Uh, just go read a little document called the i a e. A Illicit Trafficking Database. Um, it's a little frightening. So what they will do is they'll it's it's not very long. They have like a two or three page report, and I think the most recent one I saw was numbers where they will basically say how many incidents of unauthorized um acquisition, possession, used, transfer, or disposal of nuclear or radioactive materials were there? And

there was the good news is it's gone down. There was some huge spike in two thousand six. When you look at these charts, I have no idea what happened in two thousand six, but it's sort of level, and then two thousand six it just like ramps up. Like I think there were a hundred and thirty something cases in two thousand six compared to just over forty and two thousand fifteen. Yeah, that's a pretty big spike. It's a big spike. And then like the graphs really really

stand out. So I don't know what's going on then, but it's still a little scary to see just how many cases there are where things go missing, or things are not disposed of, right, or things are are acquired or sold on the black market. And this is just the stuff they know about. Yeah, this is these are

just the ones that got caught, right um. And you know, that whole non proliferation um is a it's a double edged sword as well as far as the nuclear black market goes, because yes, you're disassembling nuclear warheads, but then that means that nuclear grade plutonium or uranium is now being transported somewhere for storage or something like that. Right,

so it's back in play. I guess. Whereas before you'd have to steal the whole nuclear warhead, now you just have a big lump of weapons grade uranium that's being transported across the Atlantic, you know, So that that represents a security um, a change in security too. I wonder if there were a bunch of nuclear warheads that were disassembled that year, I don't know. I bet someone knows the answer though, so like you were saying, like there is the whole black market UM that that represents an

an entirely different UM side to this. And there are plenty of UM terrorists, organizations and just what you would call bad actors, which is hilarious, but it's also pretty sinister if you think about it. Who would just like

to get their hands on this kind of stuff. Some of the people that they're selling it to our representatives of countries that want to have their own military program UM, like North Korea or Iraq, Um, I should say Soda Hussein erra Iraq, which we're both successful in creating nuclear programs right under the noses of the international intelligence community. Yeah, and you know, well we'll get to that a little bit later. Like how some of the ways that they

can skirt this stuff. But but the good news is is that it is Uh. You can't just get uranium at the corner store, right, you can only mind for it in certain places. You can't. You can't just get that uranium and throw it into a hand grenade casing and then you have a little tiny nuclear bomb. Well that's a dirty bomb at least. Well, yeah, there are such things as dirty bombs. But it's it's like nuclear warheads. Um. They they have to be made in very special ways

with very special materials. And it's the good news is that is that I won't say it's easy, but it is. It is all pretty trackable to a certain degree. On like these nuclear forensics teams, they can generally find out even by examining, uh, examining the uranium, like where it actually came from or where where did this casing come from?

It can be tracked pretty readily at this point. Yeah, and that's where the UM like the where the nuclear forensic scientists are also doing, like the day to day science to create a database like the signatures of uranium from the hundred and fifty minds around the around the world. Right, that's where that stuff kind of comes into place. When you find something, you know, the dude who's smuggling it, he may give up whoever he knows, but that doesn't

mean it's going to lead anywhere. UM. Actually studying the material that he was smuggling is UM, it can frequently give up more information than that person even knows, you know, yeah for sure. But to do that you have to catch the material. UM when it's say coming through your border or your port and there are um, well, there's there's a number of ways to do this, right yeah.

I mean you know you can do a lot with satellite imagery of course, um, but you can only do so much with satellite imagery, like to really to really find this stuff. I mean, the good news is radiation gives off radiation, so are these these uh uranium and stuff like that gives off radiation, But you need to be on like ideally you need to be on the ground and fairly close to it to read it. Yeah,

the detectors have gotten way better. Supposedly they need like, um, just a fifth of the mass that it used to take to set off a reading. Um. But yeah, you still have to be I think that the next generation will be basically a football field, an American football field link yards, yeah, hundred yards roughly a hundred meters um. But that means that you have to have a person in a hostile nation, you know, walking around with a detector within a football field of a nuclear facility. That's

