North Korea claims its missiles (potentially nuclear?) are capable of reaching the continental United States.

(New York Times article)

 

-Kimmie

Apparently clean limitless fusion power could arrive sooner than expected, by instead of lasers, using... magnets?

-Anne

Readings for Next Week

Here we go - head first into the debate over nuclear energy!  The main reading for this week is an article from a few years ago that gives an overview of both sides of the debate.  This is a pre-Fukushima survey, but the core issues have not really changed (and, I have posted this to this blog several times by now!)

1)  Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy from a Wall Street Journal article by Michael Totty.  Notice as you are reading this that many of the "pro" arguments for nuclear energy are not actually phrased as inherent advantages of nuclear energy, but as answers to criticisms.  That still counts!

2) First few sections of the World Nuclear Society's overview on U.S. Nuclear Energy.  You don't need to read beyond where it starts talking about "consolidation."  The World Nuclear Society is a nuclear industry group, so you will see their bias in how they write about the history of U.S. nuclear power.  However, the first few sections of this summarize a few handy factual things to know about nuclear energy in the U.S.

Next week, I will start posting links to many more resources on this subject so we have a lot to discuss to evaluate what's good and bad about nuclear energy.  If you find things, post them!

those articles on the supposed spraying of cities with radioactive stuff..

... Alfredo sent this article, and I have absolutely no idea what to make of it. Do some further research and post!

http://rt.com/usa/news/us-radioactive-louis-martino-taylor-443/

I also found this long blog post with pictures and more info (not that I am sure whether to believe any of it yet...)

http://www.thetorontopost.net/2012/09/us-army-scientists-secretly-sprayed-st.html

Arafat exhumation!

The disagreements over whether and how to exhume Arafat's body to do further testing for Polonium-210 seem to have been resolved.  Two independent groups will be allowed to take samples from the grave site, one working on behalf of Arafat's widow and the other working on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.  The dates of the exhumation and the subsequent lab examinations are being kept secret, but it sure will be interesting to find out the results!

Here's a Time Magazine article on this. 

Fusion suffers another blow...

National Ignition Facility Image

Remember how I said in class that "nuclear fusion technology always seems to be 10 years off"?  A government-funded project promising new progress into fusion research, called the National Ignition Facility, has struggled to deliver.  The New York Times ran a piece this week about their struggle to explain to Congress why it's worth continuing to fund the project.  Very interesting!

You can also read more about the facility itself at:
https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/

Art authentification through radioactive fallout

Wine dating through radioactivity

Because the detonation of nuclear bombs produced isotopes that either hadn't existed on earth before, or hadn't been as abundant, the presence of, or lack of these isotopes in some materials can be used to determine their age.  For example, wine and art.

-Anne