Nature: Some ten billion dollars and two decades into the project, the proposed US nuclear waste dump at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain has hit a major and possibly decisive stumbling block: President Barack Obama has proposed eliminating all funding for scientific research on the deep-rock repository, 140 kilometres northwest of Las Vegas. As Yucca Mountain has been the United States’ only potential long-term repository since 1987, the decision once again raises the issue of what to do with the country’s high-level nuclear waste.
The finding that the Saturnian moon may host layers of icy slush instead of a global ocean could change how planetary scientists think about other icy moons as well.
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.
January 29, 2026 12:52 PM
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