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Full Coverage In-depth coverage about Nuclear Weapons Related News Stories · U.S. Is Reviewing Aid for Russia's Nuclear Programs - Washington Post (Mar 30, 2001) · Laser Project Hits a Snag; Court Hints At Conflict - NY Times (registration req'd) (Mar 30, 2001) · Ill Uranium Miners Left Waiting as Payments for Exposure Lapse - NY Times (registration req'd) (Mar 27, 2001) · Bush Targets Russia Nuclear Programs for Cuts - Washington Post (Mar 18, 2001) · CIA steps up weapons monitoring - WorldNetDaily (Mar 14, 2001) More... Opinion & Editorials · A Step Backward on Nuclear Cooperation - NY Times (registration req'd) (Apr 11, 2001) · Effective Nuclear Disarmament - NY Times (registration req'd) (Mar 31, 2001) · Critical mass - Heritage Foundation/Townhall.com (Mar 21, 2001) More... Related Web Sites · Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: START II - analysis and text of the START II treaty. · High Energy Weapons Archive - provides current information, technical data, and informative write-ups. From the Federation of American Scientists. · Office of Declassification - Department of Energy site dedicated to implementing the Openness Initiative. Includes section on Protecting the nation's nuclear information. · Statement from Los Alamos National Laboratory - news release on review of management performance and practices in relation to the missing hard drives containing classified information. · Taking Nuclear Weapons off Hair-Trigger Alert - "it is time to end the practice of keeping nuclear missiles constantly ready to fire. This change would greatly reduce the possibility of a mistaken launch" From Scientific American, November 1997. More... Magazine Articles · Bunker? What Bunker? - NY Times Magazine (registration req'd) (Dec 3, 2000) · India▓s nuclear dilemmas - The Economist (Nov 2, 2000) · Mutually assured dysfunction - interview with Tyler Stevenson of international nuclear disarmament advocate Global Security Institute - Salon (Aug 11, 2000) More... Audio · Cuban missile crisis remembered - Fresh Air (NPR) (Jan 12, 2001) · Campaign to free Mordechai Vanunu, jailed for revealing what Israel says were important nuclear secrets - Pacifica (Sep 25, 2000) · Legacy of contamination in Kazakhstan - BBC (Jul 29, 2000) More... Video · Contamination from Kazakh nuclear test site - BBC (Jul 29, 2000) · Pakistan reprocessing fuel rods - CBS News (Mar 17, 2000) News Sources · Yahoo! News Search Related Full Coverage · Los Alamos National Laboratory · Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Yahoo! Categories · Nuclear Weapons · Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation · Nuclear Arms Race More... Wednesday April 11 2:04 PM ET New Method to Predict Plutonium Stability LONDON (Reuters) - In a finding that could lead to safer handling and storage of nuclear weapons, scientists in the United States said Wednesday they have devised a new method to predict the physical properties of plutonium. Scientists at Rutgers University in New Jersey used analytical and computer calculations to predict changes in the structure of the solid states of plutonium from a dense, unstable phase to a safer state. With stockpiles of plutonium-based weapons stored around the world, effectively predicting stability changes is of international importance. In a report in the science journal Nature, Kotliar and his colleagues Sergej Savrasov and Elihu Abrahams describe their new technique, the first in 30 years, which is a potential landmark achievement in solid-state physics. ``While the search for answers about plutonium phases generally has been through experimental methods, we employed analytical and computer calculations to predict changes in the structure of the solid states of plutonium,'' Kotliar explained. The scientists used a U.S. Department of Energy (news - web sites) supercomputer and a grid of 80 computer processors to predict the volume and stability changes between the different phases of the element. ``We are dealing with an extremely delicate balance between the two phases, and which one wins and when this happens is information that is necessary to assure the safe storage of this important material,'' Kotliar added. Plutonium, an artificial element that was made for the first time in 1940, is one of the most mysterious, toxic and dangerous substances known. It is dangerous to handle, difficult to store and impossible to dispose of. The silvery-white radioactive element occurs only rarely in nature and is produced synthetically from uranium. Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years, which means it loses only half its radioactivity over that period. Traces of plutonium in depleted uranium (DU) weapons used by NATO (news - web sites)-led forces in the Balkans have aroused fears that the armor-piercing weapons could pose a health risk but defense experts have played down any potential dangers. 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