Podcasts about Americium

https://youtu.be/uePyn0u75sY Staff Sheehan, CEO of Project Omega, is driven by a mission to strengthen America’s energy independence and national security by rebuilding the nation’s nuclear fuel cycle and scaling a culture-first business rooted in exceptional leadership and execution. With a career spanning energy, sustainable fuels, hydrogen, and chemical physics, Staff is leading the development of technologies that transform spent nuclear fuel into long-lasting power sources while helping usher in a new era of reliable, abundant nuclear energy. We explore Staff Sheehan’s Scaling Framework — Build the Best C-Suite, Due Diligence Your Investors, Build Things, and Execute, Execute, Execute. Staff explains why exceptional leadership is the foundation of every successful company, why founders should carefully vet their investors, and why hardware startups must prioritize building real products over ambitious concepts. He also discusses how AI-driven energy demand is fueling a nuclear renaissance, why restoring the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle is essential to energy independence, and what it takes to scale both advanced nuclear technologies and a high-growth company. — Scale a Culture-First Business with Staff Sheehan  Hi, everyone. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. My guest today is Staff Sheehan, the CEO of Project Omega, an advanced nuclear recycling company with a mission to rebuild America’s nuclear fuel cycle end-to-end and unlock a new era of energy abundance for the United States. Wow. What a mission. Welcome to the show, Staff.  Thanks so much for having me, Steve. Great to be here.  Wow. You really are not playing small. Rebuilding America’s nuclear fuel cycle and unlocking a new era of energy abundance. Tell me about your personal “Why.” How are you manifesting it through the business? Well, I’ve been working in the energy industry, or adjacent to the energy industry, for a long time. This is the fourth business that I’ve started. Prior to this, I was in sustainable fuels. Prior to that, I was in metals and hydrogen. Before that, I did a Ph.D. in chemical physics. And before that, I was in software, but it was in something that was energy-intensive. So I've always been focused on how we can improve the energy industry in the United States. More recently, especially, that has become more and more intertwined with national security.Share on X  So I would say that for the last 10 years, I’ve spent a lot of time focused not just on energy, but also on national security. Right at the intersection of energy and national security is the nuclear industry. Over the last year, especially since four executive orders on nuclear power were signed, I’ve been focused on the nuclear industry. This has really been the resurgence of nuclear power in the United States over the last year or so. Yeah, it’s super fascinating. So, I mean, stupid question: why is this important?  Well, now I think we’re learning—and we’re having an acute learning experience, especially in the United States—that energy is a key bottleneck. And I think the thing that woke us up to that, in a lot of ways, is AI and the need for compute. But it’s not been only AI. We’ve been exporting manufacturing. We’ve been exporting a lot of things from the United States that rely on electricity or rely on energy in one way or another. Our exporting of that has caught up to us, and we now have to reshore a lot of things that maybe in the ’80s and the ’90s we decided to export out to China, for example. Now that we’ve realized that was not the greatest idea, we now are realizing that we need the energy to power it.  And so energy has become a key talking point, and the infrastructure behind energy has become a key talking point, especially in the United States. People’s electricity prices have gone up, so it’s not just industry and not just the folks who are building AI and data centers. It’s really everybody who’s now feeling the pain of our energy crunch. It’s crunched a little bit now, and I think people see that also because of what’s going on in the Middle East and the high price of gas. But the crunch is continuing because we know we have a high energy demand for all of the AI build-out that we’ve been doing for the last handful of years. Yeah, that is so interesting. And I remember in the 1990s, there was this phenomenon that actually the energy demand was falling, at least in Europe, where I come from, and there was overcapacity, and there was approval of overbuilding capacity. And the discussion was, “Okay, why do we need this? How do we slow this down?” And now the opposite thing is happening, which is pretty fascinating.  There’s a big question as to how idle assets are used, right? Because a lot of people don’t understand how electrical grids work. Everywhere in the world, energy is pretty much generated as you use it. So the energy that we’re using to talk on this podcast is being generated, depending on where you are located in the United States. From my location, it’s probably being generated by a natural gas power plant because it’s 2:10 in the afternoon, and this is around the time when a lot of natural gas peaker plants start to get going.  Depending on where you’re calling in from, those electrons are being generated live as we’re speaking. There’s not much storage on the grid. We do have some storage on the grid. California uses pumped hydro. They’re building battery infrastructure in places like Texas, but they’re not quite there yet. Grids don’t operate by just making the energy and then using it later. No. Grids operate by putting energy into the grid as demand is increasing. So the energy that you use is being generated live. You have to think about it that way.  Historically, back in the ’80s and the ’90s, there were not a lot of sinks for that live energy that was being generated, and people were also really bad at predicting demand. Another thing that happened in the ’80s and the ’90s, as I said right before, is that we were outsourcing a lot of our manufacturing to China. So China was building energy capacity because they saw all this manufacturing demand coming in. Their cost of labor was cheaper than what you guys had in Europe and what we had in the United States.  Robotics was not a thing, so everything was pretty manual. And the energy wasn’t needed here. It was needed, but Europe and the US were outsourcing, so we didn’t have the need for the energy here because we were sending all the jobs over to the Far East. They needed the energy there, so they built a bunch of coal-fired power plants. They built a lot of energy capacity while those conversations were happening in Europe. And now I think we’ve realized that it was a mistake to outsource so many things—and, in a sense, outsource your energy generation as well.  We need to find ways of either storing energy or converting that energy and using it productively. So rather than storing it, you could convert it into chemical products. You could convert it into a variety of different things. I think we've learned a lot since the '80s and the '90s, and I think that ties into the original learning experience: don't outsource everything. You need to learn how to be self-sufficient.Share on X Yeah. Yeah, don’t outsource your key competencies and your key resources. And energy is clearly one of those. Just a quick side question: How much energy is being wasted because it’s not able to be stored?  It depends on where you are. A lot of energy gets wasted in places where you have high hydroelectric utilization. But the cost to produce it is very cheap because hydro is indirect solar. The water evaporates, comes down, and it’s very dependent on the landscape where you can deploy hydroelectric power. In other places where you have power plants that follow load, like natural gas, for example, then you’re probably not wasting quite as many electrons as you are in places where you could potentially overproduce.  But I think we’re generally pretty efficient. We don’t waste too much, and a lot of that is because of the way grids work, where we predict how much electricity is needed, and we ramp production up and down as required.  Okay. Let’s talk about frameworks that you may have in your business. This podcast is about frameworks—the processes that are maybe unique to your business or that you discovered as you were building your business. Anything come to mind that can be explained in three to five steps, or as approaches or perspectives?  Yeah, I mean, I guess the learnings that I've had over all of my businesses. I think the first learning is: hire the right people.Share on X As a CEO, you have to spend an inordinate amount of your time on hiring, recruiting, and finding the right people. It’s super important to make sure that you have the best team. So that was my number one job when I started Project Omega: to hire the best possible team that I could hire.  And that was really, like, I told my investors that your first KPI is: build the best C-suite that you can. And I think I did that. I have a really incredible team of folks at Project Omega who are subject area experts in the parts of the business that they lead, and so I’m really happy with how I did it in this business. I’ve had stumbling blocks in prior businesses, and that’s how you learn. You call them learning experiences for a reason. My biggest stumbling block in my prior company was investors.  I didn’t do proper due diligence on investors. There’s ongoing litigation that I’m a part of that has to do with investors where you may not know where their money comes from. I think the number two thing is: make sure that you do a lot of diligence on who’s backing you. Typically, investors do diligence on founders, but founders don’t do quite as much diligence on the investors. And we need to flip that narrative. It’s especially true in national security. In national security, you have to be very sensitive to foreign actors. And this, again, was the issue that I ran into in my last business.  You can’t accept money from people who have significant backing from groups that are adversarial to the United States. A lot of those groups are U.S.-based funds. They’re not foreign funds, but they just get their money from foreign sources, and you have to be very careful about that when you’re in the national security world. It may not be as important if you’re making, like, a consumer app.  But if you’re doing things in energy and you’re doing things in national security, those are places where those people could seriously cause problems for your business down the line. And it comes out years after they invest in you. It’s not like they invest in you and then middle around two days later. All of these groups, including adversaries to the United States, are playing the long game. It’s not a next-week thing. It’s a several-years-from-now thing.  Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So that’s good advice. So build the best C-suite you can, and make sure you do your due diligence on your investors. What’s the next important lesson that you learned about building a business?  Focus on execution. Execution is the challenge. I think there are a lot of businesses out there that exist on paper, and when you’re a hardware company, that’s not the way to do things. I think there are a lot of on-paper businesses that, for better or for worse, have been very successful. Some of them have had IPOs and SPACs and things like that. There are businesses that exist on paper—at least in the nuclear industry, the energy industry, and the fuels industry—that have gone very far for on-paper businesses. But I think a very large portion of those—and I haven’t done all the statistics, but I’m sure Claude or Grok or GPT could—a lot of those businesses don’t do very well because they don’t have any actual experience building things in the real world.  So I think it's extremely important to execute, to get steel in the ground, and to focus on actually building things when you're in the hardware space.Share on X Now, of course, in software, that’s a little bit different. So it depends on whether you’re running a hardware or software business. In software, you may be able to keep going for a lot longer without a product or without having things in market because you’re building something that you know is going to have a huge splash when it comes out. But that’s not necessarily the way hardware businesses are able to be put together.  So give me an example of a business that’s on paper and not in the real world. Give me a hypothetical example.  A hypothetical example would be a business that has put together a number of contracts and a number of marketing materials about what they’re going to do, but they’ve never actually gone out and done it. Whether that’s at a small scale, like the lab scale, or at a larger scale, the point is they haven’t actually built it. My business—we’re very public about this. There are photographs and things like that of our lab out there. My business is at the lab scale. We’re working on going up to the pilot scale right now.  So that’s grams and kilograms of material. We’re not recycling metric tons of nuclear material. No business is doing that in the Western world except the one in France. So no business is doing that in the United States currently. But we’re public about where we are and what scale we’re at. A lot of businesses out there say they’re going to go out and operate XYZ widget, let’s say, and get a lot of traction around that before they’ve actually operated any sort of widget. And I think hardware is different than software.  