How dangerous is it…REALLY?

Have you ever heard of ricin? It is one of the most dangerous toxins out there. A favorite of terrorists and the KGB. How common is it and should you be worried?

Hey all, thanks for listening again.  I especially appreciate everyone who has

shared my podcast with their friends. 

Thanks for giving me a reason to dive into each of these topics and put

my thoughts into words.

Today’s episode is:

Ricin: These beans taste terrible

I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of ricin, but in my line

of work, ricin seems to pop up quite often. 

It is incredibly toxic, yet relatively easy to come by.  This combination makes it a favorite of

terrorists, criminals, and even spy organizations.  In addition to this, there is an occasional

accidental poisoning. 

Where ricin comes from

Ricin is a poison extracted from the castor bean.  Many of you may have seen the castor

plant.  It is a very ornamental plant

with large green and red leaves.  The

first time I recognized one, it was in a planter in front of a local

hospital.  I bet they didn’t know that

their entrance was being guarded by one of the world’s most toxic plants.  While the entire plant can be toxic, the beans

are the main source of the toxin.  Take a

look at my website for a picture of the plant and the beans.

You’ve probably heard of castor oil.  It is also extracted from castor beans, but the

process removes the poison.  That's a

good thing because my Grandma was a big believer in castor oil for many

different ailments.  Not sure if it ever

helped, but the taste left something to be desired.

Obviously, I'm not going to go into how the poison is

obtained from the bean, but it is fairly easy. 

Thankfully, it is a little more difficult than most of the illicit

internet sites make it seem.  If you want

a fairly pure ricin, that requires some advanced techniques.

Accidental ricin poisonings

Most of the accidental poisonings are a result of pets,

children, and even occasionally adults eating the beans.  As long as the beans aren’t chewed, most

people recover, but a couple of thoroughly chewed castor beans is enough to

kill an adult.  I’m not sure of the

episode, but one of the contestants on Discovery’s Naked and Afraid realty

show, is shown eating some beans from an unknown plant and then getting

violently ill.  When they showed the

plant, I was surprised to see that it was a castor plant.  Apparently his preparation methods attenuated

the toxin to some extent, but the man is lucky to have survived.

In a case study from Morocco, 7 and 10-year-old girls became

very ill in separate incidents after eating castor beans.  Both girls arrived at the ER unconscious and

suffering from seizures. Both girls reported abdominal pain and vomiting about

2 hours after eating the beans.  When

stomach contents were emptied, castor bean remnants were present.  With intubation and supportive care, both

girls were able to completely recover. https://www.srlf.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/1209-Reanimation-Vol21-N5-p555_p556.pdf

Intentional ricin poisonings

Intentional poisonings are more common than you might

think.  Looking at Wikipedia, there are

In this podcast, we ask the question, how dangerous is football? As one of America's most played sports, you need to know just what the risks are.

Hi everyone.  I hope

you have been enjoying listening to these podcasts as much as I have enjoyed

recording them.  If you know anyone who

might also enjoy listening to the podcast as well, please feel free to share it

with them.  It would be much appreciated.

Today’s podcast is

Football: Who doesn’t love a concussion

First off, for those joining me today outside the US, we are

discussing American football.  I fully

admit that for those of you who play rugby, are MMA fighters or bull-riders,

American football isn’t that much of a contact sport.  However, for most of the US, football is the physical,

high contact sport. 

In my podcast on statistics,

we discussed a study on brain injury among football players.  The claim often made about the study was that

99% of all football players suffered from brain injuries which wasn't a valid

conclusion for the study.  That study did

get me wondering how dangerous football really is.

Just for full transparency, playing sports isn't something I

enjoy much.  I played a little soccer as

a kid and in high school, the closest I came to team sports was cross-country running

and wrestling.

As a father, one of my boys played football prior to high

school and since he enjoyed it, I supported his decision to play.  However, I do remember attending his 6th-grade

end of year football banquet.  The

introduced the players individually and said something about their

accomplishments.  I do remember that a

large number of boys had spent at least part of the season not playing due to

injuries.  At the end of the introductions,

the coach mentioned it too saying "if you don't get hurt playing football,

then you probably aren't playing hard enough".  To this day, I'm trying to find something

important enough about 6th-grade football to justify an injury that

could be with you for a lifetime.

