Radioactivity

During and after nuclear bomb tests, levels of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 spiked in the atmosphere and in our bodies. Now, researchers have used that to carbon date our immune cells, helping solve a mystery about how our immune systems age.

A team of scientists has discovered a new, stable form of plutonium – and done so by accident. The famously unstable element is tricky to transport, store and dispose of, but the find could lead to new ways to tackle those problems.

Scientists are working on a new process to produce a pair of radioisotopes of the element scandium (Sc).

​A radioactive cloud spread over Europe in late 2017. Despite official denials, all the evidence pointed to Russia. A new study tracking over 1,000 atmospheric measurements suggests an unreported nuclear accident did likely occur at the Mayak facility in the Southern Ural mountains of Russia.

It’s hard to get a clear idea of the wild early days of Earth. But a new study by researchers from the University of Adelaide raises the possibility that continents may have risen out of the sea much earlier than is currently believed, before being destroyed once again by tectonic activity.​

Researchers from ETH Zurich have refined a process that can detect modern fakes of paintings by measuring excessive levels of the isotope carbon-14 released into the atmosphere through nuclear testing in the 20th century.

Although the many experiments searching for evidence of dark matter have yet to turn up any solid proof yet, they are making other amazing discoveries. The XENON1T experiment has now revealed the longest half-life ever seen in an element, which is far, far longer than the age of the universe.

​Airthings, the company behind digital sensors that detect radon gas, has built a global map based on frequently updated data pulled from its distributed network of devices installed in customers' homes.

Nuclear batteries can last decades, but their power density is currently too low to be very practical. Now, Russian researchers have developed a new nuclear battery design based on nickel-63, which has a higher specific energy than regular, commercially-available batteries.

Thorium reactors have long been proposed as a cleaner, safer alternative to nuclear energy. Now Russian scientists propose a new thorium reactor design that can burn weapons-grade plutonium, producing power and thermal energy while disposing of nuclear waste at the same time.

Space is a very hostile place for electronics, so BAE Systems is rolling out its new RAD5545 single-board computer designed to survive the hard radiation in space while providing "exponential improvements" over the company's previous RAD750 SBC in terms of size, speed, and power-efficiency.

Much of our understanding of ancient history comes from radioisotope dating, where scientists count isotopes in a rock sample to determine its age. But a flaw in this technique may be skewing the results to seem much older than they really are, according to new research out of NC State University.