A sampling of what's available...
The North Korean launch
What the rest of the world knows and doesn't know about the impending launch of a missile that Pyongyang says is carrying a satellite.
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Iran, Istanbul, and the future
By Thomas R. PickeringThe Iranian nuclear talks are off to a promising but indefinite start. If both sides are ready to look at win-win possibilities and move by steps and stages, there is room for progress. But it's far too soon for victory laps.
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How to succeed in Baghdad
By Lawrence J. KorbMany factors now seem to favor progress in negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. But a successful conclusion won't be reached until each side acknowledges the other's legitimate concerns.
Fearful of a nuclear Iran? The real WMD nightmare is Syria
At least six sophisticated terror organizations and Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters from Iraq are active in Syria, which has a large, sophisticated chemical weapons program and, perhaps, a biological arsenal. If the Syrian government falls, who will guard the WMD?
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Chemical weapons deconstruction deadline missed
By Alexander Kelle
To ensure a world free of chemical weapons, officials at the international, national, and local levels must avoid complacency to achieve completion.
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H5N1: Bungling dual-use governance
By Alexander Kelle
After the uproar over the planned publication and later redaction of scientists' experiments on the H5N1 virus, the clamor has shifted focus -- to questioning the virus threat, condemning the use of ferrets, ignoring the BWC, and avoiding matters of dual-use governance.
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Going viral
By Laura Kahn
Scientists recently made the deadly H5N1 influenza virus more communicable. Clearly it's time for the National Institutes of Health to have greater oversight before it funds one of the seven deadly sins of biomedical research.
Climate change and the military in China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States
National security agencies see their militaries taking on additional roles in domestic disaster relief because of the effects of global climate change. Yet they are not expressing much urgency or taking aggressive stands, in part due to the paucity of established knowledge about the connection between a warming climate and national security.
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Plastic-wrapped planet
By Laura KahnThere are billions of bits of plastic floating across hundreds of miles of ocean. Let's do something about it.
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I was wrong; natural gas will dominate
By Kurt Zenz HouseThe marginal cost of North American natural gas production is substantially lower than the marginal cost of global oil production, setting up a decade of a natural gas boom.
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Projecting power: The security implications of space-based solar power
By Leet W. WoodSpace-based solar power is a system for delivering a potentially limitless supply of clean energy to a world desperately searching for alternative fossil fuels. However, while the system offers the promise of unlimited, "green" electrical power, it also has immense potential as a geopolitical tool. This is an excerpt from the longer article that appears in the January/February issue of the Bulletin.
May/June Bulletin: Special issue on low-dose radiation risks
This special issue of the Bulletin examines what is new about the debate over radiation risk, specifically focusing on areas of agreement and disagreement, including quantitative estimates of cancer risk as a function of dose. The articles are free of charge for the month of May.
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The "new retirement" for nuclear power plants
By Dawn Stover
One of every five US nuclear power plants doesn't have enough money for retirement. Why? For the same reason that so many American senior citizens have put their dreams on hold.
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Nuclear option: The developing world weighs energy needs and security risks
Economic Development and Nuclear Disarmament Roundtable
Poorer countries require energy to grow and prosper, but will adopting nuclear power across the developing world result in weapons proliferation? In this Roundtable, experts from Brazil, India, and Malaysia discuss whether nuclear energy can contribute to growth without introducing security risks.
Web Edition
Columnists
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Profile
The Politics of Reduction
US congressional Republicans just passed legislation that will hamper implementation of New START as well as the administration's ability to make changes to the US nuclear arsenal. But this isn't a lingering Cold War hangover or an ideological battle. It's pure partisanship.
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Profile
Dream deterred
A little-noticed document reports on the failure of the latest iteration of missile defense. So why are NATO officials still harboring missile defense fantasies? And why is a disproved technological daydream creating a very real diplomatic nightmare for NATO and Russia?
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Profile
"The new retirement" for nuclear power plants
One of every five US nuclear power plants doesn't have enough money for retirement. Why? For the same reason that so many American senior citizens have put their dreams on hold.
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Profile
Could less be more?
The 2012 Nuclear Security Summit made some progress, but barriers to reform are ingrained. Luckily, there are still steps global leaders can take to ensure nuclear security past 2014.
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Profile
Chemical weapons destruction deadline missed
To ensure a world free of chemical weapons, officials at the international, national, and local levels must avoid complacency to achieve completion.
Analysis
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Technical concerns: Why Russia worries about missile defense
Ahead of NATO's summit in Chicago, Russian military experts say fast interceptor missiles in northern Europe and flexibility of design make the West's missile defense plans potentially destabilizing.
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Flight from disarmament
India's successful launch of the Agni-5 missile is just the latest display of the country's expanding defense establishment. India's intensive modernization of its nuclear weapons program is worth a closer look -- especially in light of the nation's call for disarmament.
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Does India need ICBMs?
India's latest technological success puts it on the edge of intercontinental ballistic missile capability and gives it the ability to hit Beijing. But high-tech enthusiasms might be blinding India to strategic realities.
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Negotiating with Iran: Expectations for Baghdad
Why sanctions can't be lifted until Iran has taken concrete, meaningful steps in the nuclear realm.