However, I never really actually looked at the data to see

if my opinion had any validity. First off, let’s take a look at youth

football.  Most people would agree that

youth football isn’t comparable to college football and that college football

isn’t very similar to professional football.

High school football injury statistics

According to Stanford, 3.5 million children 14 and under get

hurt every year from sports and recreational activities.  About 215k children visited the emergency

room due to football injuries (both organized and informal).  Just to put this in perspective, the number

injured in bicycling accidents was 200K, basketball 170K, skateboarding/inline

skating 113k, baseball/softball 110k, soccer 88k, and trampolines 65K.  All of these were compared to 215K football

injuries.  As you can see, a lot of

children 14 and younger visit the emergency room.

A different study by UC Denver has been tracking sports

injuries at selected schools since 2005. 

They estimate that annually there are 1.2-1.4 million high school sports

injuries per year across all sports. 

From 2013-2018 football accounted for 39% of all injuries.  For comparison, girl’s soccer was 17%, boy’s

soccer 12%, boy’s basketball 6%,

In this episode, we discuss Anthrax. It has a fascinating history of disease and use as a biological warfare agent. Learn how dangerous it really is.

Hello everyone.  A Special

thanks to all the new subscribers out there and to my veteran listeners.  The show has grown faster than I ever thought

possible.  I would love to hear from

everyone.  I have a list of about 200

topics, but if you have an idea or would like me to get to one sooner, drop me

a note on my website sci-vs-fear.com.

This week’s topic is:

Anthrax: Almost 20 years since I’ve had a powdered brownie

Anthrax: my experience

I’ve long been acquainted with Anthrax.  My first introduction to Bacillus anthracis

was my first day in my undergraduate microbiology lab.  The first experiment was to isolate Anthrax

from soil.  Back in those days, it wasn’t

uncommon at all to work with anthrax in the classroom and on the benchtop, it

actually poses little hazard.

My next brush with anthrax was in graduate school. Shortly

following the Amerithrax event, my major professor was asked to determine the

parameters for irradiating mail to kill any possible anthrax.  Anthrax is really hard to kill.  It takes about 40KGy (40,000 Gy) to kill it,

where 3-8Gy will kill you and I.  2001

was a rough year between 9/11 and the anthrax letters.  My innocence was shattered and that was when

I first realized the world could be a dark and dangerous place.  My desire to make sure my kids didn't have to

deal with these threats was what put me on my career path of evaluating and

mitigating dangerous things.

The next stop on the anthrax train was when I helped with a

study on how to best sample anthrax.  The

study used a cousin of Anthrax, Bacillus globigii in its weaponized form.  Anthrax powder is not at all like powdered

sugar or coffee creamer.  The slightest

breeze or wave of the hand will make it disappear into the air.  When a pea-sized ball drops from the height

of couple inches, it never hits the table, it simply disappears into the air.

Anthrax is really hard to kill.  I learned this when I assisted in sampling a

building that had been exposed to the same cousin, then tented and fumigated

with chlorine dioxide.  Immediately

following fumigation, no samples were positive. 

When we tested again 6 months later, a significant number of samples

contained viable organisms.

Every year I get a reminder of my relationship with anthrax

when I get my annual vaccination.  No

vaccination is pleasant, but anthrax always seems to take pleasure in stinging

for a couple of extra days.

Anthrax: What is it?

Anthrax is a bacteria classified as a gram-positive rod,

that is about 1/millionth of a meter long. 

To give you an idea of how small this is, about 1000 organisms could fit

on the end of a hair- give or take a few. 

Anthrax belongs to a group of bacteria know as spore

formers.  Most bacteria aren’t

particularly tough, but the spore formers are a notable exception.  I think of a spore as a seed.  Being from the west, I’ve heard of corn seeds

that were thousands of years old from cliff dwellings growing just fine once

planted.

When growing anthrax, known as vegetative cells, senses that

the environment is changing, it begins a transformation.

In this bonus content podcast, we discuss the actions you should take in the unlikely event you should ever be contaminated by a chemical weapon.

Thanks for listening to this bonus podcast.  Normally, my bonus podcasts are only available through my website, but I feel this information is really important so I decided to put it on my normal feed.  If you enjoy this podcast, feel free to listen to my other bonus podcasts by visiting my website sci-vs-fear.com In my previous podcast, we talked about the different types of chemical weapons. Today we will take about what you should do if you become exposed.

Chemical weapons: I’ve been slimed, what do I do now?

