Today seems like a good time to remember Rosalind Franklin, without whom, James Watson may have never have gained the notoriety his obituaries proclaim. Bonus: she didn't use genetics as a guise to promote the kind of racist and sexist ideas Watson did.

My brilliant @ucs.org colleague Chanese Forté interviews two other brilliant folks, Dr. Jan Beyea, and @nucsafetyucs.bsky.social, on the Trump administration's moves to undermine sensible, science-based limits on radiation exposure. Team Trump seems to wants to promote nuclear power at any cost.

Any “scientifically useful” test would take years, according to Dylan Spaulding, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program. “Anything shorter than that would be nothing more than dangerous political showmanship and would not allow collection of useful data.”

Thanks to UPI for reaching out to me for this story on Trump's nuclear testing rhetoric. Its still not clear the admin understands how high the stake are. The US has everything to lose and virtually nothing to gain by returning to explosive nuclear testing.

ChatGPT and other AI chatbots cannot reliably distinguish belief from knowledge and fact, according to this new study. Seems important! www.nature.com/articles/s42...

FWIW, VADM Correll (nominee to lead USSTRATCOM) a few days ago to SASC: "Neither China or Russia has conducted a nuclear explosive test, so I’m not reading anything into it or reading anything out. To my knowledge, the last explosive nuclear testing was by North Korea, or DPRK, and that was in 2017"

“They were careless people,” Fitzgerald wrote, “they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” The symbolism is too perfect.

Excellent piece on Trump's call to resume nuclear testing in The Independent (and not just because is cites me & my @ucs.org colleague @dkspaulding.bsky.social). BLUF for Trump, as duly noted by our @nuclearban.bsky.social colleague: Melissa Park: "This is no way to win the Nobel Peace Prize."

In this piece, my colleague @gkucs.bsky.social discusses the implications and potential Chinese response to Trump's recent suggestion that the US will resume nuclear testing. China has much more to gain from testing than the US and its not clear POTUS knows this. @ucs.org #Nukesky

Murmurs from this admin about nuclear testing are not new, which is why earlier this year, we published this piece in the @thebulletin.org on why a rapid test as a show of force is a BAD, BAD idea.

Earlier this year, Nevada passed a (bipartisan!) resolution, AJR 13, opposing the resumption of nuclear testing. Nuclear testing comes with potential harms to people and the environment and NV doesn't want it. Here's what I told the state legislature about why any return to testing is a bad idea:

The president has ordered the “Department of War” to immediately resume nuclear testing. Here’s a thread on what you need to know (1/n)

The Pentagon objects to the depiction of missile defense in House of Dynamite but, according to my colleague, @lauraegrego.bsky.social, "the GMD system has not been shown to work under realistic conditions...[its] test program is like T-ball practice when the real world is major league baseball."

Funny how its so easy to say this when you're a 70 year old white male worth more than $100 billion dollars.

This piece in the @nytimes.com highlights many of the risks and challenges facing plutonium pit production that we analyzed in our recent @ucs.org report: ✨ www.ucs.org/resources/pl... The current plan is unnecessary, expensive, and risky and there are many alternatives that could increase safety

Please check out this great piece - the first by our talented Scoville Fellow, Sean Manning - on the new Netflix film "House of Dynamite" in which he shows that ".. the quest for absolute security through missile defense exacerbates the very cycle of insecurity it aims to end." Nor does it work.

"We silence so much when we tear down places that are there to teach us, inspire us, humble us. Ghosts and memories drift away in the dust, the wreckage, and we are all poorer as a result."

Some doctoral programmes in the US are admitting no students at all amid uncertainty about federal science funding go.nature.com/4o63boK

"US offers nuclear energy companies access to weapons-grade plutonium"

"Viewpoint diversity" about whether human activity is warming the planet, or whether vaccines work, is like "viewpoint diversity" about whether the sky is blue or whether the Earth is round. It falls outside the range of good faith scientific and academic discourse. #ScienceUnderSiege

No Kings

Shocking..

I spoke with USA Today for this story on impending furloughs. Nuclear weapons programs transcend administrations but lost workers may never return. The best and brightest will take opportunities in industry rather than leaving their careers at the whim of this admin’s political charades.

DOE is 'consolidating' its expert advisory committees in a move that will undoubtedly harm foresight and US competitiveness in physics and energy research. These committees identify what is (and will be) cutting edge and are led by experts in their respective fields. This admin prefers to fly blind.

Could there be a more dystopian headline? I don’t want to find out.