Some venture markets have learned that, and some are probably going to learn that. But it’s been my experience over the last 12 years of running hardware businesses. My prior two businesses—Catalytic Innovations and Air Company—were both hardware businesses. And before I went to college and graduate school, I was in the software world, so I’ve kind of seen it from both sides.  Yeah. That’s interesting. So I saw your LinkedIn post about these underwater unmanned vehicles—UUVs, I think you call them. Is this like an underwater drone? Yeah. So, a UUV is an unmanned underwater vehicle. If you're trying to do something underwater, like do reconnaissance or try to find out what's going on under there with your adversaryShare on X or even a neutral party using a UUV is a way to do that without putting service members in harm’s way and a way to do that in a low-cost environment. So that’s one of the major applications for UUVs. But one of the big challenges for them is: how do you power them? You could use fuel to power them, but then they could run out of fuel, and then you have a stranded asset.  You could use electricity to power them with a battery, but the battery also runs out, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s very hard to recover these. You’re not going to go down to the bottom of the sea to recover your UUV. The other option is to use—and we already do this, right, with our manned underwater vehicles, or our nuclear submarines in the United States—we already use nuclear power to power those submarines. And so that’s been the way that we've historically been able to operate underwater for long periods of time, and that's the way that I think we're probably going to go for these unmanned vehicles as well.Share on X  And that’s what my business focuses on. So we not only do this for UUVs but for space applications as well as terrestrial applications by building power sources. Those power sources are made using material that we recycle from spent nuclear fuel. Those power sources are called radiovoltaics, and you could imagine them as like an AA battery that lasts 30 years. And that’s really, I would say, the next step for operational energy. So we’re focused on using those as replacements for batteries in these small applications. You could think of it as a much broader application in the future—not just operational energy for the military, but beyond that. We actually use these sorts of materials in our everyday lives.  You’re sitting in a room, I’m sitting in a room, and I’m looking up at the smoke detector in my room. You’re sitting in a room with a smoke detector in it as well, and that smoke detector has a little piece of americium-241. Americium-241 is an isotope recovered from nuclear waste. We don’t recover it in the United States because we haven’t recycled nuclear waste in probably a little north of 50 years. But you can get these isotopes from places like France, where they recycle nuclear waste today. So all of us are sitting in a room with a radioisotope-powered device. Americium-241 specifically powers the detector in your smoke detector. Americium spits out alpha particles.  Those alpha particles are little helium nuclei. They hit a detector continuously, and that generates a current. Now, if smoke goes up into your smoke detector, those alpha particles hit the smoke instead of hitting the detector, and you won’t get that same current generation in your smoke detector. So that’s how we detect smoke, and right now, nuclear waste is sitting in all of our houses, keeping us safe. But that’s not really a mainstream part of the narrative yet.  Yeah. And what about the radiation? Is it not dangerous?  No. So for americium, there are different types of radiation. Well, not all radiation is created equal. There’s alpha radiation, which is what americium-241 emits predominantly, and those are little helium nuclei. Those can’t go through a piece of paper. Alpha radiation stops very easily. Like, your skin will very easily stop alpha radiation. Beta radiation, which is different from alpha radiation, is an electron that is flung out of a nucleus. So beta radiation is also stopped relatively easily.  Like, if you ingest it, then it could cause problems, but again, your skin can stop it. Gamma radiation is the one that we’re concerned about from a health perspective. Now, gamma radiation can be used for medical treatments and is very effective when it’s used in medical treatments, like to treat cancer, but gamma radiation is generally pretty bad because it goes straight through you. Gamma rays are little photons, and they’re very high-energy photons, so they can fly through you and they can cause damage to your DNA.  A lot of the, I would say, like, negative effects of any nuclear incident are really caused by gamma radiation more than anything else. Like Chernobyl, which is the famous one, had cesium-137 polluting a lot of the countryside around Chernobyl, and cesium-137 is a very strong gamma emitter. So gamma is what we try to avoid. At Project Omega, we don’t use gamma emitters for our power sources, and so all of our power sources use the safer types of radiation. That’s fascinating. So, Staff, I’d like to switch gears here a little bit and go back to business. So what drives growth in a business like yours—or specifically, your business?  A lot of things drive growth. Our business right now works together with a lot of groups in national security.Share on X We’re driven by the growth of the United States, and we’re driven by the growth of our economy. But beyond that, the demand for nuclear electricity has been very high, and that’s driven a lot of growth for us as well. How do you generate enough electricity to power data centers and power compute? That’s a huge problem in the world right now.  A lot of people who initially invested in AI are pivoting to invest in energy, actually, because they’re realizing the bottleneck for AI is not the chips. It’s the energy that’s needed to power the chips. As people are building these new assets that require all this energy, they’re quickly realizing that nuclear is one of the best ways to fulfill all of these energy requirements. As the nuclear industry grows, we’re seeing the need to reshore and bring the nuclear fuel cycle back to the United States.  We stopped doing commercial enrichment, for example, a long time ago, and there are a lot of great companies working on commercial enrichment. We stopped doing recycling and reprocessing back in the 1970s, and we’re bringing that back. We’re one of the groups working on bringing recycling and reprocessing back to the United States in a more responsible way than we did back then because technology is undoubtedly and unarguably better today than it was in the 1960s and 1970s.  That’s fascinating. So you’re helping all these old economies, which are obviously in a new skin, recover here—manufacturing and energy. So what’s one thing that you’re trying to figure out in your business right now?  So one of the challenges that everybody in the nuclear industry faces right now is scale. There’s a whole new group of reactors called small modular reactors, and another colloquial term for those is advanced reactors. Figuring out how to scale those is one of the challenges. So we’re working right now on scale. We're focused very heavily on scaling up our process so that we're able to build these true infrastructure projects that will ensure that the United States has a domestic nuclear fuel cycle going into the future. So that's really the main focus…Share on X  Being able to not only scale our technology but also execute at the current scale that we operate. On the execution side, we work together with two really great national labs: Idaho National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Execution in the nuclear industry is historically challenging, and working together with the government and the national labs is a big value-add because those national labs have the institutional memory, and they have the experience of working with radioactive materials and nuclear materials that we’re able to piggyback off of. They also have a lot of infrastructure that we’re able to work with.  Yeah. And when you say scale, is it about scaling energy generation, energy transmission, or the manufacturing of equipment that utilizes the recovered nuclear fuel? Or is it also about scaling the organization in terms of managing the organization? All of the above. All of the above. This time last year, we were pretty much one person. Or, this time last year, we were still a concept, and we started the business in July last year. So this time last year, we were pretty much one person, and now we’re close to 20. We’ve already scaled by a lot in just the last year. But we probably need to scale by another order of magnitude by the time we get to next year. So a big part of it is managing the growth of a high-growth and rapidly moving organization.  But a big piece of it is also scaling energy in the United States—scaling transmission, scaling generation, and scaling the production of nuclear fuel. Right now, we get a lot of our nuclear fuel from overseas. Twenty percent of the United States electrical grid is nuclear. So today, we use a lot of nuclear electrons to power, as I mentioned, based on our locations, we’re probably not using too many nuclear electrons right now. Or, Steve, I don’t know where you’re calling in from.  I’m in Virginia, the capital of data centers.  I take it back. You’re actually probably using nuclear electrons as we speak. So we need to scale that generation, but we also need to scale the fuel for those reactors. The nuclear electrons that you’re using to talk with me right now are most likely coming from Russian uranium that we buy from Russia.  I think your home country and many folks in Europe have learned that relying on Russia for your energy resources is not the greatest idea. We still, to this day, rely on Russia for a lot of our commercial uranium for our commercial reactors, and that’s something that we need to change. So scaling our nuclear fuel cycle in the United States is a key aspect of what we’re doing.  So what’s really fascinating is we were on vacation in Moab, Utah, just a few weeks ago, and we noticed that there was a lot of mining of nuclear materials there. Is this something that happened in the past and essentially the industry wound down in the U.S., or is there still mining of nuclear materials here?  So there’s very little actual mining of uranium in the United States. I think something like 99% of our uranium comes from foreign sources. So there’s not a lot of uranium mining. The management of nuclear resources in the United States… There is a good amount of nuclear work that’s being done in Utah, but there are a handful of states that actually do the majority of the nuclear-material legwork. Utah is one of them, I think. Idaho is the birthplace of nuclear energy, and so Idaho is doing a lot of work on the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear materials management.  Idaho is where all of the spent fuel from our naval fleet goes at the end of the life of aircraft carriers and submarines. That’s public knowledge. You can look it up. There’s a lot of work that’s been done to make sure all of that material is managed completely safely and very effectively. So Idaho is the birthplace of nuclear energy, and it’s also where a lot of work on the nuclear fuel cycle is happening. That’s actually the other state where we operate at Project Omega. So Idaho is, I would say, one of the leaders in the nuclear renaissance that’s happening right now.  Okay. So that’s a really good point. So you’re in Idaho. Where else are you in the United States, and what would you like our listeners to do when they hear about you? Who are the people that you would like to get in touch with you?  Well, I’m calling in from Newport, Rhode Island, right now. So Newport, Rhode Island, is our headquarters. We have a laboratory that we operate that’s down the street from here. So we have some operations in Rhode Island, and that’s our headquarters. We also have operations in Idaho, and that’s where we’re building some of our infrastructure. We have a small contingent in the DC area as well. We have other facilities as well, but we keep those confidential. Publicly, we’re headquartered in Rhode Island, and we do a lot of work in Idaho and in the DC area. That’s fascinating. So if people get interested in what you’re doing and would like to get in touch with you or learn more about Project Omega, where should they go, and where can they learn more? They would go to projectomega.com. info@projectomega.com is our main inbox. We do a pretty good job of staying up to date with it. That’s also what we use for careers and hiring. As I mentioned, hiring is one of my top jobs. So we’re always interested in finding the best candidates out there who want to revolutionize the nuclear fuel cycle in the United States. That’s fantastic. So if you’re interested in the nuclear industry, recycling nuclear fuel, and driving the UUVs of the next generation, then definitely check out the Project Omega website and reach out to Staff. And if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you follow us and subscribe on YouTube. Stay tuned, because every week there’s an exciting entrepreneur coming on the show. Staff, thanks for coming and sharing your wisdom and unique knowledge. And thanks for listening.  Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, Steve. This was great. Important Links: Staff's LinkedIn Staff's Website Staff's email: info@projectomega.com

