Most spacecraft use solar panels to power their equipment — but missions to places such as the shadowed craters of the Moon or the deep Solar System can’t rely on energy from the Sun. Could nuclear fuel, with its high energy density, be a promising alternative? In this film, Nature explores the work of a
Almost since the first nuclear power plant started generating electricity in the 1950s, critics have pointed out the difficulty of safely disposing of highly radioactive spent fuel. In those days, radiation was among the few carcinogens that were recognized and could be measured easily. Cold-war anxieties amplified public fear of nuclear technologies and radiation. As
Here we develop an integrated modelling framework to project PV waste generation across 32 global regions and to quantify the environmental and economic benefits of alternative recycling strategies that will inform policy design (Extended Data Fig. 1 and Supplementary Table 3). The framework consists of three interconnected components. First, material price trajectories are generated and
If you drive to the middle of nowhere in central Texas near Cameron—population 5,300—and down a gravel road, you’ll come upon a security gate with a sign stating, “Watch out for the cows.” The warning is no hyperbole, as cattle block the road, delaying the eventual sight of a massive oil-drilling rig. A large, bearded
A lottery player who accidentally binned a €1m (£857,158) winning-ticket may be the luckiest man in Italy after refuge workers found the missing slip. The anonymous player disposed of the ticket in a shop in Bitonto, southern Italy, after checking his numbers and being told it was “non-payable”. The man only realised he threw away
According to Bishop, most people involved in review mills are seeking to boost their citation numbers. These guide university decisions around hiring, promotions and tenure, and influence university rankings and funding decisions. The more that citation numbers are used as a metric of academic success, “the more people will try to game the citations”, she