Well gang, it's happened: OpenAI has built a platform filled exclusively with fake, AI content. I've been playing with it for a few days, and I think it's safe to say we're basically kissing reality goodbye. Here's the story: www.npr.org/2025/10/03/n... And some thoughts 🧵

As candidate for mayor of New York City, Mamdani must make his position on extending New START limits clear. His silence on minuteman upload is deafening.

Pope Leo XIV denounced people who deny climate change today, arguing that they are contributing to the destruction of God's creation.

“What the Golden Rule symbolizes is as relevant today as in 1958 when Bigelow and his crew set out from California for the first time.” Read UCS’s @dkspaulding.bsky.social reflections as a temporary crew member aboard the recently restored boat, a symbol of anti-nuclear resistance.

You wouldn’t think the cost of a fixed-price construction contract could increase—but hundreds of NNSA’s run over, to the tune of $37.5 million just in FY23. NNSA’s construction budget is always tight so unexpected increases mean delays for other projects. www.gao.gov/products/gao... #nukesky

NNSA spends a lot of money on nuclear weapons & infrastructure. NNSA has requirements (similar to those of the Nunn-McCurdy Act) to formally notify Congress about cost overruns and assess the reasons for the overruns, but it hasn’t consistently done so. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

I recently had the privilege of crewing aboard a sailing vessel called the Golden Rule, a boat that was used to protest nuclear tests in the Pacific in 1958. This piece is a reflection on the anti-nuclear movement that the boat helped to start and a look at where we are today. Please check it out:

The program I work for, @scifri.bsky.social, is one of the programs that WNYC Studios is offering free to affected stations. Heads up, station friends!

“As unrealistic as the establishment of a nuclear weapons–free zone in Northeast Asia may seem, talking about it can be a vehicle for improving security in the region..” The latest from my colleague, @gkucs.bsky.social on prospects for a potential Trump-Kim reunion.

This is a well done documentary that highlights oft-overlooked aspects of the US atomic bombings and diverges from the 'traditional' (often inaccurate) accounts that have descended from censored records and interpretations based on US exceptionalism which ignore the most callous aspects.

What I really want to know is what Trump heard, and from whom, that got processed and spit back out as "we need Bagram air base cause it's an hour from where China makes their nukes." www.bbc.com/news/article...

The DOE has ordered a review of a key part of nuclear modernization - plutonium pit production. Here’s my take on why it (and plans for other parts of the US triad) deserve reconsideration and rescoping. At present, ambition and reality don’t align.

Even conservative thinktanks are projecting the cost of Golden Dome to be anywhere from $252 billion to $3.6 trillion over 20 years. Before the US commits itself to an unfeasible, easily defeated, false sense of security, it should be honest about the costs and capabilities.

Another good reminder that sophisticated defenses can be easily overwhelmed with very low-tech countermeasures. While this is air defense, proponents of missile defense would be wise to take note. The same truth applies.

There are no words for how stupid and unnecessarily destructive these charades are for international relations, the economy, and regional stability outside the US. The US used to be thought of as a bulwark against tyranny and instability. Now are are a catalyst.

Excellent @sciam.bsky.social Golden Dome article details the lack of information about the proposed system, the enormous amount of taxpayer $$$s it will consume (even as it fails), & the negative ramifications for US security overall: www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-...

"Rushed Approval of Tritium Venting for Los Alamos National Laboratory Ignores Public Input, Alternatives" - statement by my colleague @dkspaulding.bsky.social www.ucs.org/about/news/r...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Dylan Spaulding, dell’Union of Concerned Scientists, sottolinea che “la produzione e la gestione di pit su ampia scala, non è necessaria adesso”... I sound so much better in Italian!

A new report from @mknight.bsky.social at @scientistsorg.bsky.social explores the issue of presidential 'sole authority' to launch nuclear weapons. "Sole authority appears like a dangerous toy in the hands of unstable, unreliable, or erratic presidents." Its high time we got rid of it.

And now this admission from Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, Lt. Gen. Andrew Gebara: 🚩 "pit production is not a “critical path,” meaning it is a program that has more flexibility, for the nation’s nuclear capabilities."🚩 EXACTLY.

Thanks, @winkie.bsky.social at @usatoday.com for reporting on our analysis of plutonium pit production. Lots to unpack here, so here's a short thread (1/n)

@dkspaulding.bsky.social, 'a nuclear security expert for the @ucs.org, argued in a May report that NNSA's two-site approach for pit production is "questionable" and has unnecessarily driven up costs for reasons that are "likely more political than technical."'

Environmental justice (EJ) is about fairness and access to a healthy and safe environment for all people. The Trump administration has disrupted and disbanded EJ initiatives including funding, research, and projects. Yet, this important work has and must continue. 🧵