http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/nukes http://io9.com/tag/nukes

Every now and again we encounter a retrofuturistic urban planning proposal that is equal parts whimsical and hilarious, such as the proposed million-person city spanning from New York to San Francisco. Here's something that eclipses that design in terms of comic impracticality. Behold Oscar Newman's 1969 plan to hollow out an entire, nuclear-resistant city under Manhattan. How on Earth would all of this space be made? Why, by burying nuclear weapons deep underground and detonating them, of course. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5869621&view=rss&microfeed=true

We've seen such luxury end-of-the-world residences as the Vivos doomsday shelters, but Vivos aren't the only folks pioneering fallout chic. Meet Edward Peden and Larry Hall. The former deals in selling bunkers to prospective homeowners and survivalists, whereas the latter is helming a residential development known as the Survival Condo Project... More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5856714&view=rss&microfeed=true

The electromagnetic pulse. It's the big, bad boogeyman of the electronic age where we depend on a constant stream of communication and connection. Everything stops – instantly. EMPs are often used in pop culture (particularly any time Magneto wants to take over the planet) to caused widespread destruction and to control a population by plunging them into a new Dark Age. What's the likelihood of such an event happening? Would an EMP do any damage at all? Let's take a look.

More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5847513&view=rss&microfeed=true

Sculptor Dietrich Wegner specializes in playhouses in the form of nuclear blasts. Some of them are more inviting to guests than others — for example, I wouldn't recommend scurrying up this 20-foot-tall sculpture Playhouse anytime soon. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5839385&view=rss&microfeed=true

The Dockville Music Festival in Hamburg it the host of some pretty high concept art installations, such as this subterranean tiny town. Another piece on display this year was this eerie army of radiation workers, who spent the festival forever frozen and glowing. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5835860&view=rss&microfeed=true

When emergency technicians in Fukushima attempted to cool the overheating reactor with seawater, they didn't realize they'd be enabling a set of incredibly accurate calculations that would allow researchers half a world away to calculate how bad the leak had been, and where it was going in the environment. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5832004&view=rss&microfeed=true

As part of an ongoing monitoring program, the Japanese government is measuring the radiation exposure of people near the Fukushima plant. The nuclear emergency may be largely contained, but not all of the news is good. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5816095&view=rss&microfeed=true

On May 27, 1956, The Ed Sullivan Show aired Peter and Joan Foldes' apocalyptic animation A Short Vision, thereby scarring wee viewers who had no clue they had front-row seats to doomsday. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5815788&view=rss&microfeed=true

In 1960, an enterprising inventor named Harold C. Tifft patented the "portable shield," a device that would ostensibly protect its user from radioactive fallout until help arrived. Or if help arrived. You're sporting your coffin on your back! More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5806428&view=rss&microfeed=true

In this week's "Ask a Physicist" we're going to consider an incredibly ill-conceived mission: a trip to a neutron star to extract the gooey neutrons inside. What happens next? You die. We'll find out how. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5805244&view=rss&microfeed=true

It seems that the Chernobyl reactor is sealed with a structure that will not hold. Not to worry; a new seal is being readied. But it's going to be weird. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5796512&view=rss&microfeed=true

How can we prevent another nuclear disaster from happening here in the United States? One way is to be more systematic in how we handle spent nuclear fuel. Stored nuclear waste was a huge factor in Japan's Fukushima reactor disaster. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5796084&view=rss&microfeed=true

How does humanity plan to permanently store high-level nuclear waste that can remain radioactive for several thousand years? The answer isn't as simple as digging a hole in the ground. No, geologically unique locations must first be scouted out. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5786857&view=rss&microfeed=true

Media coverage of the Japan nuclear reactor leak makes it seem like the worst kind of power plant disaster that you would ever face. But when you look at the actual statistics and history of similar disasters, nuclear power plants are not the most dangerous energy sources - even when terrible accidents happen. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5783526&view=rss&microfeed=true

Nuclear War Survival Skills, by Cresson H. Kearny, is a book that was once only available to people in the U.S. military, but now it's available to everybody for free online. Packed with all the information you need to survive a nuclear attack, it's the perfect guide for survivalists or science fiction writers trying to conjure up a world after the bomb. Keep this book around for all kinds of disasters, because it deals with everything from post-nuke communications tech to finding water. But it also has some chapters devoted to your apocalyptic comfort, too. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5773092&view=rss&microfeed=true

Yesterday we featured the equal parts horrific and boring US government job application for "nuclear war survivor." Today we're taking a look at the United States Air Force film "The Power of Decision," perhaps the only American military training movie to depict global nuclear annihilation. Cheerful stuff! More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5767130&view=rss&microfeed=true

In 1956, the US government issued this totally turgid employment application and list of job requirements for the federal position of Chief, Damage Assessment Division. What's incredible about these documents is how mind-numbingly bureaucratic and jargon-filled they are. Essentially, it was the jobholder's responsibility to not die in the nuclear blast and restructure society post-Judgment Day — no pressure or anything! Notes document-finder John Ptak: More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5766500&view=rss&microfeed=true

This is one of a series of videos made in the 1970s and 80s called Protect and Survive, to tell people how to cope with a nuclear attack on Britain and its aftermath. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5734957&view=rss&microfeed=true

