WEBVTT - Life After Radiation: Sickness, Death and Sustenance 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:14.560 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.279 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And actually, no, 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:22.079 you're not Robert Lamb. Your DJ Radio tropism. Oh yeah, 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:24.880 and uh and what your dad today? Oh, it would 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:29.560 clearly be DJ cryptococcus. We'll get to that later. So 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.320 today we're gonna be talking about radio activity and radio 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.279 friendly organisms. But to start us off, I wanted to 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:39.120 take us back to something that happened a couple of 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.760 weeks ago. So we sometimes go on Facebook Live, the 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:48.440 live streaming media service, and uh talk about in Aine 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:52.440 garbage movie trailers and we're not in Maine garbage important 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.600 B movie uh and sometimes non B movie trailers and 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.320 discuss the way that they tie into our discussions here 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:01.800 on the podcast. The topics that we cover, well, there's 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.759 nothing wrong within a garbage that wasn't inherently a pejorative. 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.120 I mean, I love in a garbage, right, So we 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.520 went on Facebook Live and we were talking about giant 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:14.160 crab movies, a a film genre that I think is 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:19.000 severely under realized. It has a lot of potential. There's 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.560 just not enough there. The young aspiring filmmakers out there 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.160 need to get on the giant crab movie train. Yeah. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.119 It's as easy as buying a real crab or catching 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.480 one on the beach and filming it right, put it 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:35.040 in close up the little people. Yeah, it's amazing. Uh. 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.560 And one of the movies we talked about was Attack 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:41.119 of the Crab Monsters. So this was released in nineteen 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.679 fifty seven, directed by as I would call him the 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:48.000 crud Wizard, Roger Corman, and it is a plot you've 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.920 heard a million times before, as scientists go to an 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:54.400 island in the Pacific where there has been atomic testing 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.240 and eventually they have to square off against a couple 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:03.720 of giant, intelligent, sort of psychic crabs that project their 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:08.120 voices into your dreams. Stuff. It's it's odd. It's a 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.960 script by Charles B. Griffith, who is a regular Corman writer. 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.000 He's the same guy who wrote who wrote Little Shop 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:16.760 of Horrors. Uh, not of This Earth and one of 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:21.079 my favorites it Conquered the World, where Earth is attacked 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.400 by an art of choke with an underbyte. Yeah, and 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.440 of course you end up with a long The best 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:28.640 part of that movie is you have lengthy scenes in 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:33.480 which Levan Cliff and Peter Graves discuss that the philosophical 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:39.160 quandaries related to alien invasion? What does freedom really mean? 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.200 So I I I have a special place in my 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.440 heart for that film too. Anyway, In an interview, Griffith, 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.480 the screenwriter of Attack of the Crab Monsters, tells the 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:52.920 story about where this screenplay came from. And he says, 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.200 Roger Corman came to him and said, I want to 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.480 make a picture called Attack of the Giant Crabs. Obviously 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.400 the name evolved a little, and then Griffith says, I asked, 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:09.040 does it have to be atomic radiation? And Corman responded yes. 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.000 And you know, that's kind of the way it was 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:15.639 in the sci fi and horror of the nineteen fifties 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.080 we went through the atomic age. It was we we 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:21.760 of course, had just had a World war that was 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.400 concluded with the use of atomic weapons, and it was 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.440 almost like if your Corman thinking about Griffith coming to 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.880 you saying does it have to be atomic radiation? Again, 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.600 it's like, why are you even asking? Of course, this 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.400 movie has to be about atomic radiation making animals bigger, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.880 more powerful, sometimes more intelligent, more rampage e versions of 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.320 those same animals. Well, I love what you just said, 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:50.200 because that, I mean, that's essentially what atomic power did 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:54.520 for the human race, right once a society acquired it. Yeah, 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.840 we became this this, this thing that was more rampage e, 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:02.640 more dangerous. The movies are always uh, the the initial 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:08.000 uh sounding chamber for for cultural anxiety, and so it's 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:13.040 you can think of it as as Oppenheimer uh invoking 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.000 his famous uh uh quote from Hindu scripture and sing 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.520 is saying, now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds. 