Workers with Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management contractor Isotek have surpassed a significant milestone in the supply of medical radioisotopes, extracting more than 15 grams of rare thorium-229 through the U.S. Department of Energy's Thorium Express Project. While 15 grams might not sound like much, it represents a 1,500 percent increase in the world’s supply, according to the DOE, which noted that there is currently only 1 gram of the isotope available worldwide outside of Oak Ridge, Tenn. Read more on Nuclear NewsWire: (fb)

The Tennessee legislature allocates $3.2 million to the construction of a monument to honor a group of 85 black former students known as the Scarboro–Oak Ridge 85 who, with support from the Atomic Energy Commission, became the first to enter a previously white-only public school in the southeastern United States. Read more on Nuclear NewsWire: (fb)