Speaker 1: Hello Seattle, Hello, Portland's We're coming out to see you
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Speaker 1: to see you. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's
Speaker 1: Jerry Rowland and it's us Stuff you should Know, the
Speaker 1: Nuclear Investigators. I thought this was really neat. I did too,
Speaker 1: and I did. I had a silly title. I thought,
Speaker 1: how good is this gonna be? But then you and
Speaker 1: our article was good enough, But then you found that
Speaker 1: great article from econom Economists. Yeah, man, that was good. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: our article was written by Robert william and it was great.
Speaker 1: But it gets even better. Yeah, like people should I
Speaker 1: think this is one of those like take twenty minutes
Speaker 1: out of your day and read the new detectives from
Speaker 1: the Economist just good like and we'll give you a
Speaker 1: good over here. But it just gets knowledge to have,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, because you don't really think about this.
Speaker 1: But there is, in my opinion, thankfully, a an international
Speaker 1: network of people who are dedicated to preventing people from
Speaker 1: getting nukes. Who should who who who shouldn't have it?
Speaker 1: Depending on who you are, right, Like, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a whole um. I looked up at this question like
Speaker 1: like is it the right of any sovereign nation to
Speaker 1: have whatever nuclear technology it wants? And I saw, um,
Speaker 1: that's actually apparently the like you know those sites like
Speaker 1: debate dot org and like debate prep sites or something,
Speaker 1: they'll have like a bunch of different brain teasers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: something like that. Um. And that seems to be mostly
Speaker 1: where it lives. But I found this one guy on
Speaker 1: Forbes who argued that is not the case that if
Speaker 1: you have not demonstrated a um uh like an allegiance
Speaker 1: to liberal democratic principles and freedom uh and that you're
Speaker 1: just looking out for your people at your role as
Speaker 1: the government. That is to say, like, if you're an
Speaker 1: autocratic government, you haven't you don't have enough sovereign cred
Speaker 1: two to enjoy the right to new because this is
Speaker 1: how this guy was arguing against, like North Korea having
Speaker 1: the right to a nuclear program, right, But my thing is,
Speaker 1: I think it goes even further than that. I think
Speaker 1: that that assumes because he was also saying at the
Speaker 1: same time, if you are a friendly nation and you
Speaker 1: are liberal democracy, um, you kind of should have the
Speaker 1: right to a military nuclear program. But like liberal democracies
Speaker 1: can change over time, the nukes are going to remain.
Speaker 1: So what was once a friendly nation may not be
Speaker 1: thirty or fifty years from now, but they're still going
Speaker 1: to have a nuclear stockpile. Or some governments dissolved. Look
Speaker 1: at the USSR, they had one of the the world's
Speaker 1: largest nuclear arsenals, still do, but then the government just
Speaker 1: disintegrated and it turned into the Russian Federation, which has
Speaker 1: arguably much looser control over the nuclear stockpile. And we
Speaker 1: talked about this, then how easy is it to steal
Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb that episode we did. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: after after the Soviet Union dissolved, that was that was
Speaker 1: a really scary time and continues we continue to see
Speaker 1: the ball out from that as far as the black
Speaker 1: market trade on nuclear either weapons or the technology or
Speaker 1: the information or the pieces parts the mouth parts right,
Speaker 1: as we like to say around here. And luckily, like
Speaker 1: you said, there's a field called nuclear forensics. And as
Speaker 1: Robert astutely points out, they have sort of a three
Speaker 1: track uh challenge on their hands, which is a what
Speaker 1: they do is a monitor places and countries, um and organizations. Uh,
Speaker 1: so they can basically stop them from developing nuclear arms
Speaker 1: if they're not supposed to be people on the on
Speaker 1: the no no list. Then they track extremist groups and
Speaker 1: smugglers and try to find out where these You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of we'll get to it later, but
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff goes missing, which is super scary. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can I just interject here for a second. In two
Speaker 1: thou eleven, the US the United States announced that it
Speaker 1: could not account for fifty pounds of weapons usable nuclear
Speaker 1: material that it had previously shipped around in the world
Speaker 1: and that's just gone. They said it was enough for
Speaker 1: dozens of nuclear warheads. And then finally, the third thing
Speaker 1: that you will do as a nuclear detective or in
Speaker 1: the field of nuclear forensics is if something does happen,
Speaker 1: if there is a radiological attack or a nuclear bomb
Speaker 1: that goes off or is launched. They are the ones
Speaker 1: who will investigate the scene just like you would any
Speaker 1: crime scene exactly. Yeah, So that's the those are like
Speaker 1: kind of the three things that in a nuclear forensic
Speaker 1: detective I guess, if is the best way to put it,
Speaker 1: UM would be involved in doing. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of other signs around it and research around it too,
Speaker 1: which is why you're you very rarely find somebody who
Speaker 1: is a full time at least in the u S
Speaker 1: I should say, is a full time nuclear forensics expert.
Speaker 1: Most of the time they're doing the sign ants that's
Speaker 1: helping the field, right. So, like there's there's a project
Speaker 1: that UM Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to identify the the
Speaker 1: um elemental signature of the uranium that comes from all
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty uranium minds that have ever existed
Speaker 1: on planet Earth. Right, So if you come across the
Speaker 1: sample of uranium um, you can you can trace it
Speaker 1: back to its point of origin. That's something that you
Speaker 1: would do if you were a nuclear forensics expert. When
Speaker 1: you're not actually like say investigating a case or UM
Speaker 1: carrying out a routine inspection of a non military nuclear state.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing. Yeah, they're like football referees kind
Speaker 1: of right. And it's pretty cool that these guys even exist, right,
Speaker 1: that the idea that there are people out there who
Speaker 1: are inspecting states, um and by states of men countries. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm using it in like the the security kind of way, right, Um,
Speaker 1: people out there whose job it is is to say, um,
Speaker 1: you are not holding up to international standards. We think
Speaker 1: that you are going down the road toward a military
Speaker 1: nuclear program that's not allowed. We're going to tell yeah.