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Iran, Istanbul and the future
The Iranian nuclear talks are off to a promising but indefinite start. If both sides are ready to look at win-win possibilities and move by steps and stages, there is room for progress. But it's far too soon for victory laps.
Development and Disarmament Roundtable
- UPDATED: 16 April 2012
اللغة العربية | 中文 | español
Roundtables
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When politicians distort science
Recently, Rick Perry made misstatements not only about climate science -- but the scientists behind the science. How should scientists respond to such distortions? Over the upcoming weeks, Robert Socolow, Roger A. Pielke, Jr., and Randy Olson will provide authoritative, provocative analysis.
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Is nuclear energy different than other energy sources?
The question remains whether nuclear energy will expand or decline, but what is it that differentiates this energy source from others? Over the upcoming weeks, the Bulletin's experts will provide thoughtful analysis as they explore this very question.
Op-Eds
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Restarting nuclear talks with Iran: Old problems, some new hopes
If Iran shows it is serious about negotiating, the major powers might be wise to call Tehran's bluff, accept official claims that its nuclear program is peaceful and act to integrate the program into the global nuclear economy.
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A security system commensurate with the risk of nuclear terrorism
The international community needs to create a legally binding convention on nuclear security -- before terrorists exploit weaknesses in the current security regime to create and use a nuclear weapon.
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Is suspension the solution?
As North Korean and Iranian negotiations continue, the international community needs to develop new tools for ensuring that agreements to suspend nuclear enrichment are not fig leafs that hide illicit nuclear activities.
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2012 Nuclear Security Summit: What it was and wasn’t
The 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul could have been a watershed moment for nuclear security, but it was largely a review of past successes.
Special Topics
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The Fukushima Issue - In Japanese
The English-language version of the September/October issue can be found here.
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From the Bulletin archives: Selected readings on Chernobyl
The crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, has brought the past tragedies at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island into the spotlight again. To offer a more thorough understanding of Chernobyl, the Bulletin has compiled this reading list from its archives. Dating from 1945 to 1998 and 1998 to present, the Bulletin's archives are a valuable resource for those interested in additional materials.
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From the Bulletin archives: Selected readings on Three Mile Island
The nuclear crisis in Japan following the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, has brought the past tragedies at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl into the spotlight again. To offer a more thorough understanding of Three Mile Island, the Bulletin has compiled this reading list from its archives. Dating from 1945 to 1998 and 1998 to present, the Bulletin's archives are a valuable resource for those interested in additional materials.
Doomsday Clock
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The digital journal is in honor of John A Simpson, a founder of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and was made possible by a gift from the Scorpio Rising Fund and other generous donors.
Current Edition
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Thomas Homer-Dixon: Exploring the climate “mindscape”
Canadian political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon explains why human civilization must make a transition from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources -- not just because of climate concerns but also because conventional oil is declining in production and becoming increasingly difficult to extract.
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Special issue on the risks of exposure to low-level radiation
Guest editor Jan Beyea introduces the May/June issue of the Bulletin, a themed issue looking at low-level radiation risks.
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The scientific jigsaw puzzle: Fitting the pieces of the low-level radiation debate
Historically, biologic arguments and cell data, fiercely debated, were used to convert risk estimates derived from the atomic-bomb data to protracted exposures. Jan Beyea explores the new, large-scale epidemiologic studies that are directly relevant to the protracted exposures that are received from continuous decay of radioactive isotopes associated with releases from Fukushima or from the Soviet and US weapons complexes.
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Lessons from Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The most exposed and most vulnerable
Epidemiologist David Richardson analyzes the history of quantitative data used in linear non-threshold theory predictions of dose response, derived mainly from the one-time exposures of the Japanese atomic-bomb survivors.
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Principles in practice: Radiation regulation and the NRC
Terry Brock and Sami Sherbini from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission examine the role that risk estimates of health effects play in regulating nuclear power in the United States -- and that it can take many decades before scientific studies actually affect regulations.
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Unmasking the truth: The science and policy of low-dose ionizing radiation
Technical and policy analyst Gordon Thompson challenges experts and professional bodies to avoid combining debates on science and policy and to acknowledge the implication of the linear non-threshold hypothesis.
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The low-dose phenomenon: How bystander effects, genomic instability, and adaptive responses could transform cancer-risk models
Radiobiologist Colin Hill reviews the latest biological research on genomic instability, bystander effects, and adaptive response -- effects that may lead to a better understanding of responses at very low doses and also help quantify any deviations from the linear non-threshold theory.
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The social amplification of risk and low-level radiation
Social scientist Roger Kasperson writes on how individuals and social groups amplify risk as they process nuclear disasters -- and the rippling effects of their understandings.
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The perception gap: Radiation and risk
Social scientist Paul Slovic updates his classic work on the "perception gap" between expert and the general public on the health risks of radiation sources.
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Underestimating effects: Why causation probabilities need to be replaced in regulation, policy, and the law
Biostatistician Sander Greenland writes on how the misleading interpretations of low-dose epidemiologic data result in an underestimate of the full health impacts, because of failure to account for diseases with accelerated onsets.