Carolyn Krause concludes her series on plutonium and Oak Ridge with this installment that focuses on Louis Slotin. She also mentions the recent history of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s latest ...

Plutonium may be the most feared and fearsome substance in the entire periodic table. It's best known as the main ingredient of atomic bombs like the infamous Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August ...

You can hold plutonium in your hand, but it has the potential to destroy entire cities. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Plutonium ...

Two histories of nuclear power can be recounted. The first is the history of the active present. It tells, amongst other things, of the technology’s evolution and role in electricity production, its ...

Revisit the heated and messy history of plutonium-238 in the above timeline, from the radioisotope's discovery and use in nuclear batteries for spacecraft to a botched CIA mission and a shortage that ...

In the early decades of the atomic age, using the enormous energy in plutonium atoms for the peaceful generation of electricity became a multibillion-dollar quest that shaped US energy research and ...

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 ...

Public health advocates say the US Navy knew for almost a year that tests had detected dangerous levels of plutonium in the air at San Francisco’s Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The Navy discovered the ...