Speaker 1: And Robert has a neat little way to put We
Speaker 1: talked about mutually assured destruction many years ago, I think
Speaker 1: in a show and in nations signed the Treaty on
Speaker 1: the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons a k A MPT.
Speaker 1: Is that confusing a K A MPT. I think that's
Speaker 1: like the the acronyms, the abbreviation of the Non Proliferation Treaty.
Speaker 1: That's right, I think. But he talks about mutually assured
Speaker 1: destruction like this like a movie standoff where and I
Speaker 1: always equate this with reservoir dogs, like two people and
Speaker 1: a gun or three people aiming a gun at one another. Um,
Speaker 1: if you are all three aiming the gun at one another,
Speaker 1: then there is a likelihood that no one will fire
Speaker 1: because you could all die, and maybe you will just
Speaker 1: lower your guns. And that's sort of the idea with
Speaker 1: mutually assured destruction if we all have not all, but
Speaker 1: if these nations have nuclear weapons, they know that just
Speaker 1: exchanging nuke fire. Everyone's seen war games. Uh, you can't win,
Speaker 1: so I can't win. The trick comes in when someone
Speaker 1: else comes into that room, like in Reservoir Dogs, when
Speaker 1: Lawrence Tierney comes in at the very end and they're
Speaker 1: already pointing their guns, and then you've got a new
Speaker 1: gun on the scene, and that's when everybody dies, right,
Speaker 1: or I guess probably an even better analogy is that
Speaker 1: with the Non Proliferation Treaty, if somebody came in, if
Speaker 1: if say Barber strikes in came into the standoff and
Speaker 1: Reservoir Dogs and a complete surprise twist in the director's
Speaker 1: cut of the movie and said, everybody, everybody calmed down,
Speaker 1: lower your guns. Here's a little her from Yental, right,
Speaker 1: and she does her little number, and it just charms
Speaker 1: everybody into forgetting their troubles and they put their guns up.
Speaker 1: And that's that. That's the aim of the Nuclear Non
Speaker 1: Proliferation Treaty. It goes even further than that. Imagine if
Speaker 1: Babs as she was walking around doing her number from
Speaker 1: yental Um, she was like taking everybody's guns up too,
Speaker 1: and then maybe disassembling them quickly with a little jazzy
Speaker 1: number going. And um, that was that. So not only
Speaker 1: is there the non Proliferation Treaty, it was it was saying, everybody,
Speaker 1: calm down. That's mutual is sure destruction. I guess the
Speaker 1: Non Proliferation Treaty comes in and says, not only are
Speaker 1: you gonna calm down, let's get rid of some of
Speaker 1: these nuclear weapons to us disassemble them, right, But when
Speaker 1: Lawrence Tyrney or Barber Stress and walk in with a
Speaker 1: gun a k A m P T a k A
Speaker 1: having another another nuclear player, all of a sudden, that
Speaker 1: disrupts the weird balance that is mutually assure destruction. It does,
Speaker 1: for sure. But that which is why a lot I
Speaker 1: think a hundred and ninety nations ratified the Nuclear nonp
Speaker 1: non Proliferation Treaty UM, which says, yes, all of you guys,
Speaker 1: with all of your big nukes and everything. Get rid
Speaker 1: of some of those. We don't like them being here
Speaker 1: on planet Earth. And the problem with that is is
Speaker 1: that the the organization that was created to oversee this,
Speaker 1: the International Atomic Energy Agency. I think they're basically they
Speaker 1: amount to nuclear accountants, right. Their whole jam is that
Speaker 1: they are UM. They go in and they say, the
Speaker 1: international community says that you can have this UM. You
Speaker 1: can have nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes, for the power
Speaker 1: generation or for your hospitals or whatever, but you can't
Speaker 1: have it. You can't have a military program. And and
Speaker 1: there you it's not hard once you have one to
Speaker 1: to have the other. Right, once you have a peaceful
Speaker 1: program down, it would not be very hard to translate
Speaker 1: that into a military program. The i a e A
Speaker 1: Is tasked with coming to your country, coming behind your
Speaker 1: borders and looking at your your program and making sure
Speaker 1: that it's non military. And if everything checks off, they
Speaker 1: can turn around and say to the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: this country is keeping their promise and all they have
Speaker 1: is a peaceful program. Everybody can be friends with this guy.
Speaker 1: Or if they find that there is evidence of a
Speaker 1: military program, they say, guys, um, you're gonna want to
Speaker 1: hear about this. North Korea over here is secretly working
Speaker 1: on a nuclear program and we've done our jobs. Now
Speaker 1: it's up to the international community to figure out what
Speaker 1: to do about it. Right. But here's the thing is,
Speaker 1: you know there a U N organization, So these are
Speaker 1: the above board. Let me come and knock on your
Speaker 1: door and get an invitation to come in and inspect
Speaker 1: your stuff. I got all my machines, all my gear.