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.840 Imagine him speaking that into the amplifier of of B 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.080 movie culture, and what you get are all of these 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:31.440 atomic of super creatures and atomic Superman spiraling out into 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.640 comic book characters, etcetera. As this this anxiety works its 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:38.880 way through our fiction. Now, I know you're like, you're 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.159 sort of joking and sort of serious, and I want 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.520 to agree with you on both halves, especially the sort 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.280 of serious part. I totally agree that B movies are 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:50.520 often where we work out are sort of taboo anxieties 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.400 and uh, and it's where the conscience of the common 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:59.520 person comes through into the arts and entertainment. But another 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.960 fun fact act I cannot leave this subject without divulging, 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.799 is that Griffith thinks, he says in the same interview 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.960 that in in some scenes in the movie, the person 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.039 operating the giant crab monster prop may have been Jack 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:19.280 Nicholson because he was working on sets there at the time. Man. 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.839 That that's a great fact. That's magical to think of. Yeah, 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:25.800 especially look up this crab and think it could be 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.839 Jack under there. Yeah, we we gotta give you. How 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:30.640 often do you encounter that with us? Someone in a 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:35.080 monster suit turns out to be an important, acclaimed actor 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.320 later on. But then, of course, sometimes the monster itself 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.799 becomes a character. Now, obviously there are not a whole 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:47.119 franchise of giant crab movies. Uh, the the giant crab 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:51.159 monsters never caught on as a beloved folk hero, but 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:56.520 some giant radioactive monsters do. Yeah. The best example of 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.680 that would be, of course, so Gohedra Godzilla, who continues 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:05.240 to rampage through our our cinematic history here. Now, is 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.400 it officially part of the Godzilla cannon that Godzilla was 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.400 created by atomic radiation? Yes? Yeah, I mean that's when 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:14.760 you go back to the original Godzilla. That's the the 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:19.560 idea that uh and and and it's really kind of 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:21.960 beautiful in its own way, right. I mean this is where, 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.640 in the same way that all these other monsters managed 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:30.359 to emerge from, you know, largely Western contemplations of the 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:35.800 atomic age, Godzilla is a frightening manifestation of of the 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:40.279 Japanese contemplation of the atomic age. And and it really 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.359 shines through in that first film because that first film 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.440 is a spark darker. Yeah, it's a dark film. Uh, 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.120 it just becomes campy over time as people and grow 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:52.840 used to the idea of a giant rampaging lizard creature, 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.080 and when the giant rampaging lizard creature becomes the hero 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.880 rather than the villain. Yes, you know, I I watched 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.479 part of the shin Godzilla, the new Godzilla film out 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.560 of Japan on an airplane recently, and I need to 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.880 sit down and watch it in in you know, in 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.200 complete form, because it seems like there are a lot 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:17.240 of scenes of experts setting around tables discussing the political 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:23.120 ramifications of combating Godzilla, which I love films like that 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.320 they take the monster or whatever, the sort of fantastical 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.360 element and just really get down and start teasing it 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:34.520 apart with the real world factors. But of course, more recently, 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:38.840 more recently, for most American audiences, we had this um, 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.640 this this new treatment of Godzilla that to introduce some 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:47.600 additional radioactive elements, the idea that that Godzilla and his 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:56.119 fellow massive unidentified terrestrial organisms or mudos were radiation dependent organisms, uh, 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:01.160 radiation feeding leftovers from a primal terrestrial era in which 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.360 there was a lot more radioactivity on the Earth and 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.440 organisms had evolved to depend upon it. Now, that could 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:10.960 play into some of the science we actually discussed later 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.320 in this episode, So keep that in mind. Yes, Now, 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.480 of course there's plenty of people who would argue that, oh, 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.920 you can't really nail Godzilla down. He's he's he can't 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.160 throw too much science at godzilla is even though we 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.680 can't stop doing it. It's more like a scaly zeus. Yeah. Yeah. 