Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 30, 2026

Posted: 30th March 2026

March 30, 2026

An image from above shows a desert landscape with a few trucks on a road A white box highlights a large flatbed truck with a blue container

A very high-resolution satellite image shows a truck loaded with 18 containers likely transporting highly enriched uranium in front of the south tunnel entrance at the Isfahan underground complex in Iran (32.585522° N, 51.814933° E) on June 9, 2025. (Credit: Bulletin / Airbus Pleiades)

Analysis: Iran likely transferred highly enriched uranium to Isfahan before the June strikes

Satellite imagery shows that Iran could have transferred up to 540 kilograms—possibly all—of its highly-enriched uranium inventory to Isfahan before the June strikes last year. Bulletin nuclear editor François Diaz-Maurin lays out the evidence in a new analysis. Read more.

How AI use in scholarly publishing threatens research integrity, lessens trust, and invites misinformation

Since 2023, a significant number of published scholarly papers show signs of having been edited using AI tools, writes Andrew Gray. These tools are also being used to review papers and in search and discovery tools, in ways that are not always well understood. Consequently, academic databases are starting to show signs of being affected by AI-generated hallucinated research—placing additional stresses on the integrity of the scholarly publishing system, potentially making it more vulnerable to organized and intentional disinformation campaigns. Read more.

From medicine to ambulances, how the Iran war is exposing US health care vulnerabilities

Kristen Cline examines how Iran and its allies are exposing vulnerability in the US health care system with tactics ranging from choking off trade in drug ingredients in and around the Strait of Hormuz to launching a cyber attack on a company making systems for ambulances. Read more.

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The misguided quest for nuclear weapons in Nordic countries

Nordic countries should not contribute to increasing the existential dangers that nuclear weapons already pose to European and global security, argue Tytti Erästö, Vladislav Chernavskikh, and Vitaly Fedchenko. Read more.

What can biosecurity learn from cybersecurity? A lot.

Measures meant to mitigate human-made biological risks remain anchored in conceptual frameworks like arms control agreements and export controls. Filippa Lentzos and Tim Stevens write that these are increasingly misaligned with the challenges emerging from rapidly advancing biotechnology. Read more.

Senseless obloquy: Benjamin Wilson’s false and incoherent vilification of Hans Bethe and Richard Garwin

Tom Garwin argues that his father, Richard Garwin, and fellow scientist Hans Bethe were misportrayed in an earlier Bulletin piece. In this essay, he writes about their legacies and contests the earlier argument. Read more.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“It’s sort of a weird thing, because on principle, if we’re studying climate change, to not name climate change feels dirty.”

— Trent Ford, the state climatologist for Illinois and a research scientist at the Illinois State Water Survey at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, “To keep climate science alive, researchers are speaking in code,” Grist

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