In this podcast, we will be discussing what you should do in

the unlikely event you get slimed with a chemical warfare agent.  That's a highly scientific term by the way.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been asking myself this

question from a professional standpoint. 

Generally, when we deal with dangerous chemicals, we use a full suite of

protective gear.  Removing someone from

contaminated protective gear without getting the person dirty is very important.  It is much more complicated than I ever

imagined, but some basic principles help us do a good job.

Should you get chemical weapons or any other chemical on

your clothing or skin,   there are some

important steps you can take.  I’m not

the only one who has been thinking about this. 

Public Health England has been taking the question very seriously. 

Public Health England, chemical weapons statement

They state “The deliberate use of toxic materials represents

a serious threat to society. In particular, chemical warfare agents are

indiscriminate weapons that can have a devastating impact when used on

unprotected civilian populations, as recently evidenced in Syria.  Any complacency based on the notion that

chemical warfare agents are limited to politically unstable regions was

recently dispelled by the use of a ‘novichok’ nerve agent in the UK. The

current threat level for international terrorism in the UK is presently classed

as ‘severe’. Exposure of individuals to liquid or particulate substances

presents a particular challenge to the emergency services, as casualties will

need to undergo immediate disrobe and decontamination in order to mitigate the

risk of adverse health effects.” https://emj.bmj.com/content/emermed/36/2/117.full.pdf

Because of this concern, they sponsored a series of research

trials called ORCHID.  The principles I

discuss today come directly from their research and conclusions.  To date, I’m not aware of any more thorough

research available.

Traditionally, response to a chemical agent exposure would

be a water-based shower type of cleaning. 

However, in a terrorist scenario, the resources probably won't be

available, therefore, they recommend using absorbent materials rather than

water in most cases.  There are a couple

of advantages to this.  First, it creates

much less waste than the water-based cleaning, especially if the run-off

contains toxic substances.  Water-based

cleaning can tend to spread contamination all over a person while dry cleaning

physically removes most of it.  Using

water on contaminated clothing can also drive the chemicals through the

clothing onto the skin.

In today's episode we discuss past chemical warfare agent attacks and talk about the different classes of agents and what they are used for.

Thanks for joining me today. 

As we start the new year, I just wanted to say thanks to all of

you.  In just a few months, this project

has gone from no listeners to over 300 subscribers.  Thanks for sharing this podcast with your

friends and feel free to share it with a few more.  As always, my references are found on my

website sci-vs-fear.com.  Please stop by

and take a look.

In future episodes, I plan on looking at some of the

chemical warfare agents or CWAs in-depth, but before I do, I wanted to talk about

the group as a whole to provide the big picture. So what is a chemical warfare

agent?  A chemical warfare agent is

simply any chemical that is used to harm or kill people.

WWI chemical warfare

While there are other historical instances, chemical warfare

agent use began in earnest in WWI.  The

first use was in August of 1914 when the French used teargas in the battlefield.  By October of 1914, the Germans had deployed

over 3,000 shells of chlorosulfate, although they were relatively ineffective

as the chemical was mostly destroyed in the explosion.

In January 1915, the Germans tried again against the

Russians using xylyl bromine, but this time it was ineffective due to the

extreme cold.  In April of that year, the

first large scale deaths (~1100 with 7000 injuries) due to CWAs are documented

at Ypres, Belgium where the Germans deployed almost 170 metric tons of chlorine

gas.  Chlorine gas tends to sink and so

was quite effective in trench warfare applications, assuming the wind didn’t

blow it back into your trench.

By September, the British begin using chlorine against the

Germans.  Shortly after that, the Germans

introduce phosgene.  So began a CWA arms

race.  By 1918, nearly 10% of all US

arterial shells contain mustard. 

Interestingly, Adolf Hitler was temporarily blinded by Mustard in

October shortly before the end of the war. 

There is some supposition, that this is the reason Germany didn't use

more CWAs during WWII.  All told, there

were more than 1.3 million casualties and 90K+ deaths due to CWAs (mostly

phosgene) during WWI.

WWII chemical warfare preparations

In the run-up to WWII, most nations developed mustard and

nerve agents.  Among these are sulfur and

nitrogen mustard, tabun, sarin, soman, and VX. 

Many of these compounds were discovered in pesticide research, but most

nations had a specific CWA development program. 

