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Nuclear Power

An illustration of Enrico Fermi and other scientists observing the first artificial nuclear reactor.

Cool Finds

The World’s First Nuclear Reactor Was Built in a Squash Court

It sat right next to University of Chicago’s football field

The light from a Naval missile test off California

Cool Finds

A Real Nuclear Apocalypse Would Be More Beautiful Than the World of ‘Fallout 4’

It would also be much, much more devastating

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Manhattan Project Sites to Be Opened to the Public

Manhattan Project Historical Park will preserve three sites from the beginning of the Atomic Age

Trending Today

Whisky Grains and Coffee Grounds Could Help Clean up Nuclear Waste

Distilleries could soon be helping save the environment as they bottle up their next batch of brown

A map of antineutrinos leaving Earth, where blue is less activity and red more

New Research

Here is a Map of Earth’s Antineutrinos

Antineutrinos are the antimatter siblings of the elusive particles called neutrinos and show up where radioactive materials decay

The crew of the Bockscar

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The Nagasaki Bombing Almost Didn’t Happen

What really happened on the mission to drop the second atomic bomb

An aerial view of part of the Idaho National Laboratory.

Tour the World’s First Nuclear Power Plant

The historic site in a remote desert is now a museum where visitors can see the instruments that made nuclear history

This fasciated flower — a White Mule’s Ear, found in Island Park, Idaho — has the same disorder found in flowers near Fukushima

Cool Finds

Don’t Freak Out Over the Funky Flowers That Appeared Near Fukushima

The odd appearance is due to a plant disorder called fasciation

The Eurasian tree sparrow is one of 30 bird species in decline around Fukushima.

Birds Are in a Tailspin Four Years After Fukushima

Like the proverbial canary in a coalmine, avian abundances may paint a grim picture of the effects of nuclear disasters on wildlife

Abandoned pool in Pripyat.

Haunting Drone Footage of Chernobyl Town

“Postcards from Pripyat, Chernobyl” shows a drone’s-eye view of the city nearly three decades after nuclear disaster

For the time being, at least, the lands near the Grand Canyon will not be converted into something resembling this uranium mine in New Mexico.

Cool Finds

The Grand Canyon Will Not Be Mined for Uranium

Uranium mining will be banned for the next 20 years on nearly 1 million acres of land near the Grand Canyon

From the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the nuclear "Football."

The Real Story of the “Football” That Follows the President Everywhere

Take a peek at the mysterious black briefcase that has accompanied every U.S. president since John F. Kennedy

A wild boar mama in Germany.

Cool Finds

Radioactive Boars Are Roaming Around Germany

The boar’s meat is too contaminated from Chernobyl’s radiation to be fit for human consumption

New Research

Even Tiny Amounts of Radioactive Food Made Caterpillars Become Abnormal Butterflies

Even a tiny amount of radioactive food can turn caterpillars into mutated butterflies

Thorax and wings of a tree bug (Pentatoma rufipes) found in 1990 in Graubünden, Switzerland, part of the Chernobyl fallout area. Hesse-Honegger notes that the right wings are disturbed and the scutellum is bent.

Art Meets Science

Chernobyl’s Bugs: The Art And Science Of Life After Nuclear Fallout

In 1986, a Swiss artist set out to document insects from regions affected by the Chernobyl disaster, and science is starting to catch up with her

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Do You Live Within 50 Miles of a Nuclear Power Plant?

A new interactive map tells you exactly how far you live from a nuclear reactor

The USS Pueblo.

Cool Finds

The Time the U.S. Nearly Nuked North Korea Over a Highjacked Spy Ship

The Pueblo incident ended peacefully, but newly unclassified documents detail President Johnson’s contingency plans

Cool Finds

This One Site in Texas Will Get Most of America’s Low-Level Nuclear Waste

As America’s nuclear plants run out their lives, decommissioning waste will be headed to Texas

In the 1940s, the Soviet Union launched an all-out espionage effort to uncover military and defense secrets from the US and Britain (Klaus Fuchs, left, and David Greenglass, right).

Spies Who Spilled Atomic Bomb Secrets

As part of the Soviet Union’s spy ring, these Americans and Britons leveraged their access to military secrets to help Russia become a nuclear power

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