Meltdown

Drones are swarming battlefields in Ukraine, Iran, and beyond. Drone warfare is cheap, efficient, autonomous — and changing warfare forever. Today on the show, the past, present and future of battle by remote control. This episode originally published in 2021 and has been updated ...  Show more

A glimpse into life during the Great Depression from the people that lived it.To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and ...  Show more

Disasters don’t just happen. Like anything in life, there’s usually a buildup. In the case of the Chernobyl disaster, the series of failures stretched back more than a decade. But what happened the day before the explosion? 

NOTE: IN THE PORTION WHERE I EXPLAIN NUCLEAR FISSION, I MIX UP NUCLEI AND NEUTRON! I realised this post editing but I think it generally makes sense, but when I explain how the nuclei is hit, I say it releases a nuclei, it actually releases a neutron, the neutron then hits the ne ...  Show more

In 2011, Japan was hit by the worst earthquake in the country’s history. Enormous tremors caused devastation all throughout Japan, and the tsunami that followed wreaked further havoc. But the damage didn’t end there. 200 km north of Tokyo, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plan ...  Show more

It's the worst accident in US commercial nuclear power history. In March 1979, the Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island nuclear generating station came half an hour from full meltdown. Two days later, an explosive bubble of hydrogen gas was found in the reactor.

To ta ...