#nuclear-weapons

It’s been surprisingly hard to figure out how old a whale shark is. Now scientists have gleaned clues — ones written in the the sharks’ spines. The clues are visible thanks to the radioactive residues. They were left by nuclear-weapons tests during the Cold War.

As they grow, the vertebrae of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) build up alternating stripes of opaque and see-through tissue. The process is similar to how tree trunks grow rings. Until now, scientists hadn’t known how fast those whale shark vertebrae gain a new growth band. Is it each year? Every six months? Not knowing that made it hard to gauge just how fast these sharks were growing or how long they lived.

Now researchers have measured levels of carbon-14 in the vertebrae of two whale sharks. That carbon is a radioactive isotope (energy-shedding form of the element). Both whales had lived during the 20th century. Soviet and American nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s and 1960s released that carbon-14 as fallout. Over time, it built up in Earth’s atmosphere and oceans — and in the bodies of animals that lived in the oceans. The researchers compared the amount of carbon-14 in the growth bands of whale shark vertebrae with the known carbon-14 levels in surface seawater in different years. That helped the researchers estimate when each band had formed.

You didn’t think he ever actually meant what he said, do you?

Any visit to Hiroshima inevitably confronts you with the powerful narrative of victimhood. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum tell the story of August 6, 1945 with emotional precision — a human tragedy of immense scale. And it is exactly that. But it is not the whole story. What is striking, especially from a critical perspective, is how little space is…

 Before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, doctors in the U.S. were experimenting on their people injecting them with plutonium and irradiating them. Only the people never knew or gave consent. The U.S. has tested radiation and atomic radiation on citizens for decades during the cold war. They have conducted these experiments to understand the effects of radiation and…

Why We Trust Some Nations with Nukes—and Demonize Others By Chameleon Let’s talk about the elephant in the war room: Why is it that some countries can stockpile nuclear weapons without anyone blinking, while others are sanctioned, vilified, and threatened for even thinking about it? And more controversially: Why is it that when a Muslim-majority country like Iran explores nuclear energy, the…

On February 13, 1960, France conducted its first nuclear test in the Algerian Sahara, marking a pivotal yet controversial moment in history. The test, named “Gerboise Bleue” (Blue Jerboa), was personally overseen by then-President Charles de Gaulle. The explosion, carried out on the surface, was five times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, signifying France’s entry into the…