UK plans £65m facility
The UK at present has no nuclear physics facilities of its own, and very little investment in facilities overseas. “SIRIUS would open up many opportunities in a number of areas, most notably in ...
India and Pakistan lied about nuclear tests
These latest results, according to Barker et al., indicate “high confidence” that the network being set up to monitor the CTBT can indeed verify small nuclear explosions. Concerns over the...
Secret files reveal plan to kidnap Bohr
Bohr had escaped from German-occupied Denmark in September 1943 and crossed the Atlantic to work with British and American physicists on the Manhattan atomic-bomb project at Los Alamos. However, he re...
Deuterium ‘shocked’ into metallic state
Gilbert Collins and colleagues used the NOVA laser at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to carry out the experiments (Science 281 1178). The deuterium was placed in a small copp...
Solving the plutonium problem
Russia and the US each have 50 tons of weapons-grade plutonium to dispose of by either converting it into fuel, or mixing it in with radioactive waste. At the same time, France and the UK separate 20 ...
Return to Doomsday
Some 200 Indian scientists have been brave enough to defy the widespread approval and enthusiasm for the tests inside the country by expressing their “deep dismay and unhappiness at this action ...
Review: An evening with the Bohrs
It is also brilliant theatre. The three characters – Bohr, Heisenberg and Bohr’s wife Margrethe – are on stage nearly all of the time. Notionally, they are in the Bohrs’ house,...
Fallout from nuclear tests continues
Under the CTBT, a network of seismic stations around the world is being set up to monitor the treaty and automatically send information to an International Data Centre (IDC) in Vienna, Austria. A prot...
Doomsday Clock moves closer to midnight
The Doomsday Clock was set up in 1947 by atomic scientists concerned at the growing nuclear tensions between the US and Soviet Union. Initially the clock read seven minutes to midnight, and moved to t...
Pakistan retaliates with nuclear tests
Sharif claimed on national television that the country had exploded five nuclear devices. Presently only two explosions -with 12 and 25 kiloton yields – have been confirmed by seismic monitoring...
