Humanity already has the technology to implement a global energy revolution.
We can now usher in a post-scarcity era while solving the most intractable problems that threaten life on Earth.

This physician has studied the Fukushima disaster for a decade—and found a surprising health threat

By Dennis Normile

One evening in June 2011, Masaharu Tsubokura went to bed and found he couldn’t close his left eye. His face was paralyzed, and for a few weeks the doctor who had spent months counseling residents displaced by a massive nuclear disaster was himself a patient.

The paralysis was temporary. But the stress that caused it has been a constant in Tsubokura’s life since he volunteered in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, days after the triple catastrophe that rocked it on 11 March 2011: a magnitude 9 earthquake, a tsunami that rose up to 40 meters, and multiple meltdowns and explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. What was meant to be a short volunteer stint giving health checks to evacuees became a career that has lasted 10 years and counting.

Read the article at sciencemag.org

Smaller, safer, cheaper: One company aims to reinvent the nuclear reactor and save a warming planet

By Adrian Cho

To a world facing the existential threat of global warming, nuclear power would appear to be a lifeline. Advocates say nuclear reactors, compact and able to deliver steady, carbon-free power, are ideal replacements for fossil fuels and a way to slash greenhouse gas emissions. However, in most of the world, the nuclear industry is in retreat. The public continues to distrust it. . .

Read the article at sciencemag.org