Speaker 1: They can sniff out radiation, and you you allow me
Speaker 1: in or you don't allow me in. This isn't the
Speaker 1: the clandestine uh FBI and and spy agencies that very
Speaker 1: much also do the same thing from satellites and you know,
Speaker 1: in all kinds of other ways on the ground. But
Speaker 1: the I A e A. It really depends on these
Speaker 1: UN mandates and cooperation from the country. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: and two thousand two and two thousand seven, North Korea said, um,
Speaker 1: kindly leave our country, and they had to do so. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like they draw a gun then
Speaker 1: and say no, we're here to inspect your stuff, don't
Speaker 1: you get it, right? But what they do is basically
Speaker 1: go tell the people with the guns. Right, So that's
Speaker 1: that's like a real red flag to not let the
Speaker 1: I a e A access to you look everywhere but
Speaker 1: in this room, rights, oh yeah, or to kick them
Speaker 1: out like that. That really raises red flags and it
Speaker 1: did in that in those instances to right. So, yes,
Speaker 1: they are toothless. I mean it is after all a
Speaker 1: U N body, but they are backed up by the
Speaker 1: collective might of the nuclear military Nations UM, who say, basically,
Speaker 1: this is the state the sat is quote of the world.
Speaker 1: There's eight countries that have a nuclear program. Most of
Speaker 1: them are allies UM, and they are tasked. Those allies
Speaker 1: have taken it upon themselves to say, no one else
Speaker 1: can have a nuclear program. You're not supposed to have
Speaker 1: a nuclear program. You're not supposed to be building nukes.
Speaker 1: We say, if you can have a military nuclear program,
Speaker 1: and we say no. And every once in a while
Speaker 1: a state that is not part of that group comes
Speaker 1: up on their own with their own military nuclear program.
Speaker 1: And when they do, the other countries have to decide
Speaker 1: what to do about it. Yeah, and they you know,
Speaker 1: the I a e A does very good work. Uh,
Speaker 1: it works to a certain degree. Like in two thousand
Speaker 1: three when they said, hey Libya, hey Iran, we have
Speaker 1: evidence now that you have a military program going. And
Speaker 1: so Libya said, all right, I'm gonna give that up.
Speaker 1: Iran at least gave up their suppliers in Pakistan, yeah,
Speaker 1: a Q Khan, Yeah, and they do good work. They
Speaker 1: want a Nobel Peace Prize in two thousand five. However,
Speaker 1: depending on who you ask, um, like the United States
Speaker 1: may say you guys are being too nice and too lenient. Uh.
Speaker 1: Countries that are getting inspected say, well, I think you're
Speaker 1: actually being a little bit too nosy. So it's definitely
Speaker 1: the above board approach you in style to getting this
Speaker 1: curved right there. Um, there are a lot of other
Speaker 1: ways to like look into whether or not somebody has
Speaker 1: an military program. We'll take a little break and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about those. How about that, So, Chuckers, we were
Speaker 1: talking about the above boards way where the UN politely
Speaker 1: knocks on your door and does some inspections. And there's
Speaker 1: some cool stuff that they have going on, right, Like
Speaker 1: they install digital cameras in the facilities and they they're
Speaker 1: like set and program to take pictures if there's movement
Speaker 1: near likes uh A a piece of equipment that could
Speaker 1: turn this peaceful nuclear program into a military program, and
Speaker 1: then they're all time stamped and data and ordered sequentially,
Speaker 1: so if there's any missing, some software will catch the
Speaker 1: fact that a picture has been deleted, and now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you've got an international incident. Right um.
Speaker 1: They also use laser surveying equipment to survey the layout
Speaker 1: of the um uh the what do they call the
Speaker 1: the centrifuges, the piping of the centrifuge, Because so you
Speaker 1: have to have a centrifuge to have a peaceful nuclear program.
Speaker 1: Right like you take um uranium and uranium has like
Speaker 1: points seven percent uranium in a uranium or I should
Speaker 1: say the stuff that you find in nature. Now to
Speaker 1: have like to create nuclear fuel for a nuclear power plant,
Speaker 1: you've gotta you've got to isolate that the uranium two
Speaker 1: thirty five isotope, and you do that by spinning it
Speaker 1: in gas in a vacuum so fast that you're hitting
Speaker 1: like seventy thousand rpm s and it separates the isotopes.
Speaker 1: And then those things are connected. All those all those
Speaker 1: centrifuges are connected by tubes of gas so that the
Speaker 1: isotopes you want all kind of mingle and migrate to
Speaker 1: the place you want them to to where you collect them,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, you have three percent
Speaker 1: concentration of uranium. Now you have UM nuclear fuel that
Speaker 1: you can use for peaceful purposes if you keep it going,
Speaker 1: if you make some upgrades to your whole composition UM
Speaker 1: and rearrange the pipes a little bit here there, and
Speaker 1: you can get that stuff up to UM concentration of
Speaker 1: uranium two thirty five. Now you have weapons grade uranium.
Speaker 1: Now you can build nuclear warheads with that. What the
Speaker 1: i a e A Does with their laser surveys of
Speaker 1: these centrifuge gas pipes is they they survey them, digitize
Speaker 1: that and then do it again when they come a
Speaker 1: year or two years later and see if there's been
Speaker 1: any alterations or modifications to that pipe that it would
Speaker 1: indicate that they're trying to make that uranium uh even
Speaker 1: more enriched. Yeah. So this is this is the i
Speaker 1: a e a s good work that they're doing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is when they, you know, like we said,
Speaker 1: go to countries that say come on in. Then there's
Speaker 1: a whole other problem that is UM terrorists and drug
Speaker 1: cartels and basically the black market, uh nuclear black market
Speaker 1: and that's a whole different deal. You can't go knocking
Speaker 1: on their door and they're not gonna say come on in.
