53 Items Tagged

Radioactive

Uravan, Colorado

Uravan

Only a few signs remain of the buried Colorado mining town that supplied the uranium for the first atomic bomb.

Specimens in the "wet archive" were known primarily by number.

The Saga of Midori Naka

How and why the harvested body parts of atomic bomb victims spent decades abroad before being returned to Hiroshima.

Colin Dickey September 24, 2020

Ubiquitous throughout the USSR, Palaces of Culture, such as this one in Pogonnoe, were used to host theater, concerts, and films. The events usually contained explicit Soviet political messages.

Exploring Chernobyl's Imprint on Neighboring Belarus

The Polesie State Radioecological Reserve is close to Ukraine's Exclusion Zone, but a world away.

Darmon Richter September 22, 2020

The shore of Dead Horse Bay, photographed in 2015, is known for its trash.

New York's Favorite Trash-Strewn Beach Is a Wee Bit Radioactive

The National Park Service has closed a portion of Dead Horse Bay.

Jessica Leigh Hester August 20, 2020

Japan's charismatic raccoon dogs are back in business. Only wild boars are appearing in greater numbers.

9 Years Later, Furry Friends—and Foes—Are Returning to Fukushima

Few of them seem to miss the missing humans.

Isaac Schultz January 21, 2020

Museum Uranbergbau exterior.

Bad Schlema, Germany

Museum Uranbergbau

Learn the incredible story of how an unassuming spa town was transformed into one of the world’s largest uranium mining sites.

The Chernobyl Spirits Company has produced one lone bottle of the non-radioactive spirit.

Scientists Distilled Moonshine With Rye Grown in Chernobyl's Dead Zone

The local grain tested positive for radioactivity.

Luke Fater August 12, 2019

The 1957 Stokes test, of a 19-kiloton weapon, in Nevada.

Deep in the Ocean’s Trenches, The Legacy of Nuclear Testing Lives

The discovery of "bomb carbon" miles below the surface shows how deep human impact goes.

Jonathan Carey May 14, 2019

Hotel Radium Palace.

Jáchymov, Czechia

Hotel Radium Palace

Visitors flock to the historic birthplace of radiobalneology for its therapeutic radium treatments.

The V-2 rocket (left) in the atrium of the Imperial War Museum in London.

The Most Dangerous Things You Can See in Museums

From a V-2 rocket to arsenic wallpaper.

Jessica Leigh Hester March 15, 2018

This Sitka spruce, sometimes called "The World's Loneliest Tree," contains hard evidence of humans' outsized influence on the planet.

The Island That May Hold the Key to the Beginning of the Anthropocene

A subantarctic spot off the coast of New Zealand is home to a very special tree.

Cara Giaimo March 8, 2018

A highway sign foretells the decay of the Hanford Site.

What It Took to Demolish the Most Infamous Room at the Hanford Nuclear Site

After 40 years, the spot where Harold R. McCluskey became the "Atomic Man" has finally been torn down.

Eric Grundhauser May 23, 2017

A warning sign at the site.

Parachute, Colorado

Rulison Nuclear Test Site

The site where a nuclear bomb was lowered over 8,000 feet underground and detonated as an experiment in natural gas extraction.

A shot of Fukushima from 2011.

Found: Melted Uranium Rods, Lost at Fukushima

Six years after the disaster, Tepco may have found its lost nuclear debris.

Sarah Laskow January 31, 2017

A Massive Sinkhole Dropped 200 Million Gallons of Radioactive Water Into the Ground

It's the second giant sinkhole to open at this Florida plant.

Sarah Laskow September 21, 2016

Ukraine Is Planning to Build a Massive Solar Farm at Chernobyl

Lots of gigawatts.

Erik Shilling July 28, 2016

The Experimental Nuclear Reactor Secretly Built Under the University of Chicago

Chicago Pile-1, the first reactor to reach criticality, was built under a football field.

Eric Grundhauser July 27, 2016

A deer hangs out at the Savannah River Site, just outside a nuclear reservation.

How Radioactive Animals Become Tools, Pests and Political Statements

Far from Chernobyl, turtles, rabbits and cows make nuclear cleanups an educational mess.

Cara Giaimo May 11, 2016