U.S. Prepares to Get Nuked

There's an important story in the NYT about new efforts from the U.S. national laboratories to retain and improve their ability to identify nuclear fallout. In a nutshell, any fissionable materials turned into a nuclear weapon will be composed of a specific ratio of various radionuclides, which form a sort of signature, which can be used to identify the source of the fissionable material. The problem is, naturally, that you're probably doing this after the detonation.

Comments

bad bad editors

[edrugtrader]

"U.S. Prepares to Get Nuked"

putting that as the title of an article is irresponsible and near criminal.

Re:A good invention makes this invention unnecesar

[Tackhead]

> This stuff isn't like dynamite that blows up and becomes inert. Radioactive material can take thousands of years to decay.

And that's why, after decades of above-ground nuclear tests on our own soil, we're all dead, right? Oh, wait.

Global thermonuclear exchange between USA and USSR? Yeah, probably the end of civilization.

Moslems take out one US city, US takes out the Middle East? The only civilization that ends in that scenario is the one that believes in infibulation and worshipping a fucking meteorite fragment. I can live with that.

For what it's worth, I woke up on 9/11 to see the "live" pictures of 5-10-minutes after-both-towers-collapsed Manhattan, with entire island covered in smoke and ash, and the first thought that crossed my mind (after "WTF?") was that a low-yield tac-nuke had been used.

(Considering the kinetic energy released in the collapse of both towers, I was pretty close to the truth :)

Re:Nuked not

[tealover]

I hope you get what's coming to you.

If you haven't learned anything from Bush's Presidency, you should know this one thing:

If the U.S. get's what's coming to it, so shall you.

That's the only thing that I like about Bush. If America gets nuked, many other nations will also get nuked. WW2 will look like a picnic in comparison to the earth scorching that will go on.

If you think for a second that you will be unaffected and you'll be able to go on posting on Slashdot, you're sadly mistaken.

You'll either be dead or well on you way to a grisly death.