that's a lot of um. That's that's that's a that's a tall order in a lot of cases, right, Um, there are detectors that are attached to satellites that can detect um radiation into the atmosphere. Yeah, and apparently they've gotten a lot better too. But the problem is is that radiation there's a couple of things with actual radiation UM. It can be shielded relatively easily with a thick layer of concrete um or lead um, and the stuff that

does escape can get absorbed into the atmosphere. So I think the detectors, like satellite detectors, are getting much better than they were before. And probably the stuff that we know about here in this article as probably ten years old. I'm sure we're far more advanced than this article would would say as far as something like a a radiation detector attached to a satellite goes like even the two year old article you think is behind Yeah, I think, I think so, I think, yeah, yeah, I get what

you're laying down. So so I think that it's probably much better. But again, UM radiation can be it can be shielded. One thing that they that nuclear detectives have figured out though, is that there's a part of a nuclear reactor, uh, not a part of it, but something that's created in nuclear reactors um neutrinos that you can't

do anything about. They're going to escape because they pass so easily through matter that they will actually travel through solid Earth unfazed by anything that comes in contact with UM. And they've created this. Do you do you see Cosmos the reboot with nil deGrasse Tyson? Did you see the one where he was like in a boat in like a new trino cave underground. So it's really neat, Like he was standing up in a boat in this really dark cave that had like little lights or something kind

of starlight. It was a romantic scene. And what where he was was, um this cave underground. I think it's the one in Ohio where it's underground in an old salt mine and it's filled with water and it's underground to protect it from cosmic rays that could give off false readings. But it's meant to pick up new trinos that are traveling through the Earth from UH nuclear reactors, right. And the way that does that is since new trinos interact like almost not at all with matter, which is

why they can pass un affected through solid earth. UM. When it comes in contact with a certain atom in water, it gives up the faintest flash of light and if you have enough water, this is actually a pretty rare occurrence when it happens. But if you have enough water, it's going to happen eventually, and you're going to be

able to detect it with underwater photo sensors. Right, So what they've done is fill this old salt mine with a huge like supposedly it will take like a million tons of water to detract to detect neutrinos from a

hundred a thousand kilometers away. Um, But when a hostile nation or a nation that's not supposed to have a nuclear program runs an on off cycle of their nuclear enrichment reactor there enriching their nuclear material, you will be able to detect that through neutrinos in your underground cave neutrino detector. Isn't that insane? Yeah? Think about how much trouble it is, but that it actually works, it's amazing. I think it's amazing too. And and Neil deGrasse Tyson

is the man. Can we just say that again? Oh? Yeah, for sure? All right. Should we take it a break here? All right, we'll come back and we'll talk a little bit more about sort of the latest and greatest technology we have going as well as some other sneaky ways to hide this kind of activity right after this, all right, so I can't stress enough. That's uh. This great Economist article called the New Detectives. UH really learned a lot

from it. And there's this UM kind of starts out by talking about UM and this is if you have not prevented someone from getting uh nuclear materials and they are actually doing nuclear tests, which ideally you have stopped the process before that. But let's be honest, sometimes things slip through the cracks. People get their hands, or countries get their hands or rogue nations and terrorists get their hands on these materials and they want to test out

UM bombs and things. They are now using some amazing UH equipment, seismic seismographic equipment. Would that be the way it is? It? Yeah, to detect this stuff to the point now there's a there's a group called the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Tests Band Treaty Organization. UH. And that's a fancy way of saying. They listen around the world with these seismograph machines to the point where doctor Zerbo, which is the greatest name ever actually for like a

nuclear international nuclear scientists. Doctor Zerbo says, now it is impossible to test with thus smallest nuclear weapon anywhere on Earth in secret. They will hear it. Yep, it's amazing. Yeah. The the ctbt O, the the Comprehensive Test Band Treaty Organization, Right, is that correct? Correct? They have so I saw it listed somewhere, but this this article kind of lays it out.

