Word: uranium
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...neut" remain a guarded secret, but the principles are well known to physicists. Neutron bombs are essentially small thermonuclear devices, or H-bombs, the explosive equivalent of about 1,000 tons of TNT. Unlike the earliest A-bombs, which involved the fission-or splitting-of such radioactive materials as uranium and plutonium, H-bombs work by fusing isotopes of the simplest and lightest element, hydrogen, into slightly heavier atoms of helium, although they still require a small fission "trigger" to reach the sunlike temperatures (tens of millions of degrees) required for fusion...
During private talks in the gold-carpeted presidential office in Brasilia's Planalto Palace, both leaders touched only briefly on the issues that divide them. Carter urged Brazilians to consider fueling their nuclear reactors with thorium rather than uranium. Reason: uranium-fueled reactors produce more plutonium that can readily be used in nuclear weapons than thorium-fueled reactors would produce. But Geisel seemed unpersuaded, and Carter did not press the matter. "What would it accomplish?" asked a top White House aide. "Neither side is going to change, so we might as well spend our time discussing things of mutual...
...tanks and armies." The cigar-chomping military brass must be dancing a jig of delight, detecting more support for their new toy. Meanwhile, most folks are sorely disappointed: at least another year before the Pentagon alchemists conjure up the Doomsday Machine. Now let's see...how many grams of uranium does it take to wipe out 50,000 human beings...
...achieved the ability, after ten years of experimentation, to use satellite-borne radar to track submerged submarines. Intelligence officials have dismissed speculation by some scientists that Cosmos 954's big, cylindrical nuclear power pack, a yard long and a yard thick, with its 110 lbs. of highly enriched uranium 235, was so powerful that it might actually have been part of a nuclear weapon or a hunter-killer satellite...
...fact, vaporized uranium 235 and other particles from the falling Cosmos 954 formed a radioactive cloud in the upper atmosphere that may be up to 250 miles long and is now drifting eastward...