Columns | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The science fiction effect

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:37:13 -0800

It's alive! Neurophysiology. Huddled around a warm fireplace one cold summer's night in 1816, a small group of friends decided to hold a competition to see who could write the scariest horror story. While vacationing in a villa by Lake Geneva, Switzerland, the friends spent their time reading ghost stories and discussing the exciting experiment being performed by the scientists of the day: reanimating dead matter.

New START: One year later

Kingston Reif — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:06:28 -0800

February 5 marks the one-year anniversary of the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty's (New START) entry into force. Signed by the United States and Russia in April 2010, New START caps each country's nuclear arsenal at 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 700 deployed strategic delivery vehicles (long-range missiles and bombers), and 800 deployed and non-deployed strategic launchers (long-range missile tubes on submarines, missile silos, and bombers).

An education in occupation

Hugh Gusterson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:43:43 -0800

As the last American soldiers left Iraq in December, so, too, did many of the journalists who had covered the war, leaving little in the way of media coverage of post-war Iraq.

How to prevent war with Iran

Joshua Pollack — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:03:17 -0800

The pace of events in the confrontation between Iran, Israel, and the United States has accelerated rapidly in the last few months. The mysterious destruction of an Iranian missile facility in November was followed by a new wave of US-organized sanctions against Iran's central bank.

Involuntary response

Fissile Materials Working Group — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:23:58 -0800

Earlier this month, widespread inaction on the increasing dangers posed by nuclear proliferation and climate change forced the Bulletin's Doomsday Clock to move one minute closer to midnight, indicating the mounting perils confronting humanity's survival. One factor pushing the clock forward to five minutes to midnight was the failure to ensure strict security and comprehensive international oversight for nuclear weapons and materials, which continue to accumulate in a few nations.

Energy.gov: Where information goes to die

Dawn Stover — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:38:34 -0800

We live in an Information Age. Never before have we had so much data at our fingertips, thanks to digitization and the Internet. But information is only useful if it is accessible, searchable, and intelligible.

Going viral

Laura H. Kahn — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:40:47 -0800

We've been lucky. The avian influenza (H5N1) virus that first emerged in Hong Kong in 1997 -- which killed six and caused 18 serious illnesses -- has not acquired the ability to spread easily from person to person. Virtually all of the reported cases have involved contact with infected birds or bird products.

Biological indecision

Malcolm Dando — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:35:32 -0800

The December 2011 Seventh Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in Geneva was widely expected to significantly strengthen international measures in the prohibition regime against weapons of mass destruction. After all, the review came after a series of constructive annual meetings in the second Intersessional Process (ISP) -- the meetings and actions taken throughout the five years between each review conference -- from 2007 to 2010 as well as in a number of meetings held over the last couple of years in different parts of the world.

Using microbes to fight microbes

Laura H. Kahn — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 04:57:53 -0800

There are more microorganisms in and on our bodies than human cells. In fact, scientists estimate that microorganisms outnumber human cells by 10 to 1. These microbes cover our skin, nose, mouth, and gastrointestinal and urogenital tracts. Called the "human microbiome," scientists are investigating the relationship between these microbes and disease.

Radiological materials and the Nuclear Security Summit

Fissile Materials Working Group — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:07:18 -0800

With the second Nuclear Security Summit fast approaching, it is a good moment to reflect on one of the new issues with which the Seoul summit will attempt to grapple: radiological security. The first Nuclear Security Summit in Washington focused on weapons-usable nuclear materials -- highly enriched uranium and plutonium. The rationale behind a strictly defined agenda was to attract attention to the materials that pose the gravest dangers, as they can be used in a nuclear weapon.

Climate change in 2050: Where's the beef?

Dawn Stover — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:41:37 -0800

"What will a day in the life of a Californian be like in 40 years? If the state cuts greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 -- a target mandated by a state executive order -- a person could wake up in a net-zero energy home, commute to work in a battery-powered car, work in an office with smart windows and solar panels, then return home and plug in her car to a carbon-free grid."