Speaker 1: You probably don't even know where their door is, which
Speaker 1: is the whole point. So if you're wondering, like is
Speaker 1: how big of an issue is this? How much should
Speaker 1: we worry? Uh, just go read a little document called
Speaker 1: the i a e. A Illicit Trafficking Database. Um, it's
Speaker 1: a little frightening. So what they will do is they'll
Speaker 1: it's it's not very long. They have like a two
Speaker 1: or three page report, and I think the most recent
Speaker 1: one I saw was numbers where they will basically say
Speaker 1: how many incidents of unauthorized um acquisition, possession, used, transfer,
Speaker 1: or disposal of nuclear or radioactive materials were there? And
Speaker 1: there was the good news is it's gone down. There
Speaker 1: was some huge spike in two thousand six. When you
Speaker 1: look at these charts, I have no idea what happened
Speaker 1: in two thousand six, but it's sort of level, and
Speaker 1: then two thousand six it just like ramps up. Like
Speaker 1: I think there were a hundred and thirty something cases
Speaker 1: in two thousand six compared to just over forty and
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen. Yeah, that's a pretty big spike. It's
Speaker 1: a big spike. And then like the graphs really really
Speaker 1: stand out. So I don't know what's going on then,
Speaker 1: but it's still a little scary to see just how
Speaker 1: many cases there are where things go missing, or things
Speaker 1: are not disposed of, right, or things are are acquired
Speaker 1: or sold on the black market. And this is just
Speaker 1: the stuff they know about. Yeah, this is these are
Speaker 1: just the ones that got caught, right um. And you know,
Speaker 1: that whole non proliferation um is a it's a double
Speaker 1: edged sword as well as far as the nuclear black
Speaker 1: market goes, because yes, you're disassembling nuclear warheads, but then
Speaker 1: that means that nuclear grade plutonium or uranium is now
Speaker 1: being transported somewhere for storage or something like that. Right,
Speaker 1: so it's back in play. I guess. Whereas before you'd
Speaker 1: have to steal the whole nuclear warhead, now you just
Speaker 1: have a big lump of weapons grade uranium that's being
Speaker 1: transported across the Atlantic, you know, So that that represents
Speaker 1: a security um, a change in security too. I wonder
Speaker 1: if there were a bunch of nuclear warheads that were
Speaker 1: disassembled that year, I don't know. I bet someone knows
Speaker 1: the answer though, so like you were saying, like there
Speaker 1: is the whole black market UM that that represents an
Speaker 1: an entirely different UM side to this. And there are
Speaker 1: plenty of UM terrorists, organizations and just what you would
Speaker 1: call bad actors, which is hilarious, but it's also pretty
Speaker 1: sinister if you think about it. Who would just like
Speaker 1: to get their hands on this kind of stuff. Some
Speaker 1: of the people that they're selling it to our representatives
Speaker 1: of countries that want to have their own military program UM,
Speaker 1: like North Korea or Iraq, Um, I should say Soda
Speaker 1: Hussein erra Iraq, which we're both successful in creating nuclear
Speaker 1: programs right under the noses of the international intelligence community. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, well we'll get to that a little
Speaker 1: bit later. Like how some of the ways that they
Speaker 1: can skirt this stuff. But but the good news is
Speaker 1: is that it is Uh. You can't just get uranium
Speaker 1: at the corner store, right, you can only mind for
Speaker 1: it in certain places. You can't. You can't just get
Speaker 1: that uranium and throw it into a hand grenade casing
Speaker 1: and then you have a little tiny nuclear bomb. Well
Speaker 1: that's a dirty bomb at least. Well, yeah, there are
Speaker 1: such things as dirty bombs. But it's it's like nuclear warheads. Um.
Speaker 1: They they have to be made in very special ways
Speaker 1: with very special materials. And it's the good news is
Speaker 1: that is that I won't say it's easy, but it is.
Speaker 1: It is all pretty trackable to a certain degree. On
Speaker 1: like these nuclear forensics teams, they can generally find out
Speaker 1: even by examining, uh, examining the uranium, like where it
Speaker 1: actually came from or where where did this casing come from?
Speaker 1: It can be tracked pretty readily at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's where the UM like the where the nuclear
Speaker 1: forensic scientists are also doing, like the day to day
Speaker 1: science to create a database like the signatures of uranium
Speaker 1: from the hundred and fifty minds around the around the world. Right,
Speaker 1: that's where that stuff kind of comes into place. When
Speaker 1: you find something, you know, the dude who's smuggling it,
Speaker 1: he may give up whoever he knows, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's going to lead anywhere. UM. Actually studying the
Speaker 1: material that he was smuggling is UM, it can frequently
Speaker 1: give up more information than that person even knows, you know,
Speaker 1: yeah for sure. But to do that you have to
Speaker 1: catch the material. UM when it's say coming through your
Speaker 1: border or your port and there are um, well, there's
Speaker 1: there's a number of ways to do this, right yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean you know you can do a lot with
Speaker 1: satellite imagery of course, um, but you can only do
Speaker 1: so much with satellite imagery, like to really to really
Speaker 1: find this stuff. I mean, the good news is radiation
Speaker 1: gives off radiation, so are these these uh uranium and
Speaker 1: stuff like that gives off radiation, But you need to
Speaker 1: be on like ideally you need to be on the
Speaker 1: ground and fairly close to it to read it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the detectors have gotten way better. Supposedly they need like, um,
Speaker 1: just a fifth of the mass that it used to
Speaker 1: take to set off a reading. Um. But yeah, you
Speaker 1: still have to be I think that the next generation
Speaker 1: will be basically a football field, an American football field
Speaker 1: link yards, yeah, hundred yards roughly a hundred meters um.
Speaker 1: But that means that you have to have a person
Speaker 1: in a hostile nation, you know, walking around with a
Speaker 1: detector within a football field of a nuclear facility. That's
Speaker 1: that's a lot of um. That's that's that's a that's
Speaker 1: a tall order in a lot of cases, right, Um,
Speaker 1: there are detectors that are attached to satellites that can
Speaker 1: detect um radiation into the atmosphere. Yeah, and apparently they've
Speaker 1: gotten a lot better too. But the problem is is
Speaker 1: that radiation there's a couple of things with actual radiation UM.