In the early Sixties, you could thumb through the Yellow Pages to find a plumber, exterminator, or nuclear defense vault. Here's one such ad from the 1962 Philadelphia Yellow Pages. "Increase your chances of survival by 4,000 percent!" More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5715004&view=rss&microfeed=true

The Obama Administration has some simple advice for Americans, who could be subject to a surprise nuke attack from terrorists at any time. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5714003&view=rss&microfeed=true

The specter of nuclear holocaust has haunted humanity for more than 60 years now. Here are some of the reasons that a nuclear nightmare is the worst one of all. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5698679&view=rss&microfeed=true

This morning in Washington, DC, several former US military officers confirmed in a press conference that they had witnessed UFOs tampering with US nuclear missile control sites. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5649502&view=rss&microfeed=true

The earth formed a nuclear reactor by chance. Two billion years ago. Really. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5639503&view=rss&microfeed=true

It's been 65 years since a nuclear weapon was used in war. Yet the Doomsday Clock still stands at six minutes to midnight, and there are more than 20,000 nuclear warheads in the world. Here's where they are. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5611368&view=rss&microfeed=true

August 9 is the 65th anniversary of the day the US dropped "Fat Man" over Nagasaki. The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Archive has created a Google Earth map that documents where survivors were in relation to the blast. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5604305&view=rss&microfeed=true

65 years ago, 250 scientists working on the Manhattan Project were asked how atomic weapons should be used in the war with Japan. Now you can take the same poll, and compare your answers with theirs. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5602817&view=rss&microfeed=true

Check out that unearthly blue glow, thrumming with mysterious power. It's not a starship's engine room — it's the inside of the nuclear power plant Grundremmingen, in southern Germany. It's opened up for maintenance, allowing a rare gaze inside. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5580767&view=rss&microfeed=true

Back in the summer of 1962, the US government set off the only hydrogen bomb ever to blow up in space. Here are some newly-released images that reveal the lightshow people saw back on Earth. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5578016&view=rss&microfeed=true

This 1984 ad for Starfire Games' Global Thermonuclear War is the superlative of unfortunate. "Do you target for military, industrial, or civilian targets?" Yeesh. The worst part of all? It doesn't appear to tie in with War Games. [Modern Mechanix] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5548884&view=rss&microfeed=true

Never say that nuclear warfare is good for nothing. The dastardly criminal enterprise of counterfeiting fine wines took a major hit recently with the announcement of a new method for determining vintages that relies on atomic blasts. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5498618&view=rss&microfeed=true

It seems like we're constantly just around the corner from fusion power, and that soon it'll solve our energy woes. While we're not quite there yet, three new reports all indicate we're at least getting a little closer. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5458507&view=rss&microfeed=true

Despite its long opposition to nuclear power, the Golden State may soon be building several nuclear power plants - because they are environmentally friendly. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5456898&view=rss&microfeed=true The Hyperion Power Module Neighborhood Nuclear Reactor is the size of a hot tub and could provide power for your whole neighborhood! At least, that's what their website claims. Bill Christensen over at Technovelgy points out that other companies have claimed this before, and it came to nothing. But the desire for neighborhood nukes keeps coming back, probably because we've seen them in scifi before - most notably in Heinlein's Friday, where small "shipstones" provide enough energy for a whole space vessel. [via Technovelgy] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5083448&view=rss&microfeed=true

Did you ever wonder how the U.S. went from inventing atomic weapons in the 1940s to having a full-scale nuclear weapon industry a decade later? Ever want to visit an atomic test site? Wonder where they make weapons-grade uranium? Ponder the current state of the U.S. nuclear stockpile? Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger's recent book, A Nuclear Family Vacation, has the answers. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5016754&view=rss&microfeed=true

What do you do when you have a barn-sized pile of nuclear waste materials that you have to store for 100 years while it loses its toxicity? In the Netherlands, the answer was to stick it inside a giant art project: specifically, this orange building called the Habog Facility, covered in physics formulas by Einstein and Planck. Every twenty years, the building will be repainted in a lighter color to symbolize the slowly decaying radiation in the waste. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=389817&view=rss&microfeed=true Apparently being zapped by a zillion DNA-mutating, radioactive particles from a nuclear power source isn't all bad. National Geographic reports that two major nuclear accident areas — the bomb-testing area around the Bikini Atoll and the regions around the Chernobyl meltdown — are starting to bounce back. The biosphere can survive nuclear radiation, apparently. According to Environmental Graffiti, "Edward Calabrese, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, claims that radiation may fall into a concept called hormesis: poisons that are lethal at high doses, are beneficial in low ones." Or, as another scientist put it, the life forms that don't die from radiation just grow stronger. [Environmental Graffiti] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=381178&view=rss&microfeed=true

Must-see movies are futuristic classics that shouldn't be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That's why we've rated them 1-5 on the patented "crunchy goodness" scale. Written by James Rocchi. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=305895&view=rss&microfeed=true

Must-see movies are futuristic classics that shouldn't be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That's why we've rated them 1-5 on the patented "crunchy goodness" scale. Written by Jason Shankel. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=305407&view=rss&microfeed=true