A novel nuclear technology is making a comeback - but why are the researchers keeping quiet about it? There was uproar in the scientific community in 2003 when it emerged that the US military was funding research into miniature warheads based on nuclear isomers. The science behind the project was attacked and even ridiculed. Nuclear isomers are atoms with a "metastable" nucleus. Perhaps the best analogy is to consider the nucleons as snooker balls. In a normal atom, the balls are all flat on the table. In a metastable isomer, they are piled in a pyramid, ready to collapse and release energy, given the right sort of prod. Everyone agrees that nuclear isomers can store vast amounts of energy - less than is released in other nuclear reactions, but thousands of times more than chemical fuels. The question is whether the isomeric decay is random, or whether it can be triggered by interaction with an x-ray or other high-energy photon. Triggering could release an intense burst of gamma rays, lethal to both humans and electronic devices. The planned weapon was dubbed "the death ray bomb" and "the atomic hand grenade" ( US military pioneers death ray bomb , August 2003). Trigger happy Triggering of the 178m2 isomer of Hafnium was reported by Carl Collins of the University of Texas in 1999. But others, notably the Argonne National Laboratory, were not able to repeat his results. Academic opposition was intense, and a panel of scientists ur ...
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