Speaker 1: It can be shielded relatively easily with a thick layer
Speaker 1: of concrete um or lead um, and the stuff that
Speaker 1: does escape can get absorbed into the atmosphere. So I
Speaker 1: think the detectors, like satellite detectors, are getting much better
Speaker 1: than they were before. And probably the stuff that we
Speaker 1: know about here in this article as probably ten years old.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we're far more advanced than this article would
Speaker 1: would say as far as something like a a radiation
Speaker 1: detector attached to a satellite goes like even the two
Speaker 1: year old article you think is behind Yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: I think so, I think, yeah, yeah, I get what
Speaker 1: you're laying down. So so I think that it's probably
Speaker 1: much better. But again, UM radiation can be it can
Speaker 1: be shielded. One thing that they that nuclear detectives have
Speaker 1: figured out though, is that there's a part of a
Speaker 1: nuclear reactor, uh, not a part of it, but something
Speaker 1: that's created in nuclear reactors um neutrinos that you can't
Speaker 1: do anything about. They're going to escape because they pass
Speaker 1: so easily through matter that they will actually travel through
Speaker 1: solid Earth unfazed by anything that comes in contact with UM.
Speaker 1: And they've created this. Do you do you see Cosmos
Speaker 1: the reboot with nil deGrasse Tyson? Did you see the
Speaker 1: one where he was like in a boat in like
Speaker 1: a new trino cave underground. So it's really neat, Like
Speaker 1: he was standing up in a boat in this really
Speaker 1: dark cave that had like little lights or something kind
Speaker 1: of starlight. It was a romantic scene. And what where
Speaker 1: he was was, um this cave underground. I think it's
Speaker 1: the one in Ohio where it's underground in an old
Speaker 1: salt mine and it's filled with water and it's underground
Speaker 1: to protect it from cosmic rays that could give off
Speaker 1: false readings. But it's meant to pick up new trinos
Speaker 1: that are traveling through the Earth from UH nuclear reactors, right.
Speaker 1: And the way that does that is since new trinos
Speaker 1: interact like almost not at all with matter, which is
Speaker 1: why they can pass un affected through solid earth. UM.
Speaker 1: When it comes in contact with a certain atom in water,
Speaker 1: it gives up the faintest flash of light and if
Speaker 1: you have enough water, this is actually a pretty rare
Speaker 1: occurrence when it happens. But if you have enough water,
Speaker 1: it's going to happen eventually, and you're going to be
Speaker 1: able to detect it with underwater photo sensors. Right, So
Speaker 1: what they've done is fill this old salt mine with
Speaker 1: a huge like supposedly it will take like a million
Speaker 1: tons of water to detract to detect neutrinos from a
Speaker 1: hundred a thousand kilometers away. Um, But when a hostile
Speaker 1: nation or a nation that's not supposed to have a
Speaker 1: nuclear program runs an on off cycle of their nuclear
Speaker 1: enrichment reactor there enriching their nuclear material, you will be
Speaker 1: able to detect that through neutrinos in your underground cave
Speaker 1: neutrino detector. Isn't that insane? Yeah? Think about how much
Speaker 1: trouble it is, but that it actually works, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I think it's amazing too. And and Neil deGrasse Tyson
Speaker 1: is the man. Can we just say that again? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure? All right. Should we take it a break here?
Speaker 1: All right, we'll come back and we'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about sort of the latest and greatest technology
Speaker 1: we have going as well as some other sneaky ways
Speaker 1: to hide this kind of activity right after this, all right,
Speaker 1: so I can't stress enough. That's uh. This great Economist
Speaker 1: article called the New Detectives. UH really learned a lot
Speaker 1: from it. And there's this UM kind of starts out
Speaker 1: by talking about UM and this is if you have
Speaker 1: not prevented someone from getting uh nuclear materials and they
Speaker 1: are actually doing nuclear tests, which ideally you have stopped
Speaker 1: the process before that. But let's be honest, sometimes things
Speaker 1: slip through the cracks. People get their hands, or countries
Speaker 1: get their hands or rogue nations and terrorists get their
Speaker 1: hands on these materials and they want to test out
Speaker 1: UM bombs and things. They are now using some amazing
Speaker 1: UH equipment, seismic seismographic equipment. Would that be the way
Speaker 1: it is? It? Yeah, to detect this stuff to the
Speaker 1: point now there's a there's a group called the Preparatory
Speaker 1: Commission for the Comprehensive Tests Band Treaty Organization. UH. And
Speaker 1: that's a fancy way of saying. They listen around the
Speaker 1: world with these seismograph machines to the point where doctor Zerbo,
Speaker 1: which is the greatest name ever actually for like a
Speaker 1: nuclear international nuclear scientists. Doctor Zerbo says, now it is
Speaker 1: impossible to test with thus smallest nuclear weapon anywhere on
Speaker 1: Earth in secret. They will hear it. Yep, it's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The the ctbt O, the the Comprehensive Test Band Treaty Organization, Right,
Speaker 1: is that correct? Correct? They have so I saw it
Speaker 1: listed somewhere, but this this article kind of lays it out.
Speaker 1: They have a hundred and seventy seismic stations worldwide, eleven
Speaker 1: underwater hydroacoustic centers so you can detect the sound waves
Speaker 1: in the ocean, sixty atmospheric infrasound listening stations. They're off
Speaker 1: at that point, right, and then nineties six radio new
Speaker 1: radio NUCLEIIED NUCLEAD sampling facilities. I think that's the ones
Speaker 1: that like like those satellites that can detect radiation leaks.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's like that. So yeah, like around
Speaker 1: the world, they've got it locked down. You cannot set
Speaker 1: off a nuclear weapon in them not know about it.