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:28.800 In fact, there's a wonderful quote that I ran across. 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.520 This is from film producer A show Go, Tomi Yama, 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:34.960 and it was a two thousand four interview with the 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.839 now defunct Penny Blood dot com. But you can find 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.280 archive versions of this, and he said this is a translation. 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.559 I believe Godzilla is closer to being a god. He's 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.480 not just a living animal or a monster. The fact 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:51.520 is that humans cannot control or judge the gods. They 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.200 have their own will, they have their own way. In Japan, 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.840 there are many gods. There is a god of destruction. 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.960 He totally destroys everything, and then there is a rebirth, 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.880 something new and fresh can begin. Godzilla is closer to 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.640 being that kind of god. Now this brings us to 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:11.079 the Godzilla youthfro dilemma. Is the righteous righteous because it's 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:16.800 loved by Godzilla? Or is it righteous because never mind? Uh? Yeah, 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.120 what is love by Godzilla? It is that. There's an 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:20.960 answer to that, but it changes, I think from film 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.160 to film. It's obviously rampage. Yeah, I mean, it's easier 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.200 to nail down gammera. What does gammera love the children? Right? 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:29.480 And and that's why I think I'm ultimately more drawn 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.839 to Gammera. Okay, we shouldn't look at some other radiation 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.560 eating organisms that are either powered up by radiation or 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:40.640 or derived their their everyday energy from it. All right, Well, 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.240 Christian and I recently did an episode dealing with some 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:47.000 of the science of the expanse. And if you're watching 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:48.960 that show, or if you've read the first book, you 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:51.400 know that there's this thing called the protomolecule that shows 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:56.160 up and it's an extrasolar biolot biology reassembling system that 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.839 enters the picture. And it's as shown that I and 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.720 razing radiation is an energy source to this thing. So 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.880 I'll say no more about that without getting into into spoilers. 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:12.000 But yeah, radiation eating organisms of of of a sort 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:15.080 do play into that series. Now, I see you have 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.920 a note about it here. I know the Ghouls and Fallout, 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:23.600 yeah series they get they get love from the radioactive energy. Yeah, 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:25.880 and even and also the main character, at least in 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:31.440 the main you know recent games, uh, the character that 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:35.600 you play with, the Wanderer, the vault Walker or whatever 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.520 the descriptions are that they throw out for him. You 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.880 can pick up perks where the radiation heals you and 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:44.360 you kind of like feed off the radiation. So this 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:46.240 is a path you can choose to take in the 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:48.640 game to say, I want to live on radiation. Yeah, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.199 I want to be able to drink radioactive water, which 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:54.480 one of the things I love about the recent Fallowout 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.000 games is they'll be these these moments where you're standing 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.920 like ankle deep in maybe not full blown radioactive water, 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:02.920 but bad water that you should not drink, like you're 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.600 standing in a sewer, and you look down and you go, oh, 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.079 there's an AMMO clip down there. I better pick it up. 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.080 But you accidentally click on the water next to the 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.720 clip instead of the clip itself, and so you reach 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:15.480 down with your hand and you get a big scoop 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:20.120 full of the water and you drink it. And yeah, 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.120 because I love I love the idea of that happening 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.080 where it's, oh, crap, I just meant to pick up 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.680 the clip and I just drank radioactive water instead. Such 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.240 such a duface. So those are just a few radiation 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:36.600 eating radiation absorbing creatures to consider, but fiction is full 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:41.040 of many examples of radioactive mutants, and giant mutant animals 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.079 are a big one. So we we've talked about all 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:48.679 a number of these examples before. You mentioned the crabs already, 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:53.480 but it brings up another B movie icon. The director 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.560 of of real one of my my favorite films from 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.800 this era, the amazing Colossal Man. Right, I haven't seen 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.559 this one still, this is the one where there is 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.280 a man who gets some kind of radiation and he 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.440 grows huge and it of course it's directed by Birt 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:14.160 Eye Gordon, Mr Big himself, who mostly made movies about 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:19.600 things getting big, about big spiders, big dinosaurs. Uh, there's 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.760 one movie of his that made a great Mystery Science 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.240 Theater three thousand episode called The Beginning of the End, 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:31.800 where it explores the sort of downstream food ecosystem effects 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:38.120 of radiation radiation gigantism, where this scientist makes some giant 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:42.040 vegetables but I think he I may be remembering this wrong, 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:46.160 but I think he injects them with radiation with a needle. 