TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. – Off the coast of Georgia, a massive bomb potentially sits in the water after having been flown out from Florida decades prior.

According to NPR, the whole incident began in 1958 when a B-47 bomber plane took off from Homestead AFB in Florida with the 7,600-pound nuclear bomb in tow, heading out to meet up with another bomber for a training exercise.

HOW DID IT HAPPEN?

The plan was to reportedly simulate an attack on the Soviet Union as part of the exercise, and everything was going well — until another training mission mistakenly crashed into the B-47 carrying the bomb.

As a result, the pilot chose to let loose the bomb over the water off Tybee Island in Georgia before making an emergency landing in a nearby swamp.

The bomb didn’t go off even after dropping into the ocean below, though that could be because the nuclear material needed to set such bombs off was typically kept separate from the weapon until it was needed, the BBC reports.

DID THEY FIND IT?

Federal officials spent over two weeks searching for the bomb in the aftermath, but it was ultimately determined to be irretrievable.

While a receipt written by the pilot shows that the necessary capsule wasn’t added to the bomb before the training exercise — meaning it wouldn’t be at a huge risk of detonation — other federal officials have claimed otherwise, such as a former Assistant Secretary of Defense W.J. Howard, who claimed that the bomb was “complete.”

“He concluded that despite our best efforts, the possibility of an accidental nuclear explosion still existed,” a declassified report reads.

Nowadays, the bomb is thought to be covered by several feet of silt on the seabed, but if the explosives within are still intact, it could pose a major hazard to the environment. As such, federal officials have determined that it should be left undisturbed — even by further recovery attempts.

CAN AN ATOMIC BOMB GO OFF UNDERWATER?

If it’s actually off the coast of Tybee Island, then yes: the bomb can still detonate, even underwater.

In 1946, the U.S. tested an atomic bomb at the Bikini Atoll — in the Pacific Ocean far southwest of Hawaii — by suspending it below several ships filled with pigs and rats.

After it was set off underwater, nearly all of the animals died, either thanks to the initial explosion or from the radiation poisoning afterward. And the area is still irradiated to this day.

WHAT HAPPENS IF IT DETONATES?

For starters: it doesn’t appear as likely that the bomb will explode.

While Howard initially claimed the bomb was complete, a military spokesman told The Atlantic in 2001 that they’d spoken with him, and “he agreed that his memo was in error.”

But if the bomb did manage to get outfitted with a plutonium trigger and detonated, it would erupt into an explosion with a mile-wide radius — and thermal radiation reaching 10 times that distance, according to the Savannah Morning News.

That would no doubt cause havoc within the immediate proximity, but on the bright side, Tybee Island is well over 100 miles (roughly a two-hour drive) from Florida’s border. This means Florida residents have little to fear from the direct impacts of such an explosion.

So you can sleep tight knowing you’re not likely to find yourself on the worse end of a nuclear weapon.

That being said, there are still plenty of other scary things in Florida to keep you up at night.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The medical cannabis company Trulieve has contributed another $5 million to a campaign to allow recreational marijuana in Florida, according to a newly filed finance report. 

The company made the contribution on July 15 to the Smart & Safe Florida political committee, which is leading efforts to pass a recreational marijuana initiative on the November ballot. 

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According to a state Division of Elections database, Trulieve had contributed about $60.39 million to the committee as of July 19. 

The committee raised a total of $66.475 million in cash and nearly $129,000 in in-kind contributions, and it spent $53.963 million. 

The initiative, which will appear on the ballot as Amendment 3, says, in part, that it would allow “adults 21 years or older to possess, purchase, or use marijuana products and marijuana accessories for nonmedical personal consumption by smoking, ingestion, or otherwise.” 

Voters in 2016 passed a constitutional amendment that allowed medical marijuana.

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Florida’s mangroves act as a shield for our coasts against potential storm damage, while also serving as a home for wildlife like various types of fish and other sea creatures.

Researchers at UCF are finding ways to protect this natural barrier from a deadly disease that’s attacking them.

Melissa Deinys, an undergraduate student and researcher at the University of Central Florida, along with Jorge Pereira, a graduate research assistant are the main people behind this project.

The disease that is harming these trees is not named but scientists have been calling it “Mangrove CNP.” It’s caused by fungi pathogens that become deadly when activated.

The researchers are working on a “nutritional cocktail” made up of nanoparticles that would be used to strengthen the tree as well as fight off the pathogens that are causing harm.

It is estimated that there are over 600,000 acres of mangrove forests that help protect Florida’s southern coastal zone and other areas around the state, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

There are three main types of mangroves found in Florida with the most well-known being the red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle).

Deinys was in Miami in 2019 when she first identified that Mangrove CNP was causing mangrove trees to start dying.

The Marine Research Council later tested her theory and verified her findings, according to UCF.

Deinys and other groups started testing more mangroves and found that around 80% of the mangroves they sampled had tested positive for one or more of the fungi pathogens that were affecting these trees.

Most of these Fungi are dormant but get activated when the trees are exposed to certain environmental factors such as temperature changes, various insects, and other types of diseases that attack other trees and plants.

The research for this project is taking place over at the Materials Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA) center at UCF through UCF Professor Swadeshmukul Santra.

As of right now, there is no cure for Mangrove CNP, but researchers say the special nutritional cocktail is one of the best ways to help combat the disease killing off the trees.

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