Speaker 1: That is correct. Another big thing that they're doing now
Speaker 1: is uh software, network analysis software. After nine eleven, America
Speaker 1: really started ramping up. As everyone knows, there listening skills
Speaker 1: um and not in like a polite my friend has
Speaker 1: some issues they need to talk through way right, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Uh, So they now have all
Speaker 1: the software that can It's sort of I think the
Speaker 1: feeling I get is what this software now does. It's
Speaker 1: able to just draw from all these different areas, whether
Speaker 1: it's email for social media, or phone calls or receipts
Speaker 1: and credit card transactions like prism. Yeah, and it will
Speaker 1: just it'll feed it all into these the the software
Speaker 1: programs now that will eventually narrow it down to, Hey,
Speaker 1: this person might be a batty because they have ticked
Speaker 1: off uh not as an angered but they have checked
Speaker 1: so many boxes in our software system of activities that
Speaker 1: they're undertaking that you might want to go take a
Speaker 1: look at them. Yeah, and the things that this did.
Speaker 1: You say the name Aura, So Aura is a good
Speaker 1: example of this kind of software. It's from Carnegie Melon
Speaker 1: and basically it it has been adapted to not just
Speaker 1: track terrorists, but to track nuclear scientists. Now I think
Speaker 1: like thirty thousand of them around the world. So if
Speaker 1: you're a nuclear scientist and you're in the prime of
Speaker 1: your career and you publish an article every eighteen to
Speaker 1: thirty six weeks on average, according to the computer, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you just stop. You're going to
Speaker 1: set off a red flag. They're going to wonder why
Speaker 1: you stopped publishing at the height of your career, and
Speaker 1: they're going to say, you know, it's entirely possible that
Speaker 1: they got drafted into a nuclear military program where would
Speaker 1: not be allowed to publish, so that might set off
Speaker 1: a red flag. And then there's another computer, um I
Speaker 1: think the Pentagon is set up called Constellation the Whopper,
Speaker 1: which again is probably yeah, it's probably twenty years out
Speaker 1: of date by now if it's in this article. But
Speaker 1: this Constellation is a computer that takes the information from
Speaker 1: all these other computer all these other softwares and put
Speaker 1: them together and says, oh, well, not only did that
Speaker 1: guy stop publishing at the height of his nuclear science career,
Speaker 1: he also just moved within commuting distance of a um
Speaker 1: a facility that is suspected by Army intelligence of possibly
Speaker 1: being holding nuclear centrifuges that that aren't registered anywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there uh, there are other programs. There's one software
Speaker 1: program that uses what's called combinatorial mathematics, and what they
Speaker 1: do is they analyze data to end up with a
Speaker 1: set of criteria called centrality between this and degree, since
Speaker 1: Radley centrality being how important someone is in the system.
Speaker 1: Between this is their access to other people and the
Speaker 1: degree there's a number of people they interact with and
Speaker 1: the idea there is what they're looking for. Generally, our
Speaker 1: network members that have high between this and low degree,
Speaker 1: So those are probably like Osama bin Laden is a
Speaker 1: good example. Like towards the end, he has access to
Speaker 1: a lot of people, but he's not interacting with a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Well, he's like a high up. A
Speaker 1: higher up, I think is what It indicates somebody of
Speaker 1: importance in the network. Right yeah, and um, that's this
Speaker 1: is all extremely g whiz. But then you hear about, oh,
Speaker 1: it's actually being applied in real life. Um back and
Speaker 1: I think two thousand and ten eleven twelve, at least
Speaker 1: five nuclear scientists working on Iran's nuclear program were murdered. Um.
Speaker 1: One of them was like picking his child up or
Speaker 1: dropping his child off at daycare, like just gunned down
Speaker 1: by guys in the street or um carbon or something
Speaker 1: like that. And the one thing that they had in
Speaker 1: common was that they were all working on Iran's nuclear program. UM.
Speaker 1: And they think that the Mossade used intelligence that was
Speaker 1: gathered by these this type of software program to figure
Speaker 1: out if you kill these people, it will really screw
Speaker 1: up the program because they're important figures in this program.
