Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from January 2005

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from January 2005

Phantom defenses, phantom foes.(Editor's Note)(Editorial)
January 1, 2005... THE MOTHER OF ALL FAITH-BASED GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS was Star Wars. It soured Republicans on science and on scientists who would explain in excruciating detail why developing a defensive umbrella to protect the United States from nuclear attack...

Just say it.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... IT WAS REFRESHING TO FINALLY HEAR someone with the courage and common sense to actually say that the U.S. military should leave Iraq ("Elephant in the Closet," November/ December 2004 Bulletin). John Isaacs skillfully illustrated the issues...

Doomsday rethought.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... I APPRECIATED "RETHINKING DOOMSDAY" (November/December 2004), but it seems that everyone is missing an important point regarding smallpox. Smallpox is a doomsday weapon, as are the other highly contagious diseases. If an epidemic were started...

Move toward midnight?(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... I'VE NOTICED THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK is still at seven minutes to midnight. Considering the mad mullahs of Iran are putting the finishing touches on their semi-clandestine nuclear bomb program and that former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi...

With a Little Boy in the back.(Little Boy- atomic bomb)
January 1, 2005... IN TODAY'S SECURITY-OBSESSED, post-9/11 era, one might think that it would be difficult to haul a convincing replica of an atomic bomb across the country. Not so, as John Coster-Mullen inadvertently proved in October 2004. "We drove a...

Better than exit polls?(Bulletins; presidential elections)
January 1, 2005... ALL THIS TALK ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION hinging on Ohio and Florida. Didn't George W. Bush and John Kerry realize that the outcome of the race depended on something other than ballot returns? Surely Karl Rove knew that it was crucial that...

Weird science.(Bulletins)(Ig Nobel prize from the Annals of Improbable Research)
January 1, 2005... HERRING NEED NOT SAY "excuse me" after passing wind. Their flatulence says it for them. Literally. Researchers say a fast repetitive tick (given the apt acronym "FRT") that expels gas from a herring's anal duct area allows it to...

It must have worked.(Bush's pre-election )(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Part of the Bush administration's pre-election playbook included efforts to counter negative war news from Iraq with a good-news campaign (Washington Post, September 30, 2004). First step: Stop distributing reports of the number of daily...

Water from nothing, or will the desert bloom?(Mesopotamian desert)(army water supply)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... The typical U.S. soldier in the Mesopotamian desert needs three to four gallons of water a day, reports Noah Shachtman (Wired News, September 22). Delivering that much water to an army is a serious drain on resources. So the Defense Advanced...

From pinecones no less.(biomimetic product)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... If American soldiers stay in the Iraqi desert long enough, perhaps they'll one day benefit from a biomimetic product--a new type of smart clothing. On October 4, the British Information Services issued a press release describing a joint...

Party time?(Transportation Security Administration 2003 awards ceremony)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) doled out the dollars for its employees at a November 2003 awards ceremony, spending $500 on cheese displays, $81,000 on honorary plaques, $1,500 on three balloon arches, and $5,000 on official...

So bioremediate, already.(nuclear weapons research)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... All kinds of experiments have been conducted to see what plants are best at taking up radioactive contamination in the soil near Chernobyl or at sites where nuclear weapons have been tested. The latest such experiment was announced in a...

And substituting for the Joint Strike Fighter ...(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... The air force is making news with the revelation that it spent $25,000 for a report that urged an additional $7.5 million be spent on research into telekinesis--psychic teleportation--the moving of men or objects through sheer concentrated...

German uranium? Geranium?(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Forget the Manhattan Project and the nascent U.S. weapons complex, says author Carter Hydrick (Utah's Daily Herald, November 18). His new book Critical Mass: How Nazi Germany Surrendered Enriched Uranium for the United States' Atomic Bomb,...

Theodore Taylor.(Bulletins)(obituary)(Obituary)
January 1, 2005... THEODORE TAYLOR, THE father of the miniature atomic bomb and a self-professed "nuclear dropout," died on October 28, 2004 of heart disease. He was 79. Taylor's unique role in the arms race began at Los Alamos in 1949. While others at Los...

Nigeria's slippery politics.(Oil industry)
January 1, 2005... HOW CLOSE IS NIGERIA, A COUNTRY of 137 million, to civil war? And what, if anything, can the United States do to prevent chaos in this poor but oil-rich nation? Having lived in Nigeria from 1964 to 1967, when the Biafra region seceded and...

Democracy stalled?(Kyrgyzstan)
January 1, 2005... ALMOST 14 YEARS AFTER ITS INDEPENDENCE from the Soviet Union, the tiny Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan is struggling with challenges to its democratic growth, including the expansion of Islamic extremism and an increase in terrorist...

