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Iran steps towards nuclear weapons
Forensics
Analysis Nuclear weapons
Bacterial signature could identify suspicious stains
Iran steps towards nuclear weapons US hostility has put Iran back on a path to the bomb, which could put its activities out of sight of inspectors, says Debora MacKenzie
Clare Wilson
ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and US president Donald Trump “eyes to eyes” in a Persian newspaper
city of Bushehr, or heavy water for a nuclear reactor it was building in the city of Arak. But it prevents it stockpiling either or enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels. It also says the reactor at Arak must be redesigned to produce less of another bomb fuel, plutonium. The incentive for Iran was a lifting of trade sanctions, imposed after it was found to have covertly The reactor enriched uranium in the 2000s. building at Since the deal, the International Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has Bushehr judged Iran to have complied with nuclear its constraints. power plant But a year ago, US president Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, saying he was unhappy with it. The US reimposed trade The move was in response to US sanctions, which were levelled sanctions and threatened severe trade penalties for countries that despite Iran’s compliance with did business with Iran. Iran’s oil the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), agreed in 2015 to exports have since fallen from 2.5 million barrels a day to 1 million. limit its potential to make nuclear Now, Rouhani’s announcement weapons. The US, the EU, Russia means Iran will stop exporting and China were signatories. low-enriched uranium and heavy The JCPOA imposed an unprecedented inspections regime water. This export was mandated by the JCPOA, so Iran could on Iranian nuclear plants. This continue production without included novel monitoring exceeding caps on stockpiles. technology that could severely The build-up of the materials limit the spread of the bomb. won’t immediately violate the The deal doesn’t stop Iran JCPOA. But Rouhani added that if making enriched uranium to fuel after 60 days EU countries hadn’t its nuclear power plant, near the THE most ambitious effort ever to peacefully stop a country getting a nuclear bomb hangs by a thread. On 8 May, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani announced that his country would start stockpiling low-enriched uranium and heavy water – a potential step towards building nuclear weapons.
MAJID ASGARIPOUR/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK
SMALL splatters and stains at crime scenes can sometimes be hard to identify, but the unique combination of bacteria they contain may help. Large splashes of blood at a crime scene can be self-evident, but investigators sometimes need to work out if tiny stains are significant. “If you see something that looks like a trace, you want to know if it’s important,” says Natasha Arora at the Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine in Switzerland. Now Arora and her colleagues have found that the microbes in small traces of body fluids can persist in a room for at least 30 days. This could lead to new ways to tell if crime scene stains are blood or faeces, for instance, says Arora. Previous work has shown that different parts of the body have distinctive communities of bacteria, viruses and fungi. So Arora’s team swabbed different body fluids and skin, to see if their microbial mix would still be distinguishable after being exposed to air for a month. “If you go to a crime scene and you find traces, they’re not generally completely fresh,” says Arora. The researchers took multiple samples of blood, menstrual blood, semen, vaginal fluid, saliva and skin, and placed the swabs on a high shelf in a frequently used room in their lab. To identify the bacteria present, they analysed the genetic material on the swabs at the beginning and end of the month. The ordinary blood sample yielded little usable data, probably because blood doesn’t normally contain many bacteria. The team also couldn’t tell the difference between vaginal fluid and menstrual blood on the basis of microbes. But the other swabs could mostly be distinguished, whether the sample was fresh or a month old (Forensic Science International: Genetics, doi.org/c5pb). ❚
found a way for its banks and importers to do business with Iran without suffering US sanctions, Iran will start enriching uranium further towards weapons grade – and build Arak to existing plans. That will be the end of the JCPOA, as Iran resumes its path to a bomb. We may not even know if it does. The JCPOA provides three levels of safeguards in Iran. It gets the standard inspections the IAEA does in all countries with nuclear plants; additional inspections agreed in 1997 and voluntary for IAEA member states; and extra, unprecedented inspections, including continuous monitoring using novel technology. James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC says that without the JCPOA, Iran gets only the basic inspections – which it has successfully evaded in the past. Without extra inspections, the IAEA cannot draw credible conclusions about the absence of undeclared activities in Iran, says Acton.
“Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal a year ago, saying he was unhappy with it” In theory, inspectors outside Iran could watch for krypton-85, a telltale gas emitted when plutonium is extracted from heavy water reactors, such as the one in Arak. But Acton isn’t even sure Iran would attempt to keep that secret. The idea of having nuclear weapons is to deter attack – and as Dr. Strangelove observed, it isn’t much of a deterrent if no one knows you have it. ❚ 18 May 2019 | New Scientist | 11
Analysis Nuclear weapons
Bacterial signature could identify suspicious stains
Iran steps towards nuclear weapons US hostility has put Iran back on a path to the bomb, which could put its activities out of sight of inspectors, says Debora MacKenzie
Clare Wilson
ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and US president Donald Trump “eyes to eyes” in a Persian newspaper
city of Bushehr, or heavy water for a nuclear reactor it was building in the city of Arak. But it prevents it stockpiling either or enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels. It also says the reactor at Arak must be redesigned to produce less of another bomb fuel, plutonium. The incentive for Iran was a lifting of trade sanctions, imposed after it was found to have covertly The reactor enriched uranium in the 2000s. building at Since the deal, the International Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has Bushehr judged Iran to have complied with nuclear its constraints. power plant But a year ago, US president Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, saying he was unhappy with it. The US reimposed trade The move was in response to US sanctions, which were levelled sanctions and threatened severe trade penalties for countries that despite Iran’s compliance with did business with Iran. Iran’s oil the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), agreed in 2015 to exports have since fallen from 2.5 million barrels a day to 1 million. limit its potential to make nuclear Now, Rouhani’s announcement weapons. The US, the EU, Russia means Iran will stop exporting and China were signatories. low-enriched uranium and heavy The JCPOA imposed an unprecedented inspections regime water. This export was mandated by the JCPOA, so Iran could on Iranian nuclear plants. This continue production without included novel monitoring exceeding caps on stockpiles. technology that could severely The build-up of the materials limit the spread of the bomb. won’t immediately violate the The deal doesn’t stop Iran JCPOA. But Rouhani added that if making enriched uranium to fuel after 60 days EU countries hadn’t its nuclear power plant, near the THE most ambitious effort ever to peacefully stop a country getting a nuclear bomb hangs by a thread. On 8 May, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani announced that his country would start stockpiling low-enriched uranium and heavy water – a potential step towards building nuclear weapons.
MAJID ASGARIPOUR/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK
SMALL splatters and stains at crime scenes can sometimes be hard to identify, but the unique combination of bacteria they contain may help. Large splashes of blood at a crime scene can be self-evident, but investigators sometimes need to work out if tiny stains are significant. “If you see something that looks like a trace, you want to know if it’s important,” says Natasha Arora at the Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine in Switzerland. Now Arora and her colleagues have found that the microbes in small traces of body fluids can persist in a room for at least 30 days. This could lead to new ways to tell if crime scene stains are blood or faeces, for instance, says Arora. Previous work has shown that different parts of the body have distinctive communities of bacteria, viruses and fungi. So Arora’s team swabbed different body fluids and skin, to see if their microbial mix would still be distinguishable after being exposed to air for a month. “If you go to a crime scene and you find traces, they’re not generally completely fresh,” says Arora. The researchers took multiple samples of blood, menstrual blood, semen, vaginal fluid, saliva and skin, and placed the swabs on a high shelf in a frequently used room in their lab. To identify the bacteria present, they analysed the genetic material on the swabs at the beginning and end of the month. The ordinary blood sample yielded little usable data, probably because blood doesn’t normally contain many bacteria. The team also couldn’t tell the difference between vaginal fluid and menstrual blood on the basis of microbes. But the other swabs could mostly be distinguished, whether the sample was fresh or a month old (Forensic Science International: Genetics, doi.org/c5pb). ❚
found a way for its banks and importers to do business with Iran without suffering US sanctions, Iran will start enriching uranium further towards weapons grade – and build Arak to existing plans. That will be the end of the JCPOA, as Iran resumes its path to a bomb. We may not even know if it does. The JCPOA provides three levels of safeguards in Iran. It gets the standard inspections the IAEA does in all countries with nuclear plants; additional inspections agreed in 1997 and voluntary for IAEA member states; and extra, unprecedented inspections, including continuous monitoring using novel technology. James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC says that without the JCPOA, Iran gets only the basic inspections – which it has successfully evaded in the past. Without extra inspections, the IAEA cannot draw credible conclusions about the absence of undeclared activities in Iran, says Acton.
“Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal a year ago, saying he was unhappy with it” In theory, inspectors outside Iran could watch for krypton-85, a telltale gas emitted when plutonium is extracted from heavy water reactors, such as the one in Arak. But Acton isn’t even sure Iran would attempt to keep that secret. The idea of having nuclear weapons is to deter attack – and as Dr. Strangelove observed, it isn’t much of a deterrent if no one knows you have it. ❚ 18 May 2019 | New Scientist | 11