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:51.040 I apologize if I've mischaracterized there, but that's my memory. 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:56.839 And then some bugs eat the radioactively injected fruits and 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.760 vegetables or grains, and then the bug has become huge 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:05.320 and attack Chicago. He Berney Gordon must have had either 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:09.000 a needle phobia or a needle fetish because because there 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.839 are some fabulous needle scenes in The Amazing Colossal Man 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.240 as well. Yeah, yeah, there he like they have bring 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.440 a huge needle to inject a huge man with and 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:21.840 then it is a wonderful scene. It's in the trailers 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:23.880 and all where he picks it up and he kind 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.559 of looked at Glenn Manning, the amazing glossal man does this, 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.400 picks this this uh, this hypodermic needle up and it's 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.000 it's regular size to him, and then he just with 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.800 with with expert precision. He just throws it like a 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.840 dart down at one of these soldiers who just pricked 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.360 him with it, and it just skewers him. It's a 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:45.280 wonderful scene, but one of cinema's finest moments. Now, in 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.480 addition to these examples, and you have legions of other 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:53.600 mutant humanoids from telepathic nu nutants in beneath the planets, 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:56.640 beneath the planet of the Apes, which I'd love to 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:00.199 see those guys uh explored in some of these reboots 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.080 that are coming out for the Apes movies. These are 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.679 the ones that worship a giant bomb. They like sing 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:08.400 hymns to the to the atomic bomb. Yeah yeah, yeah, 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.400 they worship with the atomic bomb, and they they have 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.559 crazy mental powers. You also have the Chud's from Chud, 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:21.280 the cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers. Um. We've mentioned the ghouls 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.440 of Fallout. You've got the mutants of Total Recall. Nice, Yeah, 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:26.400 they were. They were a lot of fun. You have 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.240 the mutants of the Hills have Eyes not so much fun. 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.000 Not not so fun pretty much an any installment of that. 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.200 They are generally not that fun, but but certainly a 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.920 good B movie example as well. And uh, of course, 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.640 let's not forget atomic superheroes. That is a huge area 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.240 of of fictional exploration here, right, you've got the Hulk. 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:52.000 So the official Marvel approved origin blurb I looked it 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.880 up on Marvel dot com for the Hulk reads as follows. 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:01.360 Caught in a blast of gamma radiation, alliant scientist Bruce 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.400 Banner is cursed to transform in times of stress into 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:09.880 the living engine of destruction known as the Incredible Hulk. 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.680 So got that straight right. The origin story is gamma radiation, 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.840 then a curse. The curse is that when he gets 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:24.080 his briefs in a twist, he changes colors, becomes huge, strong, invincible, 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:29.200 rampage e. Now obviously this is not I don't need 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.200 to tell you, but this is not what happens to 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:33.920 a human who's caught in a blast of gamma radiation. 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.200 We know this in theory and principle but even if 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.640 we didn't, we would know it in practice because this 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:43.640 is literally actually happened. I want to talk about one 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:47.440 example of a quote brilliant scientist caught in a blast 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.600 of hard radiation which included gamma rays among other types 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:54.960 of radiation, and that man was Louis Slotan, a Canadian 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.680 physicist working at the United States Atomic Testing Facility at 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.240 Los Alamos, New Mexico, go UH shortly after the conclusion 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:07.160 of the Second World War. So on May one, nineteen six, 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:10.960 at about three in the afternoon, Slotan and colleagues were 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:16.120 performing a nuclear criticality test on a core of plutonium. 