Radiocarbon dating is a valuable tool for the forensic examination of human remains in answering questions as to whether the remains are of forensic or medico-legal interest or archaeological in date. The technique is also potentially capable of providing the year of birth and/or death of an individual. Atmospheric radiocarbon levels are currently enhanced relative to the natural level due to t...

Up until recently, Canada produced approximately half the world’s supply of molybdenum-99, and the US imported approximately 50% to 80% of its supply from Canada. In 2008, there were no facilities in the US manufacturing molybdenum-99. Global efforts to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons and deter terrorism are believed, in part, to account for the lack of medical isotope production fa...

It is remarkable that the most recent nuclear test explosion, by North Korea (2006 October 9), although quite small, was well-detected teleseismically. We describe how this event was promptly identified as an explosion and not an earthquake, on the basis of regionally recorded signals, in a region that apparently would have permitted such identification even if the test had been much smaller. T...

Nuclear power holds the promise of a sustainable, affordable, carbon-friendly source of energy for the twenty-first century on a scale that can help meet the world's growing need for energy and slow the pace of global climate change. However, a global expansion of nuclear power also poses significant challenges. Nuclear power must be economically competitive, safe, and secure; its waste must be...

By ‘unobservable’ Godfrey-Smith means ‘not directly accessible to our senses.’ In such cases, philosophers of science distinguish the observable from the detectable. In science we work with models, conceptual representations of real things and processes.[2] When the object of study is not directly accessible to our senses, we also have to make a distinction between what is observable and what i...

Behavioral science provides useful ideas about how programs of mass communication and community participation can produce synergistic influences on the lifestyles and policy decisions of populations and their representatives. Media campaigns featuring real-life behavior models and community networks mobilized to promote behavior change provide a theoretically sound paradigm for community-level ...

The speciation of plutonium in Arctic waters sampled on the northwest Greenland shelf in August 1997 is discussed in this paper. Specifically, we report the results of analyses carried out on seawater sampled (a) close to the Thule air base where, in 1968, a US military aircraft carrying four nuclear weapons crashed on sea ice, releasing kilogram quantities of plutonium to the snow pack and und...

This article examines whether recent changes in the security environment, including North Korea’s nuclear test of October 2006, are driving Japan to consider the acquisition of its own nuclear deterrent. It argues that a combination of three factors have thus far sustained Japan’s nuclear restraint: (1) national identity as a non-nuclear weapon state, (2) commitment to global nuclear nonprolife...

his background paper explores the technical pathways by which states might acquire nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the systems to deliver them. It also assesses the level of effort, commitment, and resources required to mount such developments. The paper is a companion to the OTA report Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Assessing the Risks, which describes what nuclear...