Nature's Nuclear Reactors: A 1.7-Billion-Year Mystery

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "Nature's Nuclear Reactors: A 1.7-Billion-Year Mystery"

🎤 Speaker: Dr. Griffen Latimer

Join us for a mind-bending journey into one of the strangest discoveries in Earth’s history: natural nuclear reactors that powered themselves 1.7 billion years ago.

In the 1970s, French scientists analyzing uranium from a mine in Gabon found something impossible—a shortage of U-235 that could only be explained if a nuclear reactor had already burned it. Further investigation revealed that, by an extraordinary coincidence, the geology, uranium content, and groundwater at the site created conditions nearly identical to a man-made reactor core, allowing sustained fission long before humans existed (no aliens required).

Dr. Griffen Latimer will explain the basics of nuclear fission, how reactors work, and how this ancient phenomenon reshaped our understanding of nuclear science. He’ll connect this discovery to modern reactor design, nuclear forensics, and what it teaches us about safely storing nuclear waste for millennia.

Dr. Latimer is a Senior Engineer at Kairos Power, focused on advanced fission reactors. He earned his PhD in Nuclear Engineering at Oregon State University, where he researched reactor thermal hydraulics and operated the university research reactor.

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Agenda

6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

6:55 PM – Host introduction

7:00 PM – Lecture begins

7:45 PM – Audience Q&A

8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

8:30 PM – Wrap up.