In 1972, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention sought to end all

offensive research into CWAs.  This was

moderately successful with countries like the US and Britain abiding, with

other countries, Russia, Iran, Iraq, and others, continuing with research and

production. https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/a-brief-history-of-chemical-war

Tokyo sarin chemical weapon attack

Let's look at two well-known uses of chemical weapons.  The first is of interest to developed countries, as our largest threat from CWAs is terrorism.  On 20 March 1995, a Japanese cult known as the Uhm-Shinrikyo released sarin on the Japanese subway.  Their attack was fairly crude, but it got the world's attention.

 In the previous

episode we looked at 9 different statistical pitfalls.

-Sampling bias

-Different types of averages

-Small sample size

-Confidence intervals

-Graphs

-Linking unrelated statistics

-Correlations -vs- causation

-Computer models

- Search engine results and social media

That is an awful lot of things to keep track of.  Today I am going to simplify it a bit into 5

questions you can ask about any statistic. 

Like the previous podcast, most of the ideas in this podcast come from

Darrell Huff’s How to lie with statistics.

Question 1: Who says so?

Everyone who does research has a motivation.  That motivation will tell you a lot about

what their conscious and unconscious biases may be.  For instance, in a study by a drug company an

obvious conscious bias is the desire to sell more product.  That bias should be considered when

interpreting the results.  An unconscious

bias is that the majority of studies are done using educated, fairly prosperous

individuals from first world countries. 

Will the results be applicable to other populations?  Hard to say until we study it in those

populations.

Is the study backed by someone well known or famous?  As a general rule, if someone needs a famous

spokesperson, then I am automatically suspicious.  However, the nature of the spokesperson can

change that a bit.  If the spokesperson

is a Nobel laureate in that field, then their endorsement may have a little

more weight.  If they are an athlete,

movie star, etc… I have to ask myself, what would make them an expert in this

field they are endorsing?  Chances are

probably not much.

Question 2: How do they know?

What was their sample size? 

Sample size makes a huge difference. 

Generally, with a couple of caveats we will talk about in a second, the

larger the sample size the more we can trust it.  Have you ever had anyone who didn’t have kids

try and tell you how to raise yours? 

Their sample size is effectively zero. 

When I only had one child, I thought I was getting it figured out pretty

well.  When child number two came along,

I realized that I still didn’t know anything. In a narrow field, say treatment

for a very rare disease, a sample size of 10 or 20 might be enough.  In making general conclusions about a large

population, a sample size of 100 or even 1000 might not be enough.  Most political polls have a sample size of

~1000.  Is asking 1000 people a question

good enough to determine how the 300+ million people of the US would answer

that question?  Have you ever wondered

why so many medications are recalled for serious side-effects shortly after

they go through the long and difficult FDA approval process?  It has to do with sample size.  If the serious side-effect only happens to

1/10,000 people, a study involving 5000 people isn’t large enough to detect the

side effect.  However, when it is

released to the general public, the sample size grows dramatically, and

suddenly we start seeing many side effects never detected during the trials.  Sample size matters.

However, a large sample size can be totally invalid if it

was improperly selected.  Someone who is

In this episode, we discuss how dangerous statistics can be.  People often confuse statistics with facts, but anytime someone quotes a statistic, there are a few things you need to keep in mind.

This topic has bonus content

Thanks for joining me for another podcast.  I really appreciate all my new subscribers

and those of you that have left reviews on iTunes and other places.  As always, I appreciate both positive and constructive

suggestions. 

Today’s episode is:

Statistics: 9 common ways the numbers are lying to you

I’m not going to lie, this has been the most difficult

podcast to produce so far.  I’m not a

statistician, and trying to simplify complex statistical concepts is definitely

tricky.  I have at least 15 hours into

the production of this episode.  I hope

you enjoy it.

The content in this podcast is adapted from How to lie

with statistics by Darrell Huff.

As I mentioned in my intro podcast, statistics can actually

be quite dangerous

As a young grad student, someone much older and wiser than

me recommended I read How to lie with statistics.  It was spot on when it was first printed in

1954 and is still very relevant today

Today I am going to discuss some common pitfalls we can run

into when interpreting statistics

Statistics pitfall #1: Sampling bias

For a study to be accurate, it must faithfully represent the

population of interest.  For example, a

political telephone survey that uses only landline numbers misses a large

portion of the US population who only have cell phones.  No matter how much data a study collects, if

it doesn’t represent the group in question, it is pretty worthless.