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.080 And the way a test like this worked is that 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:22.640 you would take a mass of physile material and then 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.080 bring it almost to the point of going critical by 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:30.600 nearly covering it with a beryllium cap. Now what would 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:34.280 that do well. The reason a substance like plutonium is 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.840 dangerous is that the heavy atoms inside it are unstable 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.560 and they start to split apart and shoot neutrons off 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.360 in every direction, releasing a lot of energy in the process. 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:49.200 This is a nuclear fission. By covering a hemisphere of 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:54.520 physical plutonium with this thick reflective material like beryllium. You 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:59.200 reflect those neutrons back into the plutonium where they hit 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:03.479 other atomic nuclei, knocked them apart, producing more free neutrons, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.520 releasing more energy. And as this happens more and more 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:11.480 you come closer to producing a runaway criticality event. The 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:15.680 physicist Richard Feynman, upon hearing this type of experiment described 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.000 in the forties, compared that compared it to quote tickling 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.920 the tale of a sleeping dragon. Now that's because the 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:27.359 dragon presumably breathes fire when it wakes up, and about 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:29.919 the same as true of a plutonium core. Now, this 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.199 beryllium cap, called a tamper, it was supposed to be 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:37.600 kept from going completely closed, from completely covering the core. 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:40.359 As long as there was a gap through which some 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:42.840 of the neutrons could still fly out and it wasn't 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:46.800 completely covered, the dragon would not fully wake up. But 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.800 on the day I mentioned earlier in ninety six, while 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:53.680 Slotan was performing this experiment holding the tamper cap open 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:58.760 with a screwdriver, an accident happened. His hand slipped, the 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:02.960 screwdriver came out of place, and the tamper briefly fell 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.320 completely over the plutonium mass, causing it to go critical. 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.520 People in the room described that they saw a flash 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.119 of blue light, which was the secondary result of the 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:18.280 air itself being ionized by a blast of hard radiation, 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:23.159 and they also felt this wave of heat wash over them, 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.840 so their primary radiation exposure lasted really only a split 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.840 second before Slotan was able to knock the tamper off. 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.320 He sort of reached out and knocked it away, and 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.760 he stopped the chain reaction, but he had already in 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.320 that tiny split second, received more than enough radiation to 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.680 kill him. Uh. There's a good short New Yorker article 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.240 about the history of this accident, and it reports that 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:49.840 quote Slotan's whole body dose was around twenty one RIM 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:54.240 of neutrons, gamma rays, and X rays. Five hundred RIM 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.560 is usually fatal for humans, so this was an incredibly 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:02.680 powerful close up door. Right after the exposure, he went 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.240 outside and vomited, and then the hand closest to the 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.000 core that he'd been holding right up next to the 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:14.680 plutonium turned blue developed large blisters. Uh, and he started 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:18.760 experiencing systemic effects that developed for the next nine days 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:23.040 before he died. UM. He was in continuously deteriorating health. 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.240 His white cell count dropped, his temperature and pulse became erratic. 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:32.040 He had digestive distress. According to one medical professional who 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.880 was trying to explain the nature of his his wounds, 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.080 his internal radiation burns. They described it as quote a 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:43.919 three dimensional sunburn if you can imagine being sunburned on 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:50.240 the inside that is rough. Now here's a really crazy fact. 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.400 This was not even the first time this had happened 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.880 at this lab. Just months before, a Los Alamos worker 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.720 named Harry dag Lean Jr. Had Been killed by radiation 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.560 exposure in a similar criticality experiment. Not exactly the same 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:08.160 they were using some like a tungsten carbide bricks I think, 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:13.680 but by the exact same piece of plutonium, which thereafter 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:18.480 got its nickname, quote the demon core. And of course 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:21.000 Slotan is not the only person to suffer death from 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:23.919 radiation exposure. You know, victims of the atomic bombing in 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.480 Japan at the close of World War two tragically suffered 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.800 many of the same effects. But what's sort of morbidly 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.760 fascinating about the cases of Slotan and Daglian is that 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:39.960 there's no explosion, no fire, there's no uh conventional physical destruction, 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:45.560 just the pure isolated, almost instantaneous dose of hard radiation 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:50.399 that makes every tissue in your body start to fail. 