It’s widely known that a smoke detector is a good ionizing radiation source, as they contain a small amount of americium-241, a side product of nuclear reactors. But what about other sources? [Carl ...

After 50 years of searching, physicists have spotted the fingerprint of radioactive plutonium, revealing the secrets of this complex molecule behind nuclear weapons. Subscribe to read this story ...

IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. The discovery of nuclear fission in ...

Plutonium-239 found inside a broken, rusty safe has been shown to be of historic significance: dating from December 1944 it is the very first weapons-grade plutonium refined at the site, or anywhere ...

Update: Since publication, Jon Schwantes has discovered that a microgram sample of plutonium produced in 1942 by Glen Seaborg’s group at the University of California in Berkeley is also ...

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has reportedly decided that weapon-grade plutonium from the Cold War-era stockpile could be turned into nuclear reactor fuel. The DOE will give American companies ...

Opinions differ on whether the half ton of weapons-grade plutonium secretly shipped by the U.S. government to the Nevada National Security Site could impact residents’ health and the environment.

One of the oldest known samples of plutonium has been dug up from a waste trench in Hanford, Wash., near the now-decommissioned nuclear production site along the Columbia River. During the process of ...

The clean-up of a decommissioned US nuclear weapons plant has unearthed one of the oldest known samples of man-made plutonium. Workers found roughly half a gram of weapons-grade plutonium-239 (Pu-239) ...