Plutonium, a radioactive element, is produced when uranium, another radioactive element, absorbs neutrons, and most of it is artificially produced, except for a small amount found in uranium ore.

The plutonium-244 hints at how heavy metals form in stars. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. A rare version of the radioactive ...

The headline that Russia has formally withdrawn from a plutonium disposal agreement with the United States sounds very ...

A team of scientists has discovered a new, stable form of plutonium – and done so by accident. The famously unstable element is tricky to transport, store and dispose of, but the find could lead to ...

For historical reasons, plutonium brings to mind nuclear weapons. Jan Hartmann brings another side of element 94 to attention, which features an upcoming trip to its eponymous celestial body.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has announced a new way to reliably make element 116, livermorium. The results, made by using a titanium beam to irradiate a sample, could point toward the ...

Scientists have reported a major advance in understanding the biological chemistry of radioactive metals, opening up new avenues of research into strategies for remedial action in the event of ...

The rare form of the element found on the Pacific seabed points to its violent birth in colliding stars. By William J. Broad Scientists studying a sample of oceanic crust retrieved from the Pacific ...

The vast majority of the radioactive plutonium on the planet is man-made—roughly 500 metric tons, or enough to make 100,000 nuclear weapons. Much of it is the legacy of the nuclear arms race between ...

In the early decades of the atomic age, using the enormous energy in plutonium atoms for the peaceful generation of electricity became a multibillion-dollar quest that shaped US energy research and ...

Between 1951 and 1992, the United States set off nearly a thousand nuclear bombs at the Nevada Test Site, an empty and awesome stretch of desert whose cratered surface resembles the face of the moon.