Polonium’s chemical properties made it the ideal secret weapon for the assassins of Alexander Litvinenko.
A solar water heating unit on the roof of a home in Kuyasa outside Cape Town. South Africa has a long way to go to get people off the grid and onto solar heating.
Epa/Nic Bothma
Wilfred Fritz, Cape Peninsula University of Technology e Deon Kallis, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Africa is blessed with an abundance of sunshine.Given the heavy demand for energy, alternatives, such as solar, could provide solutions and help stimulate economic growth.
The average age of survivors is now 80. In five years, very few of these first-hand witnesses will be around to remember the event. Many of their stories are in danger of being lost forever.
Blowing up the desert – and people’s minds: the first atom bomb test in 1945.
US Government
The first atom bomb test seventy years ago today marks the start of a change in Americans’ thinking about radiation. On balance, our nuclear anxieties endure today.
Space weather impacts many modern-day technologies. But one of the most concerning – and least reported – space weather effects is the increased radiation exposure to passengers on commercial long-distance…
Every job comes with risk and for those who work in the nuclear power industry the long-term risk of cancer is small but significant. Last decade, research looking into the prevalence of cancer in nuclear…
Don’t be confused: here’s the difference between radiation and radioactivity.
Mob Mob
On the weekend, a tank of radioactive material leaked from the closed Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory. While this has prompted concerns about the health of the surrounding Kakadu National…
How will we know Iran will keep its side of the deal?
Otto Schade/garryknight
You may have seen yesterday that Iran has agreed to scale back its nuclear program for six months after two years of economic sanctions in an effort to halt, or at least alter the course of, its nuclear…
You can try and control it, but radiation is everywhere.
John Von Radowitz /PA
Radiation is everywhere. We catch it from the sun’s rays in the sky, and from the rocks beneath our feet. It comes from television sets, radios and mobile phones. We absorb it from certain fruits, vegetables…
Does the complexity of nuclear reactors mean they will never be safe?
EPA/TEPCO
Last week’s crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan saw radioactive water leak again from the crippled facility, raising fears that groundwater flowing into the Pacific Ocean could be contaminated…
Few countries have pushed forward with nuclear power programmes after Fukushima.
Tim Ireland/PA
Just over two years after the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in eastern Japan in March 2011, public attitudes worldwide remain hardened against nuclear power. It may have fallen from the…
The Hadron Collider was built to find the Higgs Boson but it might also help us discover better ways to treat cancer.
PA/CERN
The recent case of Neon Roberts and the legal dispute over his treatment for a brain tumour threw the spotlight on the potential risks of using radiotherapy to treat complex cancers in children. Radiotherapy…
NASA revealed this morning (AEST) that its Van Allen Probes have discovered a third, previously unknown, radiation belt around Earth. The belt appears to be transient, depending strongly on solar activity…
This is bad, but it would be a lot worse without the ozone layer.
garth.kennedy/Flickr
SAVING THE OZONE: Part three in our series exploring on the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer – dubbed “the world’s most successful environmental agreement” – explains why we…
Smart meters worldwide use conventional cell phone networks to transmit their data.
portland general
Most fairly well educated people recognise pseudoscience as bunkum when they see it — astrology, young-earth creationism, alien abduction, pyramid power … Yet some of these same people are now being sucked…
Exposure to radiation from dental x-rays has decreased in recent years.
EPA/Julian Abram Wainwright
People who received frequent dental x-rays as children could be at increased risk of developing a commonly diagnosed primary brain tumour, according to a study of almost 2,800 people. The study, published…