The problem with studying humans, is that we can’t just

randomly assign people to different groups for the sake of science and so

almost all study participants self-select to some extent

This sampling bias can be conscious, or unconscious.  We can correct to some extent for conscious

bias, but unconscious bias is particularly dangerous because we often don’t

realize it is happening.

For example, when YouTube created a new video loading

feature, about 10% of videos were loaded upside down.  When they began trouble shooting why so many

users loaded them incorrectly, they discovered that most of the upside-down

videos belonged to left-handed people. 

Because of an unconscious bias towards right-handed people, the app left

out about 10% of the population. https://www.eliinc.com/five-real-world-examples-of-unconscious-bias/

Another example of self-selection bias occurred in Boston

University’s study of brain trauma in American football players.  The results of the study were widely reported

as “99% of football players had CTE” even though the researchers admitted that

the study population was biased.  How was

it biased? All of the 202 brains examined in the study were from players who

exhibited neurological symptoms while living. 

For the results of the study to be accurate to the population, brains

would have to be taken across a wide range of people who had at one point in

their life played football, not just those with symptoms.  Additionally, nearly half of the brains

In this podcast episode, we discuss cyanide. We've all seen it in the movies and maybe even heard about it in real life. We discuss some poisonings in the past and the potential for future poisonings.

Welcome back to all who have

subscribed and a special thank you for those who are joining me for the first

time. I couldn’t do the show without you and I’ve had a great time researching

the show and also getting to know some of you. 

I have some great topics planned in the near future.

Today’s episode is:

Cyanide: The reason I’m glad

I am not a spy

If you asked people to list

off the most common poisons, I’m sure cyanide would make the top 5. I’ve come

across it multiple times in my career. The most memorable incident involved 2

55 gallon drums sitting in the front yard. While one was completely full the

other was only half full because there was a hole in the top and bottom of the

barrel. A small gully led directly from that barrel to the next-door neighbor’s

yard. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

What is cyanide

So, what is cyanide? Cyanide

comes in two forms, a powder also known to chemists as the salt form, and a

gas. Cyanide is made up of the elements Carbon and Nitrogen bonded together (by

a triple bond which is unusual in the chemical world). This carbon/nitrogen

group is combined with sodium/potassium/magnesium in the powder and hydrogen in

the gas. See my show notes if you would like to see the chemical

structure. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp8.pdf

By Epop - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4300889

Cyanide and spies

Probably the most common

exposure (pun intended) people have to cyanide is in the movies where a spy is

captured. Rather than talk, the spy breaks open a false tooth, swallows the

cyanide inside.  They begin to froth at

the mouth, and die almost instantly. As far as I can discover, this is just a

Hollywood creation, but it is based on history. In May 1945, high-ranking Nazi

Heinrich Himmler swallowed a cyanide pill shortly after being captured. Many

prominent Nazis chose to end their lives this way.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cyanide-tooth-is-not-real

Historical cyanide poisonings

There is a certain poetic

justice in Nazi leadership dying from cyanide poisoning. Beginning in Sep 1941,

they killed at least a million Jews and others using a fumigant called Zyklon

B. Zyklon B is just cyanide gas trapped in an absorbent such as diatomaceous

earth. When the metal canisters it was stored in were opened, the cyanide gas

was released. https://www.thoughtco.com/zyklon-b-gas-chamber-poison-1779688

Zyklon B used by Nazis during WWII

In 1978, Jim Jones used a

concoction including cyanide to poison his followers in Jonestown. This

horrific incident left over 900 men, women and children dead. https://www.history.com/topics/crime/jonestown

There have been several other

Thanks for joining me for

this bonus podcast on what you can do to prepare for an EMP. As we discussed in

the main podcasts, the probability of a man-made EMP is unquantifiable. Should

one happen, it is likely to have severe consequences for the targeted area.

Because this will be an act of war, little may be done to assist those affected

by the event. Natural EMPs affecting our electrical grid have already occurred.

They will inevitably occur again. The unknown is to what level the world, and

your country, will be affected. During my research, I found some great articles

by individuals that had obviously spent a great deal of time thinking through

the subject. As always, their references are included in my show notes. What

level you prepare to is up to you. I expect that it will be directly correlated

to how realistic you think the threat is.