Speaker 1: Even though we don't know them. We know their names
Speaker 1: and that's it. We don't know anything about them. Just
Speaker 1: based on this metadata that that these programs put together,
Speaker 1: we can tell you that if if they weren't around
Speaker 1: any longer, it would set the whole program back. And
Speaker 1: they did. Yeah, and uh, like I'll say in earlier,
Speaker 1: the good news is is if you want to build
Speaker 1: and again we're not talking about dirty bombs and stuff,
Speaker 1: but if you want to build a nuclear warhead, there
Speaker 1: are very specialized parts that you have to buy UM
Speaker 1: in order to do so. So they have software that
Speaker 1: monitors this stuff around the world, and what this article
Speaker 1: calls UM they reveal choke points basically that they can monitor,
Speaker 1: like the ceramic composites for the centerfuges that you have
Speaker 1: to have in order to pull this off. There's only
Speaker 1: so many companies that do that in the world. So UM,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the good news. You can't run out
Speaker 1: to Walmart and buy the stuff to make this happen. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it makes a little bit easier to monitor what's going
Speaker 1: on to a certain degree. Um. That's gotta be a
Speaker 1: huge help man having that. Oh yeah, especially together with
Speaker 1: human intelligence, which apparently is still one of the best
Speaker 1: ways to find out about a nuclear program. Um. There
Speaker 1: was this one I think Syria was working on their
Speaker 1: nuclear program and they had, with the assistance of North Korea,
Speaker 1: they had built a facility where they lowered the floor, yes,
Speaker 1: so that they could start their military nuclear program in
Speaker 1: secret and um, rather than a cooling tower, they connected
Speaker 1: to a nearby reservoir with underground pipes. Um. And they
Speaker 1: had this whole thing set up. And if you were
Speaker 1: looking at it, and you were a military analyst looking
Speaker 1: for evidence of a nuclear facility being built, you would
Speaker 1: immediately check that building off the list because it was
Speaker 1: too low, too close to the ground, like the it
Speaker 1: wasn't tall enough to house a nuclear facility. And they
Speaker 1: did I'm sure over and over. I'm sure they saw
Speaker 1: this building plenty of times. And it wasn't until um,
Speaker 1: some human intelligence gave it up that it became clear
Speaker 1: that no, actually this is this is a nuclear facility,
Speaker 1: so it can you can fool the international even the
Speaker 1: nuclear detectives can be fooled, is I guess what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: which is kind of surprising. But one of the ways
Speaker 1: that you do that is you you figure out how
Speaker 1: to build your nuclear program in house. You get detected
Speaker 1: when you start to spread out through the black mark
Speaker 1: market or to that company that makes the composites needed
Speaker 1: for centrifuges. Yeah, like Iran, for example, they used in
Speaker 1: the in that same article. They can mind the uranium
Speaker 1: themselves in the country, which is a little scary. And
Speaker 1: then they can also or they at least had been
Speaker 1: working on producing those center few droaters instead with carbon
Speaker 1: fiber instead of the special steel that they need to outsource.
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, you're not on that list.
Speaker 1: You're doing an in house and it I mean, it
Speaker 1: seems like from reading this, like the good news is
Speaker 1: are getting more and more specialized equipment that you can
Speaker 1: detect stuff from further away, and our capabilities and the
Speaker 1: software is getting better and better. But these places are
Speaker 1: also finding more and more ways to side step traditional
Speaker 1: manufacturing means, which is kind of scary at the same time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently Um Saddam Hussein had a nuclear program that he
Speaker 1: was working on that he was able to come up
Speaker 1: with I was mentioning it earlier, where UM he did
Speaker 1: it by basically going retro. He used the process of
Speaker 1: UM separating uranium isotopes through electro magnetism rather than centrifuges,
Speaker 1: so he didn't need centrifuges. And apparently it's so low
Speaker 1: tech and UM so out of use that no analysts
Speaker 1: were looking for evidence of that, so they just totally
Speaker 1: missed it. But he was still able to come up
Speaker 1: with the nuclear program using that old, outdated technology purposefully
Speaker 1: from what I understand. Wow. Yeah. And then of course
Speaker 1: nuclear North Korea's nuclear program was just a total surprise
Speaker 1: to everybody. I mean, people suspected it and we're very
Speaker 1: concerned that it was going on, but it wasn't until
Speaker 1: Kim Jong n or ill I can't remember which one
Speaker 1: it would have been, but back in two thousand and
Speaker 1: ten they invited as Stanford professor out and showed it
Speaker 1: to him so he could go tell the world shocked
Speaker 1: everybody done. Yeah, why in the world did they let
Speaker 1: that happen? Yeah, I mean I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: how it happened. I think it happened because of that
Speaker 1: guy we mentioned earlier, a Q Khan from Pakistan who
Speaker 1: was the father of Pakistan's military nuclear program UM, who
Speaker 1: was educated in Europe and stole some blueprints for making
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons and went about building Pakistan one right. And
Speaker 1: then they started turning the countries like Libya, Iran, North
Speaker 1: Korea and UM offering basically turn key military nuclear programs
Speaker 1: based on Pakistan's designs for like a hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: And then he got He ended up as a scapegoat
Speaker 1: for his nation and was placed under house arrest. Luxurious
Speaker 1: house arrest, but still from what I understand, the guy
Speaker 1: was very upset about this because he went from being
Speaker 1: a treated like a god to being treated like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's his fault that there's nuclear periliferation among Rugue states
Speaker 1: UM and was finally released a few years I think
Speaker 1: five years later, And I mean that guy, he deserves
Speaker 1: his own episode. He was fascinating. I think still is.
Speaker 1: I believe he's still around too. What's his name, a
Speaker 1: Q Khan? Can we call it the wrath of con
Speaker 1: That's what they did in the Atlantic. They I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. Uh, so the big question is and the economists,
Speaker 1: um thankfully asked that could you build a nuclear weapon
Speaker 1: in secret? And uh, there's a couple of opinions there.
Speaker 1: They asked the Foreign Secretary of Pakistan, former Foreign Secretary
Speaker 1: Rhyas Mohammed Khan. He said, Nope, I can't do that
Speaker 1: in secret anymore. But uh, there was an anonymous American
Speaker 1: State Department counter proliferation official who said it's not impossible,
Speaker 1: so you know, don't don't be fooled. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: little little, little worsome. Yeah, I mean you you really
Speaker 1: like to think that nobody could do this anymore. But
Speaker 1: apparently it is getting easier and easier. But like you said,
Speaker 1: it's also making it easier and easier to detect. It's
Speaker 1: like any illegal operations. Um, it's like a game of
Speaker 1: cat and mouse with on the development side of developing.
Speaker 1: Good guys developing stuff, bad guys developing stuff. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really interesting. But in this case, this game of cat
Speaker 1: and mouse, you have some of the smartest human beings
Speaker 1: on the planet who are who have banded together to
Speaker 1: say no, no, we're not gonna let this happen. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about nuclear detectives or
Speaker 1: nuclear forensics, start digging because there's plenty out there. And
Speaker 1: man is it fascinating. Um, since I said it's fascinating,
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. So before we do listener mail, buddy,
Speaker 1: can we talk a little bit about our old friends
Speaker 1: at the Cooperative for Education. Oh yes, let's chuck co Ed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The quick download with co ED is we went to
Speaker 1: Guatemala quite a few years ago with them. They invited
Speaker 1: to come down you, me and Jerry and I went down.
