Welcome Fall 2014 Unstable Nucleus Class!

This is our class blog, and I hope you use it as a place to post interesting, weird, disturbing, controversial, and confusing things related to nuclear energy, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons, and radiation.
We'll devote time at the start of every class to talking about what has been posted to the blog and what's been going on in the "nuclear news."  To get us started, here are a few of the news stories I'm personally interested in following this semester:

1.  "It's best not to mess with us" - so says Russian President Vladimir Putin, pointing out that "Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers" during a recent conversation with a student group.  Russia is involved in a messy and tense conflict with Ukraine right now.  What does it mean for a major nuclear power to be involved in a conflict of this kind these days?

2.  Iran... are we making progress?  Talks and agreements are ongoing between Iran and the major powers of the world about its nuclear activities.  Last year, for the first time, it looked like this might be getting somewhere, and that Iran would make some compromises in exchange for relief from some of the sanctions that have been applied in response to its nuclear activities.  Will this continue?  Meanwhile, last week Iran reportedly shot down an Israeli drone that neared an Iranian nuclear site.  Will Israel take independent action against Iran's nuclear activities?

3.  Fukushima - it's not over!  The 2011 nuclear catastrophe is far from old news.  The Fukushima reactors are still in a dangerous state and it's quite difficult to resolve the situation.  Meanwhile, we're starting to learn more about the environmental effects of the radiation releases, and there's ongoing debate about the role that nuclear energy should play in Japan's future.

4.  Nuclear waste issues in the U.S.  A few months ago, there were some alarming incidents at a nuclear waste facility in New Mexico, so we'll follow up on what happened with that.  Overall, this is a time when the U.S. is starting over in rethinking how to handle nuclear waste.  What do you think we should do with it?

That's just a few things to get us started - keep your eyes and ears out for interesting news and post it here!

Kathryn