DailyDirt: It's 11:57pm... Do You Know Where Your Nuclear Bombs Are?

The Doomsday Clock says it's 3 minutes to midnight -- the same time it was in 1949. Sure, plenty of people are saying we're not building new nuclear bombs, and we have some pieces of paper that say some countries (ahem, Iran) aren't going to build new nukes. But... tick tock. Are we really any safer from nuclear self-annihilation?

• The US Air Force is developing an upgrade to the B61 thermonuclear bomb" called the B61-12. This new version has improved targeting capabilities due to a tail kit assembly that has GPS functionality, and some anti-nuke folks argue that the B61-12 is more than just an upgrade. [url]
• In 1957, we were still testing nuclear weapons above ground -- with human guinea pigs (not all volunteers) at ground zero to document the effects. It's pretty amazing how little we knew about radiation and yet still pressed on with crazy dangerous experiments. [url]
• Nine nuclear powers -- the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea -- control about 16,000 nuclear weapons, down from over 60,000 during the Cold War. That's still a lot to keep track of.. not to mention the ones we've simply lost over the years. What are a measly few nuclear bombs between friends, right? [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story