Speaker 1: We saw the great work they do, like real on
Speaker 1: the ground hard work helping children of Guatemala pulled themselves
Speaker 1: out of poverty through education. Yeah. Yeah, it's in our
Speaker 1: two part Guatemala special that everybody can go listen to
Speaker 1: if you haven't heard it and get this, Chuck, So,
Speaker 1: COED has another drive going on and they're making it
Speaker 1: their mission to keep a thousand girls in Guatemala from
Speaker 1: dropping out of school. By that's amazing, dude. It takes
Speaker 1: twelve years of education to break the cyclopoverty in Guatemala,
Speaker 1: but a poor rural Guatemalan has only one and twenty
Speaker 1: chance of reaching that milestone. So they are literally identifying
Speaker 1: young women to literally keep them in school. Like it's
Speaker 1: not some nebulous campaign and you're not sure where your
Speaker 1: money is going. You are helping a young woman in
Speaker 1: Guatemala stay in school and get educated. Yep. So you
Speaker 1: can sponsor one of those girls for seventy dollars a
Speaker 1: month or if you want to do half of that,
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars a month. COED will match you with
Speaker 1: another sponsor to make sure that there is a student
Speaker 1: who is able to continue her education and therefore eventually
Speaker 1: break her family out of the cycle of poverty that
Speaker 1: dropping out of school perpetuates. Yeah, it's really great. They're
Speaker 1: awesome people. So if you weren't a good person this
Speaker 1: year and you want to make up for it here
Speaker 1: before the end of the year, or if you want
Speaker 1: to start off in the right way, go to thousand
Speaker 1: Girls Initiative dot org and that is all spelled out,
Speaker 1: not the number one, thousand thousand Girls Initiative dot org
Speaker 1: and you can actually pick out the student you want
Speaker 1: to sponsor. Is just the best. Co ED is great
Speaker 1: and we're really happy that we're still working with them. Yep.
Speaker 1: So keep up the good work co ed and you
Speaker 1: guys please please go help these guys out, all right?
Speaker 1: Uh now on the listener mail, Yes, I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: this UM restaurant health inspection from a manager's perspective. Okay,
Speaker 1: do have permission to read this? I love listening to
Speaker 1: the show on health inspections. Guys. Want to throw in
Speaker 1: a couple of tidbits from my point of view. First,
Speaker 1: you were spot on just about everything with your re arch,
Speaker 1: including how some employees take no exception to sanitary practice.
Speaker 1: Those employees tend to not have a very long career.
Speaker 1: When the health inspector shows up and you see the
Speaker 1: staff start to scramble in the business, we call that
Speaker 1: the two minute drill. And that is not to say
Speaker 1: that we don't keep our restaurant up to standards, because
Speaker 1: we do, but we want it to be perfect. Typically,
Speaker 1: the this made me feel a lot better by the
Speaker 1: way reading this. Uh. Typically the hd H comes to
Speaker 1: the restaurant at the most inopportune times, right in the
Speaker 1: middle of a busy lunch service. At that point, the
Speaker 1: kitchen is cooking one dishes at the same time servers
Speaker 1: are running drinks and taking orders. Dirty dishes are stacking
Speaker 1: up a bit in the back. With the Health Inspection
Speaker 1: past fail scale being so specific, the slightest thing can
Speaker 1: fail you anything from an ice scoop in the ice
Speaker 1: spin to a fruit fly or a steak resting at
Speaker 1: temperature that is off by two degrees. We as managers
Speaker 1: like to continue to train our staff keep things tidy,
Speaker 1: but also I have a few quick fixes in order
Speaker 1: to maintain that a rating. Washing hands is a must
Speaker 1: anytime food is handled, especially when the inspectors are on site.
Speaker 1: As you know, it's a very nerve wracking time while
Speaker 1: they're checking every nook and cranny. That is why we
Speaker 1: managers are required by law to get health certified to
Speaker 1: ensure we are training out staff properly and not allowing
Speaker 1: any boots in the Brunswick stew he said, Broad worst
Speaker 1: stew so I saw that I think he might be insane.
Speaker 1: As always, thanks for an incredible podcast and providing us
Speaker 1: with information on things we may not usually have knowledge
Speaker 1: to prior all the best, Derek, he said, ps. We
Speaker 1: have a remarkable cuisine at my place, so if you
Speaker 1: ever are in the area, come on buy and we'll
Speaker 1: treat you to some great food. We have the best
Speaker 1: Broad worst stew in the region. Well, he didn't say
Speaker 1: what restaurant he worked at. Oh, actually it's in his email.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna read that, but they're in Boston, so
Speaker 1: maybe okay, and we go back to the wilbur We
Speaker 1: can go get some Boston cream pie cake and then
Speaker 1: some Broad Worst Delicious. Yeah cool, Thanks a lot. What
Speaker 1: is the guy's name, Derek? Thanks a lot, Derek. That
Speaker 1: was a great email, and yes, in need, it did
Speaker 1: make It made me feel a lot better to Chuck.
Speaker 1: If you want to make me and Chuck feel better,
Speaker 1: well just send us an email. First. You can tweet
Speaker 1: to us. I'm at josh On Clark and s Y
Speaker 1: s K podcast, Chuck's Man in the Facebook pages at
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant and that Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. Is always joined us at
Speaker 1: our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
Speaker 1: it how Stuff Works dot com.