In my legally unqualified opinion we didn't defame anyone in the first 30 mins so we will give y'all a bit of content to chew on while we get the next main ep going. Notes are slop as declared! Enjoy and sign up if you want more! patreon.com/theconditionalreleaseprogram------------------------------------------------------------------------Big one here! Was a fun record. At the end we also have a quick chat about Monica's upcoming appeal though limited because Jack needed to scurry off for a durry and watch his beloved Carlton play (and win) a game. Bless - he will be in a good mood this week.Here's some AI slop show notes. This one's from Gemini Pro - thinking model.PS gemini is lying there's a ton that's off limits but we do push the envelope a bit in the second half. Enjoy :-)Show NotesIn this extended Black Label episode, Jack and Joel dive deep into the unfolding chaos of the Iran War, the disturbing criminal fallout of Donald Trump's January 6th pardons, and the "rigged" nature of Australian electoral finance laws. From dirty bombs to "demonic realms" in South Australian politics, nothing is off-limits.The Middle East: The Bad SequelThe Iran War: Jack and Joel discuss the lack of an exit strategy in the escalating conflict involving Israel, Iran, and LebanonIntelligence Gaps: A look at the "gutting" of the U.S. security apparatus and why the duo currently trusts ASIO over the FBI.The "Dirty Bomb" Threat: A breakdown of radioactive materials like Cesium-137 and Americium—and Joel's childhood plan involving a smoke detector.The Matildas & Bravery: The team discusses the defection of five Iranian women's soccer players in Australia.U.S. News: Pardons and PredatorsThe Crime Wave: A startling analysis of the 1,600 January 6th insurrectionists pardoned by Trump. At least 33 have already re-offended or were revealed to have extensive records.Disturbing Trends: Discussion on the over-representation of child sex offenders among the J6 pardoned group compared to the general population.Prison Politics: Jack explains the "Aryan Brotherhood" intake process in federal penitentiaries.Australian Politics: Rigged Systems & Religious "Fruit Loops"The Farrer By-election: Why the Liberal Party might run third in Susan Ley's old seat as an Independent looks to "piss it in".South Australian "Demons": The rise of Liberal candidate Carsten Woodhouse, his views on "demonic realms," and why the SA Liberals are facing a 60-40 wipeout.Electoral Finance Lawsuit: A deep dive into the High Court challenge by Paul Hopper and Melissa Lowe against Victorian donation laws that appear designed to entrench the major parties.The Cooker Corner: Monica's Day in CourtThe Appeal: Monica Smit returns to court to challenge her costs order.Calderbank Offers: Joel explains how Monica's rejection of a settlement offer led to her current financial peril—and why she admitted on Twitter that she "knew the risks".

Powering spacecraft, especially out in the dark, cold outer solar system, is a huge challenge. There are limits to how large solar panels can be, and they are not very efficient in the weak sunlight beyond Mars. For decades, choice flagship NASA missions have used RTGs--radioisotope thermoelectric generators--to fill this need. From the experiments on the Apollo missions to the Viking Mars landers, Galileo to Jupiter, Cassini to Saturn, and the twin Voyagers, RTGs have provided decades of power for space exploration. From Plutonium to Americium, nuclear elements provide years and years of heat that can be converted into electricity. Dr. Rob O'Brien is the Director of the Center for Space Nuclear Research for the Universities Space Research Association and has specialized in RTGs for decades. It's a fascinating dive into atomic space batteries! Headlines The End of the Universe is Nigh (in 33 Billion Years): New dark matter discoveries suggest an earlier end to the universe, leading to a humorous discussion about bucket list items. August 2nd "Solar Eclipse": Rumors of an August 2nd, 2025, total solar eclipse are false; the next one on that date is in 2027 that won't darken the entire world, but will be the longest one of the century. Mother Earth 2.0 (L98-59f): Discussion of exoplanet L98-59f, 35 light-years away, and its potential habitability despite orbiting a red dwarf with a 23-day year. NASA Budget Concerns: Senate and House pushback against proposed cuts to NASA's 2026 science mission budget is discussed, with calls to preserve vital research. Mass Exodus at NASA: Senior NASA staff, including scientists and engineers, are reportedly leaving due to budget cuts, raising concerns about future capabilities. Main Topic - Dr. Robert O'Brien & RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators) Understanding RTGs: Dr. O'Brien explains RTGs convert heat from radioactive decay into electricity using the Seebeck effect. Early Use of RTGs in Space: The first US public RTG demonstration was on President Eisenhower's desk, and the first space use was the US Navy's Transit 4A satellite in 1961. RTGs on Mars and Deep Space Missions: RTGs power Mars landers and rovers (Viking, Curiosity, Perseverance), and deep space missions like Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini, providing long-term power in harsh environments. Fission Reactors vs. RTGs: RTGs suit small systems and backup power, while fission reactors are better for high-power needs of human expeditions. Plutonium-238 Production Challenges: The scarcity of plutonium-238 is due to its production requiring nuclear reactors and past moratoriums on reprocessing. Americium-241 as an Alternative: Americium-241, abundant in spent fuel and now accessible due to lifted moratoriums on reprocessing, is a viable alternative for powering missions despite lower energy density. Americium in Smoke Detectors and Safety: Americium's safe use in smoke detectors is highlighted, while acknowledging the hazards of working with nuclear materials. Public Perception and RTG Safety: Discussion covers historical atomic energy perceptions, from early toys to environmental concerns, emphasizing rigorous engineering and safety measures like ablative and impact-resistant casings for RTGs. Recovery of These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space/episodes/170 Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik Guest: Dr. Robert O'Brien

