Richard Rhodes

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Papers by Richard Rhodes

Gourmet cannibalism in New Guinea tribe

Nature, Sep 1, 1997

Sir -June Goodfield is partly right in her defence of Shirley (Glasse) Lindenbaum and Robert Glas... more Sir -June Goodfield is partly right in her defence of Shirley (Glasse) Lindenbaum and Robert Glasse's priority in identifying Fore cannibalism as the aetiological agent in the epidemic spread of kuru 1 . The facts are, however, more complicated. Before February 1966, when Gajdusek, Gibbs and Alpers reported 2 that kuru is transmissible, speculation about an aetiological agent could be no more than that -speculation. An epidemiologist at the US National Institutes of Health, Leonard Kurland, raised the possibility in a letter to Joseph Smadel, then the institutes ' associate director, in 1957 (ref. 3). Gajdusek, who was in New Guinea, as it was then called, reviewed the issue, not for the first time or the last, and rejected the possibility, as he wrote to Smadel, because he could "see no sign of infection or postinfectious phenomena" 4 .

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Quantum physics: Focus like a lens, not like a laser

Nature, 2016

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Anti-nuclear bias has no place in Nature

Nature, 2020

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Aldous Huxley's nuclear dystopia at 70: Ape and Essence

Nature, 2018

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Nuclear Renewal: Common Sense about Energy

Foreign Affairs, 1994

... Nuclear renewal: Common sense about energy. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Rhodes, Ric... more

The Need for Nuclear Power

Foreign Affairs, 2000

THE WORLD needs more energy. Energy multiplies human labor, increasing productivity. It builds an... more THE WORLD needs more energy. Energy multiplies human labor, increasing productivity. It builds and lights schools, purifies water, powers farm machinery, drives sewing machines and robot assemblers, stores and moves information. World population is steadily increasing, having passed six billion in 1999. Yet one-third of that numbertwo billion people-lack access to electricity. Development depends on energy, and the alternative to development is suffering: poverty, disease, and death. Such conditions create instability and the potential for widespread violence. National security therefore requires developed nations to help increase energy production in their more populous developing counterparts. For the sake of safety as well as security, that increased energy supply should come from diverse sources. "At a global level," the British Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering estimate in a 1999 report on nuclear energy and climate change, "we can expect our consumption of energy at least to double in the next 50 years and to grow by a factor of up to five in the next 100 years as the world population increases and as people seek to improve their standards of living." Even with vigorous conservation, world energy production would have to triple by 2050 to support consumption at a mere onethird of today's U.S. per capita rate. The International Energy Agency (IEA) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) projects 65 percent growth in world energy demand by 2020, two-thirds of that coming from developing countries. "Given the levels of consumption likely in the future," the Royal Society and Royal Academy caution, "it will be an immense challenge to meet the global demand for energy without unsustainable long-term damage to the environment." That damage includes surface and air pollution and global warming. Most of the world's energy today comes from petroleum (39.5 percent), coal (24.2 percent), natural gas (22.1 percent), hydroelectric power (6.9 percent), and nuclear power (6.3 percent). Although oil and coal still dominate, their market fraction began declining decades ago. Meanwhile, natural gas and nuclear power have steadily increased their share and should continue to do so. Contrary to the assertions of antinuclear organizations, nuclear power is neither dead nor dying. France generates 79 percent of its electricity with nuclear power; Belgium, 60 percent; Sweden, 42 percent; Switzerland, 39 percent; Spain, 37 percent; Japan, 34 percent; the United Kingdom, 21 percent; and the United States (the largest producer of nuclear energy in the world), 20 percent. South Korea and China have announced ambitious plans to expand their nuclear-power capabilities-in the case of South Korea, by building 16 new plants, increasing capacity by more than l00 percent. With 434 operating reactors worldwide, nuclear power is meeting the annual electrical needs of more than a billion people. In America and around the globe, nuclear safety and efficiency have improved significantly since 1990. In 1998, unit capacity factor (the fraction of a power plant's

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