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:53.840 There's almost a magical element to it. Yeah, in that 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:56.400 with it would being devoid of the explosion and the 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:01.080 sort of the the traditional um atrobutes of warfare. Yeah, 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.280 it does. It does have this kind of magical feel 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.520 to it because you can't see the mechanism. Uh. And 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.120 it kills you slowly then, because now everything in your 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:14.840 body is irreparably damaged, but you can't see exactly what happened. 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:17.719 So I think maybe we should take a quick break 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.760 and when we come back we can talk about radiation. 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:25.080 We we know now obviously it doesn't actually make you bigger, stronger, 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:29.639 more intelligent, at least for large complex mammals and most 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:33.920 other organisms. But if it does kill, how does it kill? 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:41.359 Why does it cause this problem? All right, we're back, 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.200 so let's take a moment to just really talk about 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.680 what radiation is. We've been, we've been, we've been talking 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.080 about it, and I think most of our listeners have 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:52.639 a you know, a reasonable working knowledge of radiation. But 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:54.800 I think it's it's a it's a good opportunity to 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.480 just stop and try and boil it all down here. 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.320 So it's important to note that our lives are filled 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.440 with radiation, and much of it is harmless, and much 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:07.840 of it is natural, not all radiations of the apocalyptic variety. 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.320 Soil and underground gas is exposed us to radiation, and 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.359 we're also exposed to cosmic radiation from the sun and 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:18.280 outer space. It's mostly mostly all right, mostly fine if 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.680 the doses are right and uh, and you're dealing with this, 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:26.479 this natural mode of radiation, well, I guess it depends 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:29.399 on your definition of fine. But you might say it's unavoidable. 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:34.440 That's part of being. And with all radiation, you know, 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:36.679 it's going to depend on the type of radiation, the 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:39.639 dosage level, and how long you're exposed to it. Because 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:43.600 obviously radiation is coming from the sun. You can get 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:47.320 too much sun, and they're varying their varying definitions of 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:49.439 too much sun. There's too much sun over the course 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.560 of a lifetime. There's too much sun over the course 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:54.639 of a day at the beach, right, But that's a 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:57.560 good illustration of the different kinds of risks that are 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.480 posed by radiation. For example, too much on it one 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.320 day at the beach, you risk the sort of the 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:08.600 slotan version, the acute radiation poisoning from the sun versus 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.720 too much sun over a lifetime will tend to cause 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:15.480 things like skin cancer, right, and not enough exposure to 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:18.560 the sun can leave you with the vitamin D deficiency. 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:21.320 So you know, there's a balance in all in all 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:24.359 things here. Uh. And one of the key aspects we'll 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:26.480 get back to two is that just as radiation is 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:31.160 around us, radiation has always been around us. Radiation has 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:33.560 been there in the background of varying degrees throughout the 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:36.880 evolution of life on our planets. So it's not like 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:41.320 it's not like radiation. Even though radiation as this theme 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:45.560 as this uh, this fear and this anxiety really arrived 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:49.160 in the nineteen fifties, uh, you know, and we see 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:52.720 it echoed in these B movies. Radiation did not arrive 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:55.760 on the scene. Then, radiation had always been with us. Now, 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.840 in terms of radiation, the stems from human inventions. That 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:02.840 that's that's a different area here. So we're when this 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:06.959 we're talking about medical procedures. We're talking about television's, cell phones, 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:11.200 microwave ovens. Uh. And again it all depends on dosage. 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:15.320 The strength to type, the length of exposure. Electromagnetic radiation 0:24:15.600 --> 0:24:19.560 is merely a stream of photons traveling in waves. So 0:24:19.600 --> 0:24:23.679 we have you know, low energy photons such as radio waves, 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:26.920 and these spend These are just waves. They behave like waves. 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:30.520