They have a hundred and seventy seismic stations worldwide, eleven underwater hydroacoustic centers so you can detect the sound waves in the ocean, sixty atmospheric infrasound listening stations. They're off at that point, right, and then nineties six radio new radio NUCLEIIED NUCLEAD sampling facilities. I think that's the ones that like like those satellites that can detect radiation leaks. I think that's that's like that. So yeah, like around

the world, they've got it locked down. You cannot set off a nuclear weapon in them not know about it. That is correct. Another big thing that they're doing now is uh software, network analysis software. After nine eleven, America really started ramping up. As everyone knows, there listening skills um and not in like a polite my friend has some issues they need to talk through way right, you know what I mean. Uh, So they now have all the software that can It's sort of I think the

feeling I get is what this software now does. It's able to just draw from all these different areas, whether it's email for social media, or phone calls or receipts

and credit card transactions like prism. Yeah, and it will just it'll feed it all into these the the software programs now that will eventually narrow it down to, Hey, this person might be a batty because they have ticked off uh not as an angered but they have checked so many boxes in our software system of activities that they're undertaking that you might want to go take a look at them. Yeah, and the things that this did. You say the name Aura, So Aura is a good

example of this kind of software. It's from Carnegie Melon and basically it it has been adapted to not just track terrorists, but to track nuclear scientists. Now I think like thirty thousand of them around the world. So if you're a nuclear scientist and you're in the prime of your career and you publish an article every eighteen to thirty six weeks on average, according to the computer, and all of a sudden you just stop. You're going to

set off a red flag. They're going to wonder why you stopped publishing at the height of your career, and they're going to say, you know, it's entirely possible that they got drafted into a nuclear military program where would not be allowed to publish, so that might set off a red flag. And then there's another computer, um I think the Pentagon is set up called Constellation the Whopper, which again is probably yeah, it's probably twenty years out

of date by now if it's in this article. But this Constellation is a computer that takes the information from all these other computer all these other softwares and put them together and says, oh, well, not only did that guy stop publishing at the height of his nuclear science career, he also just moved within commuting distance of a um a facility that is suspected by Army intelligence of possibly being holding nuclear centrifuges that that aren't registered anywhere. Yeah,

and there uh, there are other programs. There's one software program that uses what's called combinatorial mathematics, and what they do is they analyze data to end up with a set of criteria called centrality between this and degree, since Radley centrality being how important someone is in the system. Between this is their access to other people and the degree there's a number of people they interact with and

the idea there is what they're looking for. Generally, our network members that have high between this and low degree, So those are probably like Osama bin Laden is a good example. Like towards the end, he has access to a lot of people, but he's not interacting with a lot of people. Well, he's like a high up. A higher up, I think is what It indicates somebody of importance in the network. Right yeah, and um, that's this is all extremely g whiz. But then you hear about, oh,

it's actually being applied in real life. Um back and I think two thousand and ten eleven twelve, at least five nuclear scientists working on Iran's nuclear program were murdered. Um. One of them was like picking his child up or dropping his child off at daycare, like just gunned down by guys in the street or um carbon or something like that. And the one thing that they had in

common was that they were all working on Iran's nuclear program. UM. And they think that the Mossade used intelligence that was gathered by these this type of software program to figure out if you kill these people, it will really screw up the program because they're important figures in this program. Even though we don't know them. We know their names

and that's it. We don't know anything about them. Just based on this metadata that that these programs put together, we can tell you that if if they weren't around any longer, it would set the whole program back. And they did. Yeah, and uh, like I'll say in earlier, the good news is is if you want to build and again we're not talking about dirty bombs and stuff, but if you want to build a nuclear warhead, there are very specialized parts that you have to buy UM

in order to do so. So they have software that monitors this stuff around the world, and what this article calls UM they reveal choke points basically that they can monitor, like the ceramic composites for the centerfuges that you have to have in order to pull this off. There's only so many companies that do that in the world. So UM, I mean, that's the good news. You can't run out to Walmart and buy the stuff to make this happen. So, uh, it makes a little bit easier to monitor what's going

on to a certain degree. Um. That's gotta be a huge help man having that. Oh yeah, especially together with human intelligence, which apparently is still one of the best

ways to find out about a nuclear program. Um. There was this one I think Syria was working on their nuclear program and they had, with the assistance of North Korea, they had built a facility where they lowered the floor, yes, so that they could start their military nuclear program in secret and um, rather than a cooling tower, they connected to a nearby reservoir with underground pipes. Um. And they

