Nuclear energy

Relaxing radiation safety standards could place women and children at higher risks of health issues

Whether space, health, technology or environment, here are the issues in science that the editors of Scientific American are focusing on for 2026

The site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster remains damaged, but so far, radiation levels outside the plant have not increased, according to officials

Designing nuclear-waste repositories is part engineering, part anthropology—and part mythmaking

Russian leader Vladimir Putin claimed his nation conducted a successful flight of a nuclear-powered cruise missile. Here’s how that missile might work

Inertial confinement reactors, stellarators and tokamaks each have pros and cons

The White House has now fully embraced bomb-prone nuclear fuel technology. This should stop before an arms race, atomic terrorism or even nuclear war results

Breakthroughs from two rival experiments, Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X and the Joint European Torus, suggest the elusive dream of controlled nuclear fusion may be within reach

Nuclear policy specialist David Albright explains how his organization is monitoring for damage to nuclear sites following U.S. and Israeli strikes

The decades-long struggle to find a permanent place to dispose of nuclear waste in the U.S. will continue, probably for many years to come

The U.S. leads the world in fusion energy research. It can’t squander that lead like it did with microchips

Data centers accounted for about 1.5 percent of global electricity consumption in 2024, an amount expected to double by 2030 because of AI use