The Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Crisis

Confused by the fast-changing pace of events? Here are the key points to know

For starters, retrofits could make U.S. reactors safer--and maybe even make nuclear power more palatable

One of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi reactors contains a blend of uranium and plutonium fuel that may soon find use in the U.S. Does it pose more risks than standard uranium fuel?

Leaks, burst cooling pipes, faulty controls, misplaced fuel rods and engineers' warnings about design flaws have done little to slow down approvals for continued operation of the nation's aging nuclear plants

A series of major earthquakes have struck beneath the Pacific Ocean in less than a year and a half. Could the U.S. west coast be next?

Exposed fuel pools and low-pressure readings at the Fukushima Daiichi plant suggest growing hazard levels there, raising serious concerns about the course of the crisis

Aerial views of the damage at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant from March 12 to March 17 show signs of the chaotic sequence of events ranging from explosions to fires

The design, which features reinforcements at the base of a large stilted building to help prevent damage from powerful tsunamis, aims to provide a new city hall and vertical-escape shelter for 1,500 people

Even as increased levels of radiation are likely to be picked up in the U.S., experts suggest little health risk to those outside the immediate area near the damaged Fukushima nuclear facility

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine, Scientific American frequent contributor Charles Q. Choi traveled to the site and snapped these haunting images

Amid conflicting evacuation recommendations, radiation experts say that exposures to date have been relatively low outside the power plant and that people in the U.S. will not face any danger

As Japan attempts to cool overheating nuclear fuel with seawater, experts worry that the damaged spent-fuel pools pose the greatest threat

Any future discussion of nuclear power will have to take a hard look at regulation and safety, in particular the practice of storing spent nuclear fuel rods on-site

A top U.S. nuclear regulator has now given a dire assessment of Japan's nuclear crisis, saying that radiation from uncovered spent fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi plant could force emergency workers to abandon their fight to prevent meltdowns there

Scientific American's David Biello judges Fukushima to have reached Chernobyl proportions. Steve Mirsky reports

To safely enclose and robotically dismantle the 25-year-old makeshift confinement sarcophagus at Chernobyl, contractors are now erecting a massive steel structure weighing more than 29,000 metric tons

Radioactive fallout seems like the obvious culprit behind the negative medical consequences that arose after the explosion at Chernobyl, but it's hard to measure even the dosage those contaminated received, let alone link it to medical problems

Threats of explosions and dangerously high radiation doses are just some of the risks facing workers trying to avert complete meltdowns at multiple reactors in Japan

Elevated radiation levels have been detected at and around the stricken nuclear power station in Japan, but the Chernobyl accident remains far more catastrophic

As worries grow over radiation leaks at Fukushima, is it possible to gauge the immediate and lasting health effects of radiation exposure? Here's the science behind radiation sickness and other threats facing Japan