Powering spacecraft, especially out in the dark, cold outer solar system, is a huge challenge. There are limits to how large solar panels can be, and they are not very efficient in the weak sunlight beyond Mars. For decades, choice flagship NASA missions have used RTGs--radioisotope thermoelectric generators--to fill this need. From the experiments on the Apollo missions to the Viking Mars landers, Galileo to Jupiter, Cassini to Saturn, and the twin Voyagers, RTGs have provided decades of power for space exploration. From Plutonium to Americium, nuclear elements provide years and years of heat that can be converted into electricity. Dr. Rob O'Brien is the Director of the Center for Space Nuclear Research for the Universities Space Research Association and has specialized in RTGs for decades. It's a fascinating dive into atomic space batteries! Headlines The End of the Universe is Nigh (in 33 Billion Years): New dark matter discoveries suggest an earlier end to the universe, leading to a humorous discussion about bucket list items. August 2nd "Solar Eclipse": Rumors of an August 2nd, 2025, total solar eclipse are false; the next one on that date is in 2027 that won't darken the entire world, but will be the longest one of the century. Mother Earth 2.0 (L98-59f): Discussion of exoplanet L98-59f, 35 light-years away, and its potential habitability despite orbiting a red dwarf with a 23-day year. NASA Budget Concerns: Senate and House pushback against proposed cuts to NASA's 2026 science mission budget is discussed, with calls to preserve vital research. Mass Exodus at NASA: Senior NASA staff, including scientists and engineers, are reportedly leaving due to budget cuts, raising concerns about future capabilities. Main Topic - Dr. Robert O'Brien & RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators) Understanding RTGs: Dr. O'Brien explains RTGs convert heat from radioactive decay into electricity using the Seebeck effect. Early Use of RTGs in Space: The first US public RTG demonstration was on President Eisenhower's desk, and the first space use was the US Navy's Transit 4A satellite in 1961. RTGs on Mars and Deep Space Missions: RTGs power Mars landers and rovers (Viking, Curiosity, Perseverance), and deep space missions like Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini, providing long-term power in harsh environments. Fission Reactors vs. RTGs: RTGs suit small systems and backup power, while fission reactors are better for high-power needs of human expeditions. Plutonium-238 Production Challenges: The scarcity of plutonium-238 is due to its production requiring nuclear reactors and past moratoriums on reprocessing. Americium-241 as an Alternative: Americium-241, abundant in spent fuel and now accessible due to lifted moratoriums on reprocessing, is a viable alternative for powering missions despite lower energy density. Americium in Smoke Detectors and Safety: Americium's safe use in smoke detectors is highlighted, while acknowledging the hazards of working with nuclear materials. Public Perception and RTG Safety: Discussion covers historical atomic energy perceptions, from early toys to environmental concerns, emphasizing rigorous engineering and safety measures like ablative and impact-resistant casings for RTGs. Recovery of These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space/episodes/170 Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik Guest: Dr. Robert O'Brien

Powering spacecraft, especially out in the dark, cold outer solar system, is a huge challenge. There are limits to how large solar panels can be, and they are not very efficient in the weak sunlight beyond Mars. For decades, choice flagship NASA missions have used RTGs--radioisotope thermoelectric generators--to fill this need. From the experiments on the Apollo missions to the Viking Mars landers, Galileo to Jupiter, Cassini to Saturn, and the twin Voyagers, RTGs have provided decades of power for space exploration. From Plutonium to Americium, nuclear elements provide years and years of heat that can be converted into electricity. Dr. Rob O'Brien is the Director of the Center for Space Nuclear Research for the Universities Space Research Association and has specialized in RTGs for decades. It's a fascinating dive into atomic space batteries! Headlines The End of the Universe is Nigh (in 33 Billion Years): New dark matter discoveries suggest an earlier end to the universe, leading to a humorous discussion about bucket list items. August 2nd "Solar Eclipse": Rumors of an August 2nd, 2025, total solar eclipse are false; the next one on that date is in 2027 that won't darken the entire world, but will be the longest one of the century. Mother Earth 2.0 (L98-59f): Discussion of exoplanet L98-59f, 35 light-years away, and its potential habitability despite orbiting a red dwarf with a 23-day year. NASA Budget Concerns: Senate and House pushback against proposed cuts to NASA's 2026 science mission budget is discussed, with calls to preserve vital research. Mass Exodus at NASA: Senior NASA staff, including scientists and engineers, are reportedly leaving due to budget cuts, raising concerns about future capabilities. Main Topic - Dr. Robert O'Brien & RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators) Understanding RTGs: Dr. O'Brien explains RTGs convert heat from radioactive decay into electricity using the Seebeck effect. Early Use of RTGs in Space: The first US public RTG demonstration was on President Eisenhower's desk, and the first space use was the US Navy's Transit 4A satellite in 1961. RTGs on Mars and Deep Space Missions: RTGs power Mars landers and rovers (Viking, Curiosity, Perseverance), and deep space missions like Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini, providing long-term power in harsh environments. Fission Reactors vs. RTGs: RTGs suit small systems and backup power, while fission reactors are better for high-power needs of human expeditions. Plutonium-238 Production Challenges: The scarcity of plutonium-238 is due to its production requiring nuclear reactors and past moratoriums on reprocessing. Americium-241 as an Alternative: Americium-241, abundant in spent fuel and now accessible due to lifted moratoriums on reprocessing, is a viable alternative for powering missions despite lower energy density. Americium in Smoke Detectors and Safety: Americium's safe use in smoke detectors is highlighted, while acknowledging the hazards of working with nuclear materials. Public Perception and RTG Safety: Discussion covers historical atomic energy perceptions, from early toys to environmental concerns, emphasizing rigorous engineering and safety measures like ablative and impact-resistant casings for RTGs. Recovery of These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space/episodes/170 Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik Guest: Dr. Robert O'Brien

Can nuclear waste solve the energy crisis caused by AI data centers? Maybe. And maybe much more, including providing rare elements we need like rhodium, palladium, ruthenium, krypto-85, Americium-241, and more.Amazingly:- 96% of nuclear fuel's energy is left after it's "used"- Recycling can reduce 10,000-year waste storage needs to just 300 years- Curio's new process avoids toxic nitric acid and extracts valuable isotopes- 1 recycling plant could meet a third of America's nuclear fuel needs- Nuclear recycling could enable AI, space travel, and medical breakthroughsIn this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier talks with Ed McGinnis, CEO of Curio and former Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. McGinnis is on a mission to revolutionize how we think about nuclear waste, turning it into a powerful resource for energy, rare isotopes, and even precious metals like rhodium.Watch now and subscribe for more deep tech insights.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1201, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Decade Of Discovery 1: DNA's double helix. the 1950s. 2: Frank Sinatra by Harry James. the 1930s. 3: Quasars by astronomer and Faye Dunaway by Hollywood. the 1960s. 4: Hispaniola by Europeans. the 1490s. 5: Americium (atomic number 95). the 1940s. Round 2. Category: To Grind 1: Keeping this body part "to the grindstone" means applying yourself. nose. 2: Most waiters consider this tool a real grind when using it to add seasoning to salads. a pepper grinder (or pepper mill). 3: Grinding guides can help you efficiently get to level 10 in this Blizzard game set in Azeroth. World of Warcraft. 4: To grind their food, birds use this organ that also starts with "G". gizzard. 5: Mt. Suribachi was the site of a famed flag raising on this WWII island; Meat Grinder Hill was also a tough battle there. Iwo Jima. Round 3. Category: The Edgars 1: Part of "The Bazaar of Bad Dreams", "Obits" won the 2016 Short Story Edgar Award for my Maine man, this horror master. Stephen King. 2: "G" is for grand master as well as this woman who received the 2009 Grand Master Award. Sue Grafton. 3: 2018's best episode in a TV series was "Somebody to Love" by Noah Hawley for this Midwestern-set show spun off from a film, you betcha. Fargo. 4: This pseudonym of 2 authors got a special Edgar in 1950 for a "Mystery Magazine". Ellery Queen. 5: The Scotch was good. Too good. I tried to remember. It was 1955, and this writer had won for "The Long Goodbye". and now he had my gun. (Raymond) Chandler. Round 4. Category: Refugees 1: Turkey has more than 3 million refugees from this country racked by Civil War since 2011. Syria. 2: In 2021 the area called "Little" this city in Fremont, California prepared for a new wave of Afghan refugees. Little Kabul. 3: Many refugees from Africa dwell in Kara Tepe II, a refugee camp on this Greek island also known for its poetic heritage. Lesbos. 4: Political instability and other causes have sent thousands of refugees from this country into its neighbors. Burundi. 5: Term for the largest Muslim group of mainly Buddhist Myanmar; many of them have become refugees. the Rohingya. Round 5. Category: Sports Franchises' Previous Homes 1: The Los Angeles Dodgers. Brooklyn. 2: The Indianapolis Colts. Baltimore. 3: The Los Angeles Rams. St. Louis. 4: The Colorado Avalanche, oui, oui!. Quebec City. 5: The Atlanta Braves. Milwaukee. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

