Irène Joliot-Curie was a radiologist, activist and politician as well as the daughter of two of the world’s most famous scientists: Marie and Pierre Curie. Along with her husband, Frédéric, she discovered the first-ever artificially created radioactive atoms, paving the way for innumerable medical advances, especially in the fight against cancer. “Without the love of […]
Marie Curie was a pioneer of modern science. Despite a career that was physically demanding and ultimately fatal, she discovered polonium and radium, championed the use of radiation in medicine and fundamentally changed the understanding of radioactivity. Marie Curie was born Marie Skłodowska in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, to a family of teachers who believed […]
Everyone knows how dangerous nuclear energy can be. No so long ago, the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011 caused three meltdowns and the release of radioactive material the next day. Time will tell whether cancer cases and deaths from radiation exposure following the […]
Iodine-131 and cesium-134/137 are radioactive isotopes that have been released from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant as a consequence of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. Large amounts of this radioactive material have gone into the Pacific Ocean. That’s the bad news. The good news is that scientists at the University of Tsukuba in the Kantō […]