Nunn-Lugar: 20 years of Cooperative Threat Reduction

Kennette Benedict — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:52:27 -0800

December 12 marked the 20th anniversary of the Cooperative Threat Reduction legislation introduced by US Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar to aid Russia in dismantling its nuclear arsenal after the end of the Cold War. The program created by that initial legislation is the most significant and successful postwar effort since the German Marshall Plan helped Europe recover from World War II.

What the super committee's failure means for nuclear weapons

Kingston Reif — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:24:32 -0800

On November 21, the 12-member congressional super committee announced that it failed to approve a plan to shrink the budget deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade, triggering an automatic sequester that, if implemented, could result in reductions of $500 billion to planned defense spending over the next decade. These cuts would be in addition to the more than $450 billion in reductions the Pentagon has planned over the next decade.

Dealing with advances in science at the Seventh BTWC Review Conference

Malcolm Dando — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:46:32 -0800

Ahead of the Seventh Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) Review Conference, which will be held December 5-22 in Geneva, Switzerland, the United Nations published 26 advance papers produced by state parties to inspire serious and spirited discussion for the event -- and at least six of these papers focused on how advances in science and technology impact the BTWC and how, in the future, these advances should be considered by the stat

Why the Conference on Disarmament still matters

Fissile Materials Working Group — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:44:40 -0800

It has expanded from 10 member countries to 65, negotiated seven international nonproliferation and disarmament treaties, and next March turns 52 years old. It is the Conference on Disarmament (CD) -- the world's only disarmament negotiating forum -- and, for almost 16 years, it has stagnated in deadlock. The ongoing stalemate has led some to question the forum's utility and even to suggest conducting negotiations outside of the multilateral body in order to obtain a treaty to halt the production of fissile materials. This would be a mistake.

The myth of renewable energy

Dawn Stover — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:29:21 -0800

"Clean." "Green." What do those words mean? When President Obama talks about "clean energy," some people think of "clean coal" and low-carbon nuclear power, while others envision shiny solar panels and wind turbines. And when politicians tout "green jobs," they might just as easily be talking about employment at General Motors as at Greenpeace. "Clean" and "green" are wide open to interpretation and misappropriation; that's why they're so often mentioned in quotation marks.

Why isn't health care a US right?

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:56:31 -0800

The US Supreme Court will likely decide on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- which requires American citizens to either buy health insurance or incur a penalty -- sometime this session. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled against the law, while other appeals courts, including one in Cincinnati, have either rejected the case or upheld the law.

A democratic theory of disarmament

Kennette Benedict — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:32:01 -0800

In a recent editorial, The New York Times proposed that "All Americans need to be part of [the] discussion" to reassess "where nuclear weapons fit in today's world" and went on to suggest cuts to the US nuclear weapons budget.

Educating the life scientists

Malcolm Dando — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 20:10:31 -0700

There are increasing signs that state parties to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) realize that the lack of biosecurity awareness and education among life scientists represents a serious gap in the overall web of policies designed to prevent bioterrorism and biowarfare. Without such awareness and education, how can practicing life scientists contribute their expertise to the development and implementation of oversight systems and codes of conduct necessary to protect benignly intended work from hostile misuse?

Libya, Belarus, and dealing with dictators

Fissile Materials Working Group — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:59:14 -0700

Dealing with thuggish dictators reluctant to relinquish their stockpiles of highly enriched uranium (HEU) is a necessary component in the global effort to secure vulnerable fissile materials by 2013. Unfortunately, nuclear deals are often tentative and prone to collapse if a dictator's whims change. The successful nuclear deal with Libya and the stalled deal with Belarus are indicative of this dynamic, but it should not stop the United States and other nations from seeking deals to secure fissile materials that might otherwise be exploited by would-be nuclear terrorists.