Hvad kan man bruge americium fra 300 brandalarmer til? Ja, for det første kan man bygge en strålekanon og faktisk også en atomreaktor. Og det er netop det, som teenageren David Hahn gør i sin mors baghave. Som 10-årig får han en bog om kemieksperimenter, og hvad der først er en lidt særpræget interesse, udvikler sig hurtigt til farlige eksperimenter. Takket være forfatteren Ken Silverstein ved vi en masse om David Hahns tidlige liv. Så jeg vil anbefale hans bog 'The Radioactive Boy Scout' eller denne artikel: https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scout/Du kan også se en kort dokumentar på Youtube om ham her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMl2sRCP1goPeriodisk – en RAKKERPAK original produceret af Rakkerpak Productions. Historierne du hører bygger på journalistisk research og fakta. De kan indeholde fiktive elementer som for eksempel dialog. Hvis du kan lide min fortælling, så husk at gå ind og abonnér, give en anmeldelse og fortæl dine venner om Periodisk. Podcasten er blevet til med støtte fra Novo Nordisk Fonden. Hvis du vil vide mere kan du besøge vores website periodisk.dk Afsnittet er skrevet og tilrettelagt af Mads Gordon LadekarlTor Arnbjørn og Dorte Palle er producere René Slott står for lyddesign og mix Simon Bennebjerg er vært

The Uranium Series includes the radioactive elements on the period table that start with Francium and end with Plutonium as the last natural elements, those after, like Curium and Americium are synthetic elements made by radiating natural elements like plutonium.  Those needing the remedies from this series have genetic problems that finally end their bloodline.  They have neurological diversity and autism and the end of control for them is world domination.  They see magic as science and the domination of their will over others.  They feel they are struggling for domination over the galaxy and need to prove that that cannot be seen as a material form as seen in technology.  Technocrats are self-declared experts and see themselves as the elite that should rule the world because they decided so.  They have made robots in their image, but actually the more they can imitate the automatic mind through computers and robotics the less they truly have connections with the automatic brain, the system that keeps us genetically healthy.  For them Artificial intelligence medicine is their only choice, which may be true considering the fact that radioactive materials where never meant exist on Earth in these numbers.  Understanding the uranium series is understanding why the new world order run by technocrats to create a technocracy sees nuclear power as ‘green'. All views presented are based on credible sources, but they are explained through the individual's viewpoint.  Doing your own research while integrating new information is always important when forming your own viewpoint. The information in this podcast is not meant to address individual health needs, it is general in nature and should not be used as medical information for your health unless used in combination with your health practitioner.  

Nuclear technology is having its moment, according to Zeno Power cofounder and CEO Tyler Bernstein.NASA has used radioisotope tech since the 1960s, but the systems have historically been too expensive and heavy to be widely used. Zeno Power, which develops radioisotope power systems (RPS) that are lighter, more efficient, and more cost-effective than legacy systems, is trying to change that.How it works? Zeno Power's RPS works by converting the heat from decaying radioisotopes into electricity. Its initial system uses Strontium-90 (Sr-90), an abundant and affordable fuel that has been used in thousands of legacy RPSs. The core innovation is in the fuel design and shielding technology, a key issue given Sr-90's radioactive properties.The company has had a recent string of commercial successes, including a number of unannounced contracts, but some of the public wins are:A $30M STRATFI contract awarded in May to build a radioisotope-powered satellite for the U.S. Air Force by 2025.A $15M NASA Tipping Point award to develop an Americium-241 (Am-241) radioisotope Stirling generator (RSG) for long-duration lunar missions.This week's Pathfinder episode features Tyler Bernstein, Zeno Power's CEO. The company was founded in 2018 by Tyler and two other Vanderbilt undergrads after working on a project to design a nuclear reactor for a Boeing 777. Today, Mo and Tyler discuss:Zeno Power's origin storyA brief history of nuclear power in spaceThe benefits of using radioisotope power systemsThe future of fission and fusionAnd much more…This episode is brought to you by Epsilon3, software for complex engineering, testing, and operational procedures. Learn more at https://www.epsilon3.io/• Chapters • 00:00 - Intro and Ad Break 01:46 - Who is Tyler Bernstein and what is Zeno Power? 02:53 - Nuclear powered 77705:42 - How are nuclear reactors used today? 11:42 - A history of nuclear in space 14:04 - Nuclear regulations 17:48 - Zeno's core product and customer 21:33 - Disposal and containment during development 22:44 - Cost effectiveness vs traditional power systems24:43 - Epsilon3 Ad Break25:12 - Future of nuclear in space 28:37 - Customer targets outside of space 29:41 - Zeno's competitors 31:56 - Building a team around nuclear 38:05 - Zeno's products in 10 years 39:55 - State of nuclear energy today and its regulations 43:57 - Fusion vs Fission 46:19 - Other exciting space companies?• Show notes • Zeno Power's website — https://www.zenopower.com/Zeno Power's socials — https://twitter.com/zeno_powerMo's socials — https://twitter.com/itsmoislam Payload's socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace Pathfinder archive — Watch: https://www.youtube.com/@payloadspace Pathfinder archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/episodes • About us • Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand built from the ground up for a new age of space exploration and commercialization. We deliver need-to-know news and insights daily to 15,000+ commercial, civil, and military space leaders. Payload is read by decision-makers at every leading new space company, along with c-suite leaders at all of the aerospace & defense primes. We're also read on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, and at space agencies around the world. Payload began as a weekly email sent to a few friends and coworkers. Today, we're a team distributed across four time zones and two continents, publishing three media properties across multiple platforms: 1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, sends M-F @ 9am Eastern (https://newsletter.payloadspace.com/) 2) Pathfinder publishes weekly on Tuesday mornings (pod.payloadspace.com) 3) Polaris, our weekly policy publication, hits inboxes Tuesday (https://polaris.payloadspace.com/) 4) Parallax, our weekly space science briefing, hits inboxes Thursday (https://parallax.payloadspace.com/)

Can Science Find An Antidote to Americium? With some poisons, there's an antidote — something you can take to block the effects of the poison, or to help remove it from your body. But when the harmful chemical is a radioactive element, options are limited. Iodine pills can be used to help block radioactive iodine I131 from being absorbed by the thyroid, but there aren't many other drugs that can help deal with contamination with other radioactive substances. One of the two existing medications can only be delivered via IV in a clinic. This week, the NIH announced the start of an early clinical trial for an oral drug delivered as a tablet that could potentially be used to bind and remove radioactive elements including plutonium, uranium and neptunium from the body. Rachel Feltman, editor at large at Popular Science, joins Ira to talk about that trial and other stories from the week in science, including an experimental universal flu vaccine, research into the amount of trace DNA humans shed every day, and an update on the planet Saturn's moon count.   Debunking Common Myths About Being Fat Weight loss is big business. Americans spend roughly $60 billion each year trying to lose weight, forking over cash for supplements, diet plans, and gym memberships. Yet somewhere between 90 to 95% of diets fail. Much of what we think we know about the relationship between weight and health is based on a series of assumptions that don't always match up with the latest science. Science Friday producer, Shoshannah Buxbaum talks with Aubrey Gordon, co-host of the podcast Maintenance Phase and author of the recent book “You Just Need To Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths About Fat People, about the history of the Body Mass Index or BMI. She discusses why the word “obesity” is tangled up in stereotypes about fat people, the flaws in commonly cited mortality statistics, and how anti-fat bias translates into worse healthcare for fat people. Read an excerpt of “You Just Need To Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths About Fat People here.   What To Do When 500-1,000 Crows Roost In Your Neighborhood Laura Young was at a breaking point when she submitted a post titled “Request: Make 500-1,000 crows leave my street alone” to the subreddit r/lifeprotips in January. “I think you can tell that I was feeling very frustrated and running out of options and I clearly needed help,” she said. Starting last October, Laura's neighborhood in Baltimore was the site of a massive crow roost. And unlike past years' roosts, which usually only last a few weeks with a few dozen crows, this one showed no signs of leaving. “The numbers that they've attracted ever since then are unbelievable,” she said. “I mean, we're at the point where it is frightening to walk out at night.” According to Laura, hundreds of them filled the trees in the park outside her apartment. “And they're all screaming,” she said. “It is loud enough to wake you up indoors with all the windows closed. I don't think anyone on my block has slept past 6:00am in three months.” There was the noise, and then there was the poop: coating the streets, the buildings, and the cars. “It is just disgusting. I've never spent so much money on car washes in my entire life,” she laughed. To read the rest, visit sciencefriday.com.   To stay updated on all-things-science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters. Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

