Nuclear weapons

American military engineers designed the GBU-57/B bomb to devastate deeply buried bunkers without radioactive fallout. It’s the only nonnuclear weapon that can reach Iran’s hardest target

When Israeli aircraft recently struck a uranium-enrichment complex in the nation, Iran could have been days away from achieving “breakout,” the ability to quickly turn “yellowcake” uranium into bomb-grade fuel, with its new high-speed centrifuges

Surveys show that how nuclear strike options are presented strongly influences the decision a president may make

The White House’s $175-billion plan to protect the U.S. from nuclear annihilation will probably cost much more—and deliver far less—than has been claimed, says nuclear arms expert Jeffrey Lewis

The U.S. needs to set an example for the rest of the world by taking our nuclear missiles off hair-trigger alert and negotiating a reduction of our arsenal

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

Researchers have found an environmentally safer way to extract the lithium 6 needed to create fuel for nuclear fusion reactors. The new approach doesn’t require toxic mercury, as conventional methods do

Proposed U.S. space defenses against hypersonic nuclear missiles are unnecessary, impractical and would trigger a dangerous new arms race

DOGE’s Elon Musk should turn his $2-trillion hatchet to wasteful and perilous U.S. nuclear weapons modernization plans

Unless we pursue AI carefully, the Nobel committee will one day give a Peace Prize to the people cleaning up its terrible consequences, just as it did with nuclear physics

It is difficult to disentangle Russian and Chinese scientists from international science cooperation. That is a good thing

The outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election could reshape policies from health care at home to nuclear proliferation abroad