Almost 15 years ago, I spent

some time in New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina. The effects of a

natural disaster of this magnitude are pretty sobering. While there were many

heroic deeds and real admirable displays of humanity, what struck me was how

quickly society broke down. Within 12 hours of the hurricane, the expected

civilized American values were abandoned. I would never fault someone for

breaking into a store to acquire food in an emergency, but acquiring a

big-screen TV doesn’t seem to have the same sense of urgency. The complete loss

of order and the indescribable level of human filth on display at the Super

Dome was shocking. Although residents had several days warning about the

impending disaster, the vast majority did nothing to prepare. Instead, they

expected that others would take care of them after the disaster. This is a

really poor strategy. Even with pre-staging, the federal response took multiple

days and there simply weren’t enough resources to take care of everybody. The

bottom line was that if you didn’t prepare for yourself, it probably wasn’t

going to go very well for you. As a side note, the hurricane response I did to

Texas gave me a little more hope for humanity in the face of adversity.

After an EMP, the immediate

problems are going to be water. Followed shortly by food. If your water is

pumped from the ground, no electricity means no water. If your water is from

surface sources, no electricity means water purification is going to be

difficult. Finding a source of water, preferably clean is going to be

important. One source recommends having several metal buckets on hand that are

specifically made to be lowered down well casings both for water and also for

retrieving fuel from underground tanks. Along with drinking water, remember

that if your sewer system requires lift stations, things are going to get unsanitary

very quickly. If it is gravity fed, remember that without electricity, it will

soon be dumping nasties into its outlet. See my episode on hand washing for

why this is important.

Food will be rapidly become a

second priority. Preparation before an event will make this a much less

pressing problem. If this is a long-term event, having the materials and skills

to grow/harvest your own food could make all the difference. 

If your devices or home

electrical appliances still work, a generator or solar panels and batteries

would be vital in keeping them functioning as long as possible. You will also

need an inverter to power household appliances from solar. Fuel for generators

and cars is likely to be difficult to find.

Today we will be discussing

electromagnetic pulses (EMPs). EMPs can bring down our electrical grid and

potentially our way of life with it. How likely are they and how bad could it

get?

Hi everyone. Today I just

wanted to say thanks to all those that have subscribed to my podcast and for

your kind comments on iTunes. That has really made this project a lot of fun. I

have some great episodes around the corner that I can’t wait to share with you.

Today’s episode is:

Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP): When the lights go out (E8)

When I began this podcast, I

was trying to select my first ten topics. I asked my family to go through the

couple of hundred topics that I had collected and choose their top 10. Not

surprisingly, their responses were quite varied, but the one topic that was one

everybody’s list was EMPs. This may be because we have a good friend who is

heavily involved in electromagnetic research or because of the talks we’ve had

around the dinner table. 

For a second, I’d like you to

imagine a world where all school classes are canceled, grocery stores lose

their entire inventory of perishable foods, hospitals are running on generator

power, restaurants are closed, lines are rapidly forming at the few working gas

stations, and people are desperately searching for a place to charge their dying

cell phones.

Everything I’m describing has

already happened in Oct 2019 when high winds caused California PG&E to shut

off power to millions of customers. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-10/millions-without-power-pge-blackouts-california  Although the blackouts were relatively short,

the damages were estimated to be as high as 2 billion dollars https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/10/pge-power-outage-could-cost-the-california-economy-more-than-2-billion.html While I would be interested in seeing exactly how

that figure was reached, there is no doubt that it was a costly and traumatic

event.

Electro-magnetic pulse: End of the world?

I think most of us recognize

how dependent we are on electricity for our modern way of life. One of the biggest

threats to our electric grid is an EMP, or electromagnetic pulse. In Oct 2017

the EMP commission which had recently lost all funding made some dire

predictions. If you will remember, during that period North Korea wasn’t

behaving themselves very well. They predicted that North Korea could use a

short-range nuclear warhead to create an EMP capable of blacking out the

Eastern electric grid. Such an incident could shut down the entire US

electrical grid for years and potentially lead to the death of 90% of all

Americans.

They based their predictions

off of the US Starfish Prime nuclear tests in 1962 over Johnston atoll that

effected the electrical grid in HI over 800 miles away. Russian EMP tests over

Kazakhstan in the same time frame had a similar effect. They also point out

that our modern electronics are more susceptible and that destruction of just 9

key power transformers would cause long-term blackouts nationwide. https://docs.