Today I Learned: A Collection of Facts We Didn’t Know We Needed to Know

There are about 138 Boy Scout merit badges. With that many badges, there are bound to be some wild ones. The Nuclear Science merit badge is perhaps the strangest badge that a Boy Scout can earn. To earn the badge, Boy Scouts have to do a bunch of kind of ominous, slightly terrifying things.

Boy Scouts have to build a Geiger counter, plant irradiated and nonirradiated seeds, and visit an accelerator research lab. No big deal. Overall, it’s a pretty science-centric badge that requires a lot of study and deep understanding of radiation exposure and contamination. We have a feeling this badge was created during the Cold War.