An ode to nuclear waste

Nuclear power is so amazing even its waste is enormously beneficial.

Frankenstein, 200 years old this year, can still be read as a relevant warning. It is a warning against modern technology. In Mary Shelley’s novel, we read about a young, intelligent scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who creates a friend for himself, but who then recoils when he sees that his creature has come to life. That creature ultimately becomes a monster that chases his inventor and kills his sister and bride. The message it impresses on many readers, then and now, is: don’t meddle with nature; don’t go too far.

Now, let’s talk about nuclear waste, considered by many as a painful accident of modern technology. What do you think when you hear that term? Do you think nuclear waste is a product of human arrogance? Do you wish we had never started with all this nuclear technology? Perhaps it makes you feel uncomfortable just to think about the fact that nuclear waste exists on this planet.

Let’s be frank: you’re a little afraid of it, aren’t you? Read more.

Rugby or football? ISOLDE reveals shape-shifting character of Mercury isotopes

An unprecedented combination of experimental nuclear physics and theoretical and computational modelling techniques has been brought together to reveal the full extent of the odd-even shape staggering of exotic mercury isotopes, and explain how it happens. The result, from an international team at the ISOLDE nuclear physics facility at CERN1, demonstrates and explains a phenomenon unique to mercury isotopes where the shape of the atomic nuclei dramatically moves between a football and rugby ball. Read more.

Early Meteorites Reveal Makeup of Solar System 4.5 Billion Years Ago

Meteorites formed during the birth of the Solar System have helped scientists pinpoint the origin of organic materials necessary for the formation of life on Earth. The finding could also help astronomers explore the possible habitability of planets in other solar systems.

Carbonaceous chondrites are meteorites created from chondritic asteroids that are as old as the Solar System. Organic-rich carbonaceous chondrites are especially rare, encompassing only a few percent of all known meteorites. They consist of the first solid materials – rocks, organics, water ice and fine grain dust – formed in the early Solar System 4.5 billion years ago. When discovered on Earth and analyzed, such meteorites can act much like a time capsule, storing essential clues and revealing information to help scientists understand how planets formed and changed over billions of years. Read more.

Quinoa farmers increase yields using nuclear-derived practices

Although it was domesticated five millennia ago, quinoa is one of those foods that was practically unknown outside of Peruvian highlands until very recently, when nutrition-conscious consumers learned of its richness in proteins, amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals. Once providing sustenance to the Inca civilization that flourished there in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, it was chosen as a food for NASA astronauts on space journeys in the twentieth century, and the United Nations declared 2013 the Year of Quinoa.

While all of this recognition is certainly positive, today’s quinoa production also faces a harsh reality in terms of the frequent droughts, soil salinity, frost, hail, wind, flooding and abiotic stress present in the Peruvian Andes that add up to reduce its productivity. Read more.

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