My Nuclear Life

In this episode Pete Burgess discusses the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian spy who defected to the UK. Why is polonium-210 a good poison? How do you make it? Why wasn’t the public scared it could happen to them? All of those questions and more are answered in this exciting episode. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife Send an email us to My Nuclear Life o...

In this episode, host Shelly Lesher is joined by Neal Bascomb, author of The Winter Fortress, which tells the story of the plan to sabotage Hitler’s atomic bomb. Listen as Neal tells about the several different missions set out to destroy the Nazi atomic bomb program and how they affected the course of the World War II. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us

Our release schedule has changed to the last Tuesday of the month. This episode also introduces information about entering to win some great prizes at mynuclearlife.com drawing on 16 Dec 2021.

Go inside a US missile silo with Col. (Ret.) Charles G. Simpson as he discusses his time as a US Air Force Missileer which started weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis and ends shortly before the end of the Cold War. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us

This episode features Don Howard, a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame with an interest in the ethics of emerging technologies. Shelly & Don explore the ethical considerations behind the Manhattan Project and building the H-bomb, and discuss question such as: Should scientists use their expertise to be involved in politics? What is the moral obligation to one...

In this episode Shelly speaks with Thomas Haigh, a historian of computing, about the ENIAC and its influence on nuclear physics. Learn how the ENIAC was more of an experimental apparatus than a computer, the role of women in early computing, why we know so much about the secret h-bomb calculations, what Wikipedia gets wrong, and the confusion surrounding the MANIAC. All of this and more in this su...

In this episode Shelly is joined by Dr. Vincent Intondi, history professor at Montgomery College in Maryland. He is invited on the podcast today to discuss his recent authorship of his eye opening book entitled African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement. Shelly shares that while reading this book, she was uncomfortable with material, and had to...

In this episode, Shelly is joined by 2/3rds of The Uncover Up Conspiracy Podcast, Nathan Radke and Lee Kuhlne. They discuss the Pentagon UFO report, their joint Cold War obsession, what we can learn from conspiracy theory, and various nuclear conspiracy theories. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife email us

In this episode Shelly speaks to Tiffany Nichols, doctoral candidate at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, graduate student affiliate at the Black Hole Initiative and a National Science Foundation grantee. Her research focuses on how place, surrounding environment, and laboratory are embedded in the outputs signals of The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observa...

We are excited to announce our first crossover!

In this episode Shelly is joined by Adam Higginbotham, author of New York Times best selling book Midnight in Chernobyl . Listen as Shelly and Adam talk about his book and about the biggest nuclear disaster in the world. Adam takes the time to share his own research in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the many events that led up to the accident. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.pat...

In this episode of My Nuclear Life, Shelly speaks with Todd Tucker, author of several books including Atomic America: How a Deadly Explosion and a Feared Admiral changed the Course of Nuclear History published in 2009. Today, the story of SL-1 holds wide appeal yet remains relatively unknown. If you have heard of the explosion you might know of the person impaled by a control rod, a murder suicide...

In this episode, Shelly Lesher and Dreux Richard author of the book, Every Human Intention: Japan in the New Century, explore the post-Fukushima nuclear regulatory system of Japan and how to determine the safety of restarting nuclear reactors threatened by earthquake faults. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife

In this episode of My Nuclear Life, host Shelly Lesher speaks with Tim and Joanna Smolko, authors of Atomic Tunes: The Cold War in American and British Popular Music. They discuss atomic music across the decades including how music influenced The Women’s March for Peace, how Soviet’s made records out of x-ray films, and how David Hasselhoff became a Cold War icon. Listen along with the Spotify Pla...

In this episode, Lexie Weghorn and Shelly Lesher discuss nuclear waste disposal with Elizabeth Muller, CEO of Deep Isolation . Topics include nuclear energy’s “waste problem”, how nuclear waste is currently stored, and options for our future. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife

In this episode, Shelly continues her conversation with Robert Franklin, Archivist & Oral Historian at the Hanford History Project. They discuss how Hanford's B-Reactor became a Manhattan Project National Historical Site, local vs. national interpretation of history, the local high school mascot, and civil rights. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife

In this episode, Shelly and Robert Franklin, Archivist & Oral Historian of the Hanford History Project dive into the history of the Hanford Laboratory and B-Reactor located in Washington State. They discuss why this site is the lesser known of the Manhattan project laboratories and what you can see if you visit today. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife

In this new segment of My Nuclear Life find out what happens at Volk Field one snowy night in 1962. For more information visit us at mynuclearlife.com Sign up at Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife

In this episode Shelly Lesher and Lucy Jane Santos, author of the book Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium discuss the beauty industry, salons, and radium in consumer products. Visit us at: mynuclearlife.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/mynuclearlife