had this whole thing set up. And if you were looking at it, and you were a military analyst looking for evidence of a nuclear facility being built, you would immediately check that building off the list because it was too low, too close to the ground, like the it wasn't tall enough to house a nuclear facility. And they did I'm sure over and over. I'm sure they saw

this building plenty of times. And it wasn't until um, some human intelligence gave it up that it became clear that no, actually this is this is a nuclear facility, so it can you can fool the international even the nuclear detectives can be fooled, is I guess what I'm saying, which is kind of surprising. But one of the ways that you do that is you you figure out how

to build your nuclear program in house. You get detected when you start to spread out through the black mark market or to that company that makes the composites needed for centrifuges. Yeah, like Iran, for example, they used in the in that same article. They can mind the uranium

themselves in the country, which is a little scary. And then they can also or they at least had been working on producing those center few droaters instead with carbon fiber instead of the special steel that they need to outsource. So all of a sudden, you're not on that list. You're doing an in house and it I mean, it seems like from reading this, like the good news is are getting more and more specialized equipment that you can detect stuff from further away, and our capabilities and the

software is getting better and better. But these places are also finding more and more ways to side step traditional manufacturing means, which is kind of scary at the same time. Yeah, apparently Um Saddam Hussein had a nuclear program that he was working on that he was able to come up with I was mentioning it earlier, where UM he did it by basically going retro. He used the process of UM separating uranium isotopes through electro magnetism rather than centrifuges,

so he didn't need centrifuges. And apparently it's so low tech and UM so out of use that no analysts were looking for evidence of that, so they just totally missed it. But he was still able to come up with the nuclear program using that old, outdated technology purposefully from what I understand. Wow. Yeah. And then of course nuclear North Korea's nuclear program was just a total surprise

to everybody. I mean, people suspected it and we're very concerned that it was going on, but it wasn't until Kim Jong n or ill I can't remember which one it would have been, but back in two thousand and ten they invited as Stanford professor out and showed it to him so he could go tell the world shocked everybody done. Yeah, why in the world did they let that happen? Yeah, I mean I don't I don't know

how it happened. I think it happened because of that guy we mentioned earlier, a Q Khan from Pakistan who was the father of Pakistan's military nuclear program UM, who was educated in Europe and stole some blueprints for making nuclear weapons and went about building Pakistan one right. And then they started turning the countries like Libya, Iran, North Korea and UM offering basically turn key military nuclear programs based on Pakistan's designs for like a hundred million dollars.

And then he got He ended up as a scapegoat for his nation and was placed under house arrest. Luxurious house arrest, but still from what I understand, the guy was very upset about this because he went from being a treated like a god to being treated like, you know, it's his fault that there's nuclear periliferation among Rugue states UM and was finally released a few years I think five years later, And I mean that guy, he deserves his own episode. He was fascinating. I think still is.

I believe he's still around too. What's his name, a Q Khan? Can we call it the wrath of con That's what they did in the Atlantic. They I couldn't believe it. Uh, so the big question is and the economists, um thankfully asked that could you build a nuclear weapon in secret? And uh, there's a couple of opinions there. They asked the Foreign Secretary of Pakistan, former Foreign Secretary Rhyas Mohammed Khan. He said, Nope, I can't do that

in secret anymore. But uh, there was an anonymous American State Department counter proliferation official who said it's not impossible, so you know, don't don't be fooled. Yeah, it's a little little, little worsome. Yeah, I mean you you really like to think that nobody could do this anymore. But apparently it is getting easier and easier. But like you said, it's also making it easier and easier to detect. It's

like any illegal operations. Um, it's like a game of cat and mouse with on the development side of developing. Good guys developing stuff, bad guys developing stuff. Yeah, it's really interesting. But in this case, this game of cat and mouse, you have some of the smartest human beings on the planet who are who have banded together to say no, no, we're not gonna let this happen. Okay, Well, if you want to know more about nuclear detectives or

nuclear forensics, start digging because there's plenty out there. And man is it fascinating. Um, since I said it's fascinating, it's time for listener mail. So before we do listener mail, buddy, can we talk a little bit about our old friends at the Cooperative for Education. Oh yes, let's chuck co Ed. Yeah. The quick download with co ED is we went to Guatemala quite a few years ago with them. They invited to come down you, me and Jerry and I went down.

