Radioactive decay is the strange and almost mystical ability for one element to naturally and spontaneously transmute into another. In the process, those elements tend to emit deadly forms of ...

One of the coolest (OK, maybe the coolest) is using radioactive carbon to determine the age of old bones or plants. To understand this, you must first understand radioactivity and decay.

But what if the rate of radioactive decay -- the watch -- was not constant? One minute, the second hand is moving at one speed, and the next it has sped up or slowed down. And what if what changed ...

One way to do that is to start from another element that can decay into the thorium isomer. Using a radioactive beam at the ISOLDE facility at the European physics lab CERN near Geneva ...