How did this element get its name? Where would you find it? Can you make a nuclear bomb from a household item? 5 min Pandemics & Pathogens Past & Present Podcastchemsmith1@gmail.comFacebookTwitter @chemsmithInstagram @timcsmith1961 Direct Link to episode

V tomto podcaste budeme hovoriť o tom, že James Webb teleskop je konečne na ceste a aké sú od neho očakávania, o tom, že proteín istého mikróbu na seba naväzuje rádioaktívne látky a vyhodnotíme si tipy pre 2021, ktoré sme robili pred rokom. Pseudocast 537 na YouTube Zdroje James Webb Space TelescopeWhere Is James Webb?Soil Microbe Could Clean Up Nuclear WasteCharacterization of Americium and Curium Complexes with the Protein Lanmodulin: A Potential Macromolecular Mechanism for Actinide Mobility in the Environment Picture credit : NASA/Bill Ingalls, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This podcast is about Americium-241 and its widespread use in ionization smoke detectors, along with its history.

Americium 241 isotope

Day 21 of the Dog Days of Podcasting, where other podcasters and I attempt to do an episode every day in August.  The topic this year is isotopes. Find out more at dogdaysofpodcasting.com.     Email: chemsmith1 @ gmail

Day 21 of the Dog Days of Podcasting, where other podcasters and I attempt to do an episode every day in August. The topic this year is isotopes. Find out more at dogdaysofpodcasting.com. Email: chemsmith1 @ gmail

We all have our hobbies. Maybe it’s trains. Maybe it’s comic books. Maybe it’s scotch or fine wine. There’s going to be something you’re passionate about, maybe even obsessed about, that occupies your time away from your work.But what happens when our hobbies become a threat? And not just a threat to us, but maybe even a threat to our neighbors? Or—think bigger—what happens when our hobbies become a threat to national security?I’m Kevin Tumlinson, and this … is the Written World.I like quirky bits of history. I'm always on the lookout for odd little tidbits that make you scratch your head and wonder at what happened. And these can range on the spectrum of epicness—from little-known facts about the evolution of a turn of phrase, such as "jump the shark," to more profound revelations such as the historical presence of Vikings in North America, centuries before its discovery by Europeans.I even wrote a whole book about that last one.Sometimes, though, you come across some quirky history that makes you pause and makes you think, and may even makes you laugh and cringe a little.That's exactly how I feel about David Hahn, the "Radioactive Boy Scout."The thing about David's story that resonates most with me is that he grew up in a small town, without much of a social scene, and so he was forced to find his entertainment where he could. He was smart, and I like to think that we share that trait. The opinions of others may vary. And he was resourceful, another thing I believe (or hope) we have in common.Growing up in Commerce Township, Michigan, David was a Boy Scout. He participated in all the usual boy scout things, such as going hiking and camping, learning to tie knots, and doing good deeds for the community. By most signs, David was a good kid.He earned a lot of badges while in the scouts, but one of those badges set him on a path that would lead to infamy. David, it turns out, was one of only a few people to earn the Atomic Energy merit badge.David had a keen interest in atomic energy. He obsessed over it, studying everything he could find on the subject. And as it turned out, he could find a lot.When trips to the local library weren't producing enough information, David did what any bright and curious kid would do: He opened up a phonebook (this was the early 1990s ... Google wasn't quite a thing yet) and started making phone calls.He reached out to experts in the field, sometimes telling them he was a student working on a project, sometimes posing as a researcher or other official position. David would often write twenty or more letters per day, occasionally claiming to be a Physics teacher at Chippewa Valley High School. His letters went to experts and professionals all across the industry, including the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.In the end, not only did David learn exactly how something like a nuclear reactor might work, but he also managed to talk some experts into sending him some parts and supplies.What he needed, though, was fissionable material to work with. And lots of it.To get it, he got creative. He began salvaging radioactive material from household products. Americium from smoke detectors. Thorium from camping lanterns. Radium from clocks. Tritium from gunsights. Lithium from batteries.All items that could be obtained either by rummaging through the trash or buying from a local supermarket.With materials gathered, and plans cobbled together from books in the public library and documents sent by bonafide nuclear experts, David moved his operation to the shed behind his mother's house. And there, he made history.Using his pilfered materials, David built a small nuclear reactor, known as a "breeder reactor." David favored this design because, in a sense, it was self-sustaining.We won't go into the pure physics of this, for several reasons. But the short version is that as a breeder reactor uses nuclear fuel, the fission creates radioactive byproducts. So while energy is being generated, the "waste" collects, and this waste can also be used in a fission reaction. In a sense, a breeder reactor generates its own fuel. And though this is far from a perpetual energy source, it can result in a pretty long-lasting source of energy.More than most teenagers need, at any rate.David got incredibly far along in his experiments and in his build. In fact, he actually succeeded in building the breeder reactor, complete with a radioactive fuel source. And though it never came close to critical mass, it did start generating alarming levels of radiation—more than one thousand times normal background radiation.This got attention.Actually, David and his neighborhood have sheer luck to thank for the fact that his operation was discovered.In 1994, just before 3AM on a late August morning, local police were called to investigate claims that a teenager was stealing tires off of cars. They arrived to find David Hahn, who claimed he was just waiting for a friend.They didn't believe him, and ended up searching his vehicle. When they opened the trunk, they found a metal toolbox, locked and sealed with duct tape, as well as a large assortment of lanterns, clocks, smoke detectors, and more. There were also fifty small cubes of a mysterious gray powder, wrapped in aluminum foil. But what alarmed them most was when David cautioned them about the toolbox, claiming that it was radioactive.From there, things escalated quickly. The FBI was called, and they brought along experts from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (one of the same agencies David had contacted for his research). A Federal State of Nuclear Emergency was declared. There's something you don't see much, in a small town.Eventually, men in radiation suits arrived to dismantle David's miniature nuclear facility, carting up not only the reactor and the various materials used but also the tools, the furniture, even the walls of the shed itself. All of it was permeated with alarming levels of radiation, thanks to David's work.Frighteningly, some of that material ended up in the local landfill, thrown away in the neighborhood garbage before the Feds ever knew it was there.These days, the shed and its contents are buried in an undisclosed location in the Great Salt Lake Desert, where it resides next to a bevy of nuclear cast-off, including some of the early experiments that led to the development of the first atomic bomb.David Hahn wasn't a terrorist. He was a curious, intelligent, very resourceful boy who became fascinated with something to the degree of obsession. He pursued that obsession, learning everything he could until he did what many might consider impossible.David's story is both inspiring and horrifying. On the one hand, it's remarkable that someone so young could have worked out the details of this, in a pre-internet age, to a degree high enough to actually build this device. On the other hand, now that we live in the age of instant information, the implications of something like this are beyond frightening.I played with this idea a bit in my first thriller novel, The Coelho Medallion. In that book, the terrorist steal crates of smoke detectors, ultimately using the radioactive material within them to build a dirty bomb. It's a scenario that isn't all that farfetched. Which is why it works so well for fiction.The world is an interesting and sometimes frightening place. And as we advance in technology, and in our ability to discover and share information, it might be good to keep in mind the David Hahns of the world, and to stress to them the old adage, that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.IF YOU ENJOYED THIS LITTLE TALE …You might enjoy a good thriller novel. And I happen to write thriller novels. Find something to keep you up all night at KevinTumlinson.com/books

Hi

Fjärilars fiender, underjordiska diamanter, farliga asteroider, recessionsvarning, kärnvapenstater, nytt dyrt läkemedel mot cystisk fibros, en massa grundämnen (Americium etc.) samt en mycket. driftig man från Ängelholm.