We saw the great work they do, like real on the ground hard work helping children of Guatemala pulled themselves out of poverty through education. Yeah. Yeah, it's in our two part Guatemala special that everybody can go listen to if you haven't heard it and get this, Chuck, So, COED has another drive going on and they're making it their mission to keep a thousand girls in Guatemala from

dropping out of school. By that's amazing, dude. It takes twelve years of education to break the cyclopoverty in Guatemala, but a poor rural Guatemalan has only one and twenty chance of reaching that milestone. So they are literally identifying young women to literally keep them in school. Like it's not some nebulous campaign and you're not sure where your money is going. You are helping a young woman in

Guatemala stay in school and get educated. Yep. So you can sponsor one of those girls for seventy dollars a month or if you want to do half of that, thirty five dollars a month. COED will match you with another sponsor to make sure that there is a student who is able to continue her education and therefore eventually break her family out of the cycle of poverty that dropping out of school perpetuates. Yeah, it's really great. They're

awesome people. So if you weren't a good person this year and you want to make up for it here before the end of the year, or if you want to start off in the right way, go to thousand Girls Initiative dot org and that is all spelled out, not the number one, thousand thousand Girls Initiative dot org and you can actually pick out the student you want to sponsor. Is just the best. Co ED is great and we're really happy that we're still working with them. Yep.

So keep up the good work co ed and you guys please please go help these guys out, all right? Uh now on the listener mail, Yes, I'm gonna call this UM restaurant health inspection from a manager's perspective. Okay, do have permission to read this? I love listening to the show on health inspections. Guys. Want to throw in a couple of tidbits from my point of view. First, you were spot on just about everything with your re arch, including how some employees take no exception to sanitary practice.

Those employees tend to not have a very long career. When the health inspector shows up and you see the staff start to scramble in the business, we call that the two minute drill. And that is not to say that we don't keep our restaurant up to standards, because we do, but we want it to be perfect. Typically, the this made me feel a lot better by the way reading this. Uh. Typically the hd H comes to the restaurant at the most inopportune times, right in the

middle of a busy lunch service. At that point, the kitchen is cooking one dishes at the same time servers are running drinks and taking orders. Dirty dishes are stacking up a bit in the back. With the Health Inspection past fail scale being so specific, the slightest thing can fail you anything from an ice scoop in the ice spin to a fruit fly or a steak resting at

temperature that is off by two degrees. We as managers like to continue to train our staff keep things tidy, but also I have a few quick fixes in order to maintain that a rating. Washing hands is a must anytime food is handled, especially when the inspectors are on site. As you know, it's a very nerve wracking time while

they're checking every nook and cranny. That is why we managers are required by law to get health certified to ensure we are training out staff properly and not allowing any boots in the Brunswick stew he said, Broad worst stew so I saw that I think he might be insane. As always, thanks for an incredible podcast and providing us with information on things we may not usually have knowledge

to prior all the best, Derek, he said, ps. We have a remarkable cuisine at my place, so if you ever are in the area, come on buy and we'll treat you to some great food. We have the best Broad worst stew in the region. Well, he didn't say what restaurant he worked at. Oh, actually it's in his email. I'm not gonna read that, but they're in Boston, so maybe okay, and we go back to the wilbur We can go get some Boston cream pie cake and then some Broad Worst Delicious. Yeah cool, Thanks a lot. What

is the guy's name, Derek? Thanks a lot, Derek. That was a great email, and yes, in need, it did make It made me feel a lot better to Chuck. If you want to make me and Chuck feel better, well just send us an email. First. You can tweet to us. I'm at josh On Clark and s Y s K podcast, Chuck's Man in the Facebook pages at Charles W. Chuck Bryant and that Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at

how stuff Works dot com. Is always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how Stuff Works dot com.