If You Think The Threat Of Nuclear War Went Away, There's Something You Should Know

Almost a quarter of a century has passed since the end of the Cold War, and these days people who worry about the end of the world as we know it seem to focus more on global warming than on nuclear war.

But the nuclear threat hasn't gone away--far from it.

As Dr. Kennette Benedict (right), executive director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said in a recent interview with HuffPost's senior science editor, David Freeman, the U.S. and Russia have more than 16,000 nuclear weapons pointed at each other--all essentially trigger-ready.

"We are still prepared to launch a nuclear war every minute of every day," Benedict said. "And I don’t think people are at all aware of that."

Click on the podcast above to hear the full interview about the continuing risk, and what is being done to curb nuclear proliferation and reduce the number of nukes worldwide.