The Periodic Table of the Elements, The Economist and New Scientist, we dispute everything above Americium

The Periodic Table of the Elements, The Economist and New Scientist, we dispute everything above Americium

Professor Allan Blackman from AUT explores the chemical elements actinium and americium, and the Kakapo Files podcast catches up with the work of the island rangers.

Professor Allan Blackman from AUT explores the chemical elements actinium and americium, and the Kakapo Files podcast catches up with the work of the island rangers.

Invented during war, radioactive americium has become a bit of a do-gooder that is in most homes. Find out more with AUT's Allan Blackman in episode 3 of Elemental.

Invented during war, radioactive americium has become a bit of a do-gooder that is in most homes. Find out more with AUT's Allan Blackman in episode 3 of Elemental.

Invented during war, radioactive americium has become a bit of a do-gooder that is in most homes. Find out more with AUT's Allan Blackman in episode 3 of Elemental.

Today we talk about the benefits of the Electoral College, the Boston Molasses Flood, how to escape from quicksand, pranks with fake iPhones, a man disolving at Yellowstone, project Dead Drop, why we can't launch nuclear waste into the sun, correlation vs causation, and Enchroma glasses.Links from this episode: - Avoid chaos by keeping Electoral College | Opinion - Three Amigos-What Is A Plethora? - YouTube - A-G-L-E-T Song from Phineas and Ferb - YouTube - Solving a Mystery Behind the Deadly ‘Tsunami of Molasses’ of 1919 - How to Escape Quicksand: An Illustrated Guide - Fake iPhone* - Man Dissolved in Acidic Water After Trying to Soak in Yellowstone National Park Hot Pool - Dead Drops - Geocaching - Ever Wondered Why Don’t We Send Nuclear Waste To The Sun? Here Is Why It Is Not Possible - Smoke Detectors and Americium - Hilarious Graphs Prove That Correlation Isn’t Causation - First Time Reactions to EnChroma Glasses

What is radioactivity? Where are you from? Send us a postcard! Strange Attractor, c/ PO Box 9, Fitzroy, VIC 3065, Australia What is radioactivity? Including alpha, beta & gamma decay, half-life, background radiation & health effects (Physics.org) Types of radioactivity (Andy Darvill's Science Site) The difference between radioactivity & radiation (The Conversation) Cool chart that shows radiation doses for all sorts of things...including sleeping next to someone & eating a banana (xkcd) Alpha, beta & gamma penetration (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University) Alpha, beta & gamma penetration (BBC, GCSE) Radioactive elements can 'decay' into other elements — here's the crazy decay chain for uranium-238 (Wikipedia) There are 29 radioactive elements on Earth & thousands more radioactive isotopes (Wikipedia) Some examples of radioactive isotopes or 'radionuclides' (Wikipedia) Some 'nuclides' are stable, but most are radioactive & decay — here's a list of >900 with half-lives from 50 million years (Wikipedia) The number 20 is a 'score' in ye olde talk (Wikipedia) What is uranium? (Jefferson Lab) What is plutonium? (Jefferson Lab) What is an alpha particle? (Physics Department, Idaho State University) During alpha decay, alpha particles (helium nuclei) are released from a radioactive atom's nucleus (Wikipedia) The crazy strong nuclear forces involved (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University) Conservation of energy — it can neither be lost nor gained (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Energy equals mass: e=mc^2 & all that malarky (livescience) Alpha particles are the least harmful in that they are large & can be easily stopped by e.g. paper; however, if ingested they're super dangerous (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University) Radioactive elements are inherently unstable (Reference) Sometimes you have to wait a loooooong time for a radioactive element to spit out a particle, like 4.5 billion years (Wikipedia) Everything is radioactive in the periodic table from 83 (bismuth) onwards (Wikipedia) Why is radioactive decay random & spontaneous? (I'm a scientist get me out of here) Schrödinger's cat (IFL Science) What is polonium? (Jefferson Lab) What is alchemy? (livescience) What is an isotope? (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University) What is an isotope? (The Conversation) Fact or fiction?: Lead can be turned into gold (Scientific American) It sounds like isotopes can indeed have too few neutrons, as well as too many (The Naked Scientists) What is a beta particle? (Idaho State University) Beta radioactivity (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University) An electron is ~1,800 times smaller than a proton (Jefferson Lab) What is a gamma ray? (Idaho State University) Gamma rays consist of high-energy photons (Wikipedia) Gamma radioactivity (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University) Ionising radiation "carries enough energy to free electrons from atoms or molecules, thereby ionising them" (Wikipedia) How radiation sickness works (Science, How Stuff Works) Too much ionising radiation is bad...but humans have evolved to be able to cope with a certain amount of background radiation (World Nuclear Association) Natural background radiation (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Association) Bananas are a bit radioactive because they contain potassium: The banana equivalent dose (Wikipedia) Still cleaning up: 30 years after the Chernobyl disaster (The Atlantic) Flying and health: Cosmic radiation exposure for casual flyers and aircrew (Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency) Health threats for astronauts from cosmic rays (Wikipedia) How does lead absorb radiation like x-rays and gamma rays? (The Naked Scientists) How do x-rays work? (Wonderopolis) Radiation therapy employs x-rays, gamma rays & charged particles to kill cancer cells (National Cancer Institute) The 'gamma knife' delivers precise beams of radiation to diseased brain tissue or tumour from a large number of directions (Imaginis) Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans don't use radiation (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering) Computed tomography (CT) scans use ionising radiation (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering) Positron emission tomography (PET) scans use radiopharmaceuticals (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering) Alexander Litvinenko: Profile of murdered Russian spy — the guy who drank tea with polonium-210 in it (BBC News) Want some polonium-209? It'll set you back USD$3,200 per microcurie (Jefferson Lab) Sydney's Lucas Heights reactor to ramp up nuclear medicine production to meet world demand (ABC News) Synchrotrons are extremely powerful sources of x-rays (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility) The Australian synchrotron is in Clayton (Australian Synchrotron) Ikea Springvale How does a nuclear power station work? (Explain That Stuff!) A discussion about whether Mark Watney from 'The Martian' had a high cancer risk after heating up his little car with a radioactive source (Quora) How to protect astronauts from space radiation on Mars (NASA) Radioactive waste management (World Nuclear Association) Nuclear agencies are searching for the signs, language & solutions that will warn our descendants to stay away (FT Magazine) Cockroaches have an exoskeleton so they probably wouldn't know what a skull & cross bones are (Wikipedia) Thaw could release Cold War-era radioactive waste buried under Greenland's ice (ABC News) Greeland is an autonomous country within the Danish realm (Wikipedia) Nuclear power in space (Wikipedia) How do nuclear submarines work? (Science, How Stuff Works) The nuclear submarine that can remain underwater for 25 years (Wired) 'Letters of last resort' are written by all new UK Prime Ministers, with instructions to submarine commanding officers on what to do if a nuclear strike wipes out the Government (Wikipedia) Billionaires are buying submarines (The Daily Mail UK) Can nuclear waste be neutralised by bacteria? (Engineering.com) Iggy Pop is indeed alive & currently 69 (IggyPop.com) Nirvana David Bowie Ziggy Stardust (Wikipedia) Billy Joel Kim Wilde Atomic clocks & cesium...not radioactive even though they sound like it (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University) Atomic clocks (Wikipedia) Microwaves are not radioactive (Cancer Research UK) Mobile phones are not radioactive — they emit electromagnetic radiation, which is very different, & they also don't emit enough energy to break the molecular bonds inside cells (Scientific American) Mobile phones are not radioactive (Skeptic) Here's the patch you stick on your phone that apparently saves you from the evil 'radiation' — decide for yourself (cellsafe) Ionising (bad one) vs non-ionising radiation (Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency) UV light is ionising radiation & can break chemical bonds in cells (livescience) Suffering endures for 'Radium Girls' who painted watches in the '20s (Hartford Web Publishing) The Bachelor, Australia (Channel Ten) Corrections An exact description of how the Americium-241 in smoke detectors works (Wikipedia) Bismuth's half-life is estimated to be more than a billion times the age of the universe (Wikipedia) Billy Idol isn't chubbsy at all...sorry Billy, you still got it (BillyIdol.net) The metre was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator (not Paris) to the North Pole (Wikipedia) One of the main dreams of alchemy was to turn lead (atomic number 82) into gold (atomic number 79), which would have meant losing protons, not gaining (livescience) Cheeky review? (If we may be so bold) It'd be amazing if you gave us a short review...it'll make us easier to find in iTunes: Click here for instructions. You're the best! We owe you a free hug and/or a glass of wine from our cellar

Man hätte heute ja über Rauchmelder und Americium-241 sprechen können... oder über Primzahlen (mal wieder). Statt dessen geht es kurz und knackig um den Song 241 der Band "Reel Big Fish". So kann's gehen

The 55 gallon drum of plutonium-contaminated nuclear weapons waste from Los Alamos National Lab that “popped its lid” and released Plutonium and Americium into the environment on Valentine’s Day, 2014. NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK: Sure, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), the U.S. without nuclear would be “unthinkable” — but think about your state’s Boone Dam, with...

