Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 25th, 2025

Posted: 31st December 2025

December 25, 2025

President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on December 19, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

Trump is manipulating national security to stop energy projects he doesn’t like

On Monday, the Trump Administration announced it was pausing five major offshore wind energy projects, citing “national security risks,” reports climate and water scientist Peter Gleick. Read more.

Insights from emerging experts on nuclear weapons and AI

From an explainer on A House of Dynamite to analysis on confronting Russia’s nuclear threats, submissions from rising experts to the Bulletin’s “Voices of Tomorrow” feature focused heavily on nuclear risk this year. Dawn Stoverprovides a sampling of insights from our newest voices. Read more.

Algorithms of misperception: Managing nuclear risk in an AI world

The challenge for the next decade isn’t just managing nuclear weapons, writes Héloise Fayet. “It’s managing how nuclear realities are perceived, misperceived, and twisted in the information environment.” Read more.

The 2025 nuclear year in review: Back to the Future Atomic Age

In many ways, 2025 resembled the Hollywood film Back to the Future—and not only because Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, Bulletinnuclear affairs editor François Diaz-Maurin writes in his review of the nuclear year. Read more.

The Christmas carol and the Cuban Missile Crisis

We often take Christmas carols at face value, writes film and television music historian Reba A. Wissner. But at least one holiday favorite, “Do You Hear What I Hear,” contains more than what first meets the ear. Read more.

The debate about nuclear energy must be reframed for the future

Since its inception, discussion about nuclear energy has been marked by extreme polarization and is often divorced from the lived experiences—positive and negative—of people affected by nuclear power. Aditi Verma and Katie Snyder argue for a different way of discussing the many issues around the use of nuclear energy. Read more.

Whence nuclear power in the 21st century?

Whether a nuclear renaissance actually occurs in coming decades depends on three fundamental questions, writes Bulletin Science and Security Board member Robert Rosner. Are the new designs safer than their predecessors? Do the new designs lead to changes in dealing with nuclear waste? And do these new designs raise additional (or new) questions regarding nuclear weapons proliferation? Read more.

BULLETIN EVENT

Art + Science: Harnessing the Power of Art and Storytelling

How do we harness the power of art in drawing attention to the most pressing global threats? How do we support artists in the most trying of times to tell the stories that bring us all together?

To explore these questions, join us for a virtual event featuring David Harrington, founder of the Kronos Quartet, whose music has long confronted the urgencies of social change; science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, whose work imagines social transformation through engaging, creative prose; Lovely Umayam, a nuclear policy expert rooted in activism and art; and Alexandra Bell, who is bringing the Bulletin’s long-standing devotion of arts-driven global engagement into a new era. Register here.

Art has been a part of the Bulletin for decades. In the lead-up to the event we’ll be sharing some of our favorite Bulletin cartoons and drawings from years past.

A cartoon featured in an Bulletin magazine issue in April 1980.

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