Blind in Baghdad: how much harm has been done by an administration that refuses to abandon wishful thinking about the conflict in Iraq?(Opinions)
January 1, 2005... LAST NOVEMBER THE UNITED STATES BEGAN ITS pre-Iraqi election offensive with a full-scale assault on Falluja, then said to be the center of the resistance to the coalition occupation and the Iraqi interim government. With newly trained Iraqi...

Opportunity lost: a stunning loss on November 2 means congressional Democrats must play defense on arms control--they had hoped to run the show.
January 1, 2005... THE 2004 ELECTIONS WERE A DISASTER FOR DEMOCRATS. Most Democrats expected Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to win a narrow victory, but he lost the popular vote 51 to 48 percent. And because he lost Ohio by about 140,000 votes, he lost the...

What's the deal at Manta? The United States said it would restrict its activities at Manta to anti-drug efforts--so why is it messing with migrants and more?(Ecuador)
January 1, 2005... LOCATED IN A RUNDOWN barrio in the Ecuadorian port city of Manta, the Santa Margarita daycare center is indistinguishable from the other unpainted cement block buildings that surround it. Its roof is composed of the ubiquitous rusting zinc...

Founder and father: Eugene Rabinowitch was a true Renaissance man--a member of the Manhattan Project, an outstanding thinker, scientist, and writer. And 60 years ago he founded the Bulletin.
January 1, 2005... EUGENE RABINOWITCH, MY FATHER, WAS A world-class scientist and editor, as well as a talented teacher, journalist, and poet. Yet, he was much more than that. His life was forever changed by his service as a senior chemist and section chief on...

Minority report.(The Center Spread)
January 1, 2005... As 1945 dawned, the scientists at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago discovered their portion of the Manhattan Project coming to an end. While those at Los Alamos worked nonstop, the Chicago scientists' duties dwindled. Spare time became...

South Korea's nuclear surprise: as more and more countries adopt the IAEA's Additional Protocol, all kinds of nuclear secrets will come spilling out. Currently under microscope: South Korea.(International Atomic Energy Agency)
January 1, 2005... LAST FALL, UNDER PRESSURE FROM THE INTERNATIONAL Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), South Korea publicly disclosed its past secret nuclear research activities, revealing that it had conducted chemical uranium enrichment from 1979 to 1981, separated...

The bait-and-switch cleanup: energy's version of a cleanup at Rocky Flats hasn't measured up to local demands. But it's the neighbors who have to live with the consequences.(Rocky Flats)
January 1, 2005... AFTER THE ROCKY FLATS NUCLEAR FACILITY cleanup is complete, most of the 6,500-acre site, located 16 miles from downtown Denver, will be handed over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to be maintained as a National Wildlife Refuge. Had the...

Nuclear security: attitude check: keeping nuclear facilities secure takes more than a few fences and guards. A new mind-set and culture are also needed.
January 1, 2005... THE IMPORTANCE OF PROTECTING NUCLEAR POWER plants, laboratories, and other facilities can hardly be overstated, especially in light of increased threats of terrorism. But the two principal components of nuclear facility security--the...

Not one claim was true.(Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War )(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War By John Prados New Press, 2004 384 pages; $17.95 As GEORGE W. BUSH AND DICK CHENEY lower their hands after being sworn in for their second terms, they will be smiling. And with...

The nostalgia trap.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Atomic Culture: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Scott C. Zeman and Michael A. Amundson, editors University Press of Colorado, 2004 200 pages; $22.95 STUDENTS OF THE IMPACT OF NUCLEAR weapons on American culture confront...

Don't sweat the suitcase.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Osama's Revenge: The Next 9/11--What the Media and the Government Haven't Told You By Paul L. Williams Prometheus Books, 2004 261 pages; $25 IN OSAMA'S REVENGE, PAUL L. WILLIAMS asserts not only that Al Qaeda bought "suitcase bombs"--small...

The tools but not the will.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Transparency in Nuclear Warheads and Materials: The Political and Technical Dimensions Edited by Nicholas Zarimpas Oxford University Press, 2003 296 pages; $70 IF IRREVERSIBLE NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT is to be achieved, the devil will certainly...

U.S. nuclear forces, 2005.(NRDC Nuclear Notebook)
January 1, 2005... WE ESTIMATE THAT AS OF JANUARY 2005 there are approximately 5,300 operational nuclear warheads in the U.S. stockpile, including 4,530 strategic warheads and 780 non-strategic warheads. Almost 5,000 additional warheads have been retained in the...

Time of delusion.(And another thing ...)
January 1, 2005... WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR THE REELECTION OF GEORGE W. Bush, a man who by nearly every objective measure has had one of the most spectacularly unsuccessful presidencies of modern times? A look at exit poll data on what was uppermost in the minds of...