INTERVIEWS: At Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP Site) near Carlsbad, NM, Department of Energy restarts exhaust fan exposed to Plutonium and Americium during February 14, 2014 radiation leak; Don Hancock of Southwest Resource and Information Center provides us with an update and insights. One From the Vault:  Nuclear Hotseat #7, July 26, 2011Jon Solomon of...

INTERVIEWS: Don Hancock from Southwest Research and Information Center returns to update us on the leak of Plutonium and Americium from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad New Mexico. Dr. Catherine Euler of Mamabears Against Nukes gives us the rundown on how to interpret the WIPP radiation data. Mimi German, Ms. RadCast Herself, offers insight into those pesky "now they work/now they don't" EPA radiation monitors. PLUS: 84-year-old Sister Megan Rice asks the judge to sentence her to life in prison for her non-violent peace demonstration at the supposedly secure Y-12 nuclear facility; Second safety-conscious Hanford manager fired after she spoke out for - wait for it! - safety! Georgia's planned new Vogtle reactors receive $6.5 billion in federal loan guarantees; Fukushima Unit 4 cooling system stops for four hours; high levels of cesium found in Fukushima reservoirs used for agriculture; and Ukraine rebels capture Rosnov Nuclear Power Plant... then don't know what to do with it. Oy!

INTERVIEWS: Don Hancock from Southwest Research and Information Center returns to update us on the leak of Plutonium and Americium from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad New Mexico. Dr. Catherine Euler of Mamabears Against Nukes gives us the rundown on how to interpret the WIPP radiation data. Mimi German, Ms. RadCast Herself, offers insight into those pesky "now they work/now they don't" EPA radiation monitors. PLUS: 84-year-old Sister Megan Rice asks the judge to sentence her to life in prison for her non-violent peace demonstration at the supposedly secure Y-12 nuclear facility; Second safety-conscious Hanford manager fired after she spoke out for - wait for it! - safety! Georgia's planned new Vogtle reactors receive $6.5 billion in federal loan guarantees; Fukushima Unit 4 cooling system stops for four hours; high levels of cesium found in Fukushima reservoirs used for agriculture; and Ukraine rebels capture Rosnov Nuclear Power Plant... then don't know what to do with it. Oy!

INTERVIEWS: Don Hancock from Southwest Research and Information Center returns to update us on the leak of Plutonium and Americium from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad New Mexico. Dr. Catherine Euler of Mamabears Against Nukes gives us the rundown on how to interpret the WIPP radiation data. Mimi German, Ms. RadCast Herself, offers insight into those pesky "now they work/now they don't" EPA radiation monitors. And Chizo Hamada shares international Fukushima 3 Anniversary events. PLUS: 84-year-old Sister Megan Rice asks the judge to sentence her to life in prison for her non-violent peace demonstration at the supposedly secure Y-12 nuclear facility; Second safety-conscious Hanford manager fired after she spoke out for - wait for it! - safety! Georgia's planned new Vogtle reactors reeive $6.5 billion in federal loan guarantees; Fukushima Unit 4 cooling system stops for four hours; high levels of cesium found in Fukushima reservoirs used for agriculture; and Ukraine rebels capture Rosnov Nuclear Power Plant... then don't know what to do with it. Oy!

INTERVIEWS: Don Hancock from Southwest Research and Information Center returns to update us on the leak of Plutonium and Americium from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad New Mexico. Dr. Catherine Euler of Mamabears Against Nukes gives us the rundown on how to interpret the WIPP radiation data. Mimi German, Ms. RadCast Herself, offers insight into those pesky "now they work/now they don't" EPA radiation monitors. And Chizo Hamada shares international Fukushima 3 Anniversary events. PLUS: 84-year-old Sister Megan Rice asks the judge to sentence her to life in prison for her non-violent peace demonstration at the supposedly secure Y-12 nuclear facility; Second safety-conscious Hanford manager fired after she spoke out for - wait for it! - safety! Georgia's planned new Vogtle reactors reeive $6.5 billion in federal loan guarantees; Fukushima Unit 4 cooling system stops for four hours; high levels of cesium found in Fukushima reservoirs used for agriculture; and Ukraine rebels capture Rosnov Nuclear Power Plant... then don't know what to do with it. Oy!

Episode Two Hundred Forty One: "They're dangerous. They have Americium-241 in them." This week, Frank is back and we discuss how his play went and the details you don't think about when producing your first show. Then we talk some news and a little more parenting stuff. Music this week is from: The Art of War Flight of the Conchords Kiss Follow Chris, Frank and Scott on twitter Send feedback to areyouseriouspodcast@gmail.com or head to areyouseriouspodcast.com and click the feedback tab to send us a voice message. Here's the link to our live show channel on ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/are-you-serious-podcast

Cepyayınımızın bu ayki konuğu, Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Kimya Bölümü öğretim üyesi Y. Doç. Dr. Salih Özçubukçu. Dr. Salih Özçubukçu Salih, geçen nisan ayından bu yana ODTÜ'de kendi laboratuvarında çalışıyor. Kendisi ile hem nükleer atıkların ayrıştırılmasına yönelik araştırmaları, hem de popüler bilim çalışmaları üzerine söyleştik. Kendisine söyleşi için bir kez daha teşekkür ederiz. Notlar Bahsi geçen makale: Salih Özçubukçu vd., 2011. Selective Recognition of Americium by Peptide-Based Reagents. Inorganic Chemistry 50:7937. Söyleşide adı geçen lantanitler ve aktinitlerin periyodik cetveldeki yerlerini Şekil 1'de görebilirsiniz. Bunların asıl yeri ana kısımdaki açık pembe ve pembe renkli boş karelerdir, ancak cetveli fazla genişletmemek için cetvelin altında iki ek sıraya yerleştirilirler. Şekil 1. Periyodik cetvel. Katalizör dergisi sitesi Bahsettiğim Anadolu Üniversitesi araştırmasının BBC Türkçe'deki duyurusu için buraya bakabilirsiniz. Ayrıca sempozyum bildirisini de okuyabilirsiniz: Hakan Ergül, Emre Gökalp ve İncilay Cangöz, 2010. Eski yoksulluk, yeni medya: Yoksullukla baş etmede yeni medya nasıl kullanılıyor (mu)? Uluslararası Yolsuzlukla Mücadele Stratejileri Sempozyumu, İstanbul, 13-15 Ekim 2010. s. 133-144. Salih'in ODTÜ'deki Popüler Kültürde Kimya dersinin sayfası  ve o sayfadan eğitici (!) bir kısa video:

Science writer Brian Clegg on the difficult to pronounce element whose discovery was announced on a children's radio quiz

The Show Notes:NEW Intro (oooh!)Ordering noodles at Sogo with Ms. InformationReligious Moron of the Week - Church of God Choir, from Springfield, Ohiomanganese is...Future Geo interruptsmanganese is Mn not MgASK GEORGE- morals- Maria from Flickr - Stephen Fry, childhood books,   fundamentalism- Marvin from Austin, TexasOccasional Songs for the Periodic Table- Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium, Americium,   Curium, Berkelium, Californium, Einsteinium Mortimer calls yet again, once moreSkepticality InterviewShow Close ...................................... Mentioned in the show: Geo's Skepticality interview; the story of the Faithful Elephants; and Soccergirl, Incorporated. And as always: George's blog, website, flickr, and myspace page. Have a comment on the show, a topic for Minoishe Interroberg, or a question for Ask George? Drop George a line at geo@geologicrecords.net or through his blog. Non-Coloring Book is now online at Lulu and available for purchase as both print and download.