Nuclear Bombs

Science

What Are Those Smoke Columns Around Nuclear Bomb Tests?

6:00AM November 4, 2011 | Jesus Diaz

This video shows part of a nuclear blast test. Notice those parallel smoke trails? They are present in many other nuclear test images and videos, but they are not created by the blast itself. What are they? More »

This It How It Feels To Be Under A Nuclear Attack

4:00PM August 6, 2010 | Akiko Takakura and others

We’re used to seeing atomic bombs images. From afar, they even look beautiful. But when one explodes near you, that immaculate light will burn your skin and make you bleed spontaneously. Sixty-five years ago today, this is how that felt. More »

Gadgets

100 Years Of Failure: 10 Technologies We Were Promised But Never Got

6:00AM December 11, 2009 | Paul Milo

In Your Flying Car Awaits, author Paul Milo discusses “robot butlers, lunar vacations and other dead-wrong predictions of the 20th Century.” Here are 10 calamitous tech failures. Even the ones that did make it aren’t anything like the original vision. More »

Geek Out

The True, Heartbreaking Faces Of The Nuclear Era

12:04PM November 10, 2009 | Jesus Diaz

Sometimes I write about high-tech weapons. There’s something fascinating about the technological terror that humans have been developing to obliterate each other for centuries, so it’s easy to forget about the real consequences of this mad race. Warning: graphic images. More »

What Is This?

8:00AM August 31, 2009 | Jesus Diaz

Looking at the scale—compared to the tiny humans on the ground—and the strange external machinery attached to it, I thought this was part of some kind of huge experimental rocket. I was wrong, but kind of close. More »

How Many Nukes Will It Take To Instantly Annihilate Humanity?

2:00PM August 29, 2009 | Jesus Diaz

Forget about nuclear winter. Humans are resilient. We will survive. So how many nukes will it take to destroy every single human being in the planet, on first blast? Here’s the calculation in graphic form—with a surprising answer. More »