El viaje del uranio español en los años sesenta: significados y materialidades de un objeto híbrido / The journey of Spanish uranium in the sixties meanings and materialities of a hybrid object

En 1966, 137 toneladas de mineral de uranio español llegaron al puerto de Nueva Orleans procedentes del puerto de Cádiz. En este artículo quiero utilizar este viaje que conectó agentes políticos, industriales y empresariales con capacidades y experiencias técnicas, para explorar el uranio como un objeto híbrido —físico, técnico y diplomático—. El uranio conectó los intereses de las autoridades franquistas con los de los científicos y empresarios de la industria eléctrica. Sirvió al régimen de Franco para formar investigadores en nuevos métodos y prácticas experimentales y también para popularizar las políticas e ideologías atómicas de Estados Unidos. Al tiempo que alimentó los reactores nucleares, el uranio generó nuevos espacios disciplinares, modificó paisajes y diseñó nuevas cartografías industriales y administrativas. Además de ser una pieza clave en la política exterior del régimen franquista —le sirvió al régimen español para alinearse con el pensamiento occidental imperante sobre los usos civiles de la energía nuclear—, internamente sirvió para abandonar los discursos autárquicos y reforzar el poder de los tecnócratas, que utilizaron la energía atómica para transformar la producción eléctrica española. Este viaje cambió la materialidad del mineral de uranio, su física y su química, y también sus significados. (AU)

In 1966, 137 tons of Spanish uranium ore arrived at the port of New Orleans from the port of Cádiz. In this paper, I want to use this trip, which involved political, industrial, and business agents as well as technical capabilities, to explore the uranium as a hybrid object - physical, technical and diplomatic. This material connected the interests of the Franco authorities, scientists, and businessmen from the electrical industry. It served the Franco regime in training researchers, in buying and importing technologies, methods and experimental practices, and in introducing ways to popularize atomic policies and ideologies from the United States. Uranium was a fuel that not only powered nuclear reactor but also fed new disciplinary spaces, modified landscapes, and sketched new industrial and administrative cartographies. Besides being a key piece of the Franco regime’s foreign policy —it was useful to the Spanish regime to align itself with prevailing Western thought on the civil uses of nuclear energy— it served internally to effectively abandon autarchic discourses and strengthen the power of the technocrats, who used atomic energy to transform Spanish electrical production. The materiality of uranium ore changed with travel and also its meanings. (AU)

Uso de radioisótopos en medicina. El rol de la Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica en su impulso (1950-1982) / Use of radioisotopes in medicine. The role of the National Atomic Energy Comission in its development (1950-1982)

La política de desarrollo autónomo desplegada por la Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica al cabo de sus primeras tres décadas de vida, condujo a la expansión y enraizamiento del sector nuclear argentino en diversas areas. Con respecto al área médica, si bien el uso de radioisótopos con fines clínicos, así como de investigación contaba al momento de la emergencia del sector nuclear, con un significante número de antecedentes en el país, con la institucionalización de las actividades nucleares, a partir de la creación de la Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica en 1950, el desarrollo de las aplicaciones nucleares con fines médicos cobraría un fuerte impulso. Esto fue así, en la medida en que se destinaron esfuerzos en: investigación y capacitación, abastecimiento de radioisótopos y puesta en marcha de centros clínicos de medicina nuclear. En este artículo, entonces, veremos como la búsqueda de capacidades científico-tecnológicas propias tuvo cierto paralelismo en el área médica, logrando incipientes descubrimientos científicos, el autoabastecimiento de radioisótopos y la operación de dos centros clínicos que prestaban asistencia a pacientes

During its first three decades of life, the National Atomic Energy Comission unrolled an autonomous policy of development that lead to the expansion and embedment of the Argentinian nuclear sector in different fields. Although in the medical field, the use of radioisotopes for research and clinical purposes held, at the emergence of the nuclear sector, with a significant number of studies, with the institutionalization of nuclear activities, with the creation of the National Atomic Energy Comission in 1950, the development of nuclear applications for medical purposes gained great impulse. This was possible, due to the assignment of resources in three strategic lines: investigation and professional training, provision of radioisotopes and administration and operation of clinical centers of nuclear medicine. In this article, then, we will see how the quest for autonomous technology development had its side effects in the medical area, leading to important scientific discoveries, the self-supply of radioisotopes and the operation of two clinic centers of nuclear medicine that provided care to patients

Prensa y tecnología en la España de Franco: del secreto a la política atómica pública / Press and Technology in Franco's Spain: from secret to public atomic energy policy

Los discursos que circularon en España en los medios de comunicación impresos (ABC, La Vanguardia y el YA) y audiovisuales (NO-DO) con motivo de la primera Conferencia internacional de usos pacíficos de la energía atómica celebrada en Ginebra en agosto de1955, tuvieron un papel activo en el diseño de las políticas -no sólo nucleares- españolas y en la construcción de la representación pública de la energía nuclear. Las oportunidades y promesas que anunciaban los usos civiles de la energía atómica cautivaron a autoridades, científicos e industriales de la dictadura y también a los medios de comunicación. El tratamiento mediático de la conferencia contribuyó a la apertura del régimen franquista al tiempo que fue construyendo la imagen pública de lo nuclear. España compró e importó tecnología, métodos, prácticas experimentales, y también formas de popularización, políticas e ideología atómicas. En este artículo propongo una reflexión sobre prensa, tecnología y poder político (AU)

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Across borders: science and technology during the Cold War. An introduction

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Clouds, airplanes, trucks and people: carrying radioisotopes to and across Mexico

The aim of this paper is to describe the early stages of Mexican nuclearization that took place in contact with radioisotopes. This history requires a multilayered narrative with an emphasis in North-South asymmetric relations, and in the value of education and training in the creation of international asymmetrical networks. Radioisotopes were involved in exchanges with the United States since the late 1940s, but also with Canada. We also describe the context of implementation of Eisenhower´s Atoms for Peace initiative in Mexico that opened the door to training programs at both the Comisión Nacional de Energía Nuclear and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Radioisotopes became the best example of the peaceful applications of atomic energy, and as such they fitted the Mexican nuclearization process that was and still is defined by its commitment to pacifism. In 1955 Mexico became one of the 16 members of the atomic fallout network established by the United Nations. As part of this network, the first generation of Mexican (women) radio-chemists was trained. By the end of the 1960s, radioisotopes and biological markers were being produced in a research reactor, prepared and distributed by the CNEN within Mexico. We end up this paper with a brief reflection on North-South nuclear exchanges and the particularities of the Mexican case (AU)

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Transnational science and collaborative networks. The case of Genetics and Radiobiology in Mexico, 1950-1970

The transnational approach of the science and technology studies (S&TS) abandons the nation as a unit of analysis in order to understand the development of science history. It also abandons Euro-US-centred narratives in order to explain the role of international collaborative networks and the circulation of knowledge, people, artefacts and scientific practices. It is precisely under this perspective that the development of genetics and radiobiology in Mexico shall be analyzed, together with the pioneering work of the Mexican physician-turnedgeneticist Alfonso León de Garay who spent two years in the Galton Laboratory in London under the supervision of Lionel Penrose. Upon his return de Garay funded the Genetics and Radiobiology Program of the National Commission of Nuclear Energy based on local needs and the aim of working beyond geographical limitations to thus facilitate the circulation of knowledge, practices and people. The three main lines of research conducted in the years after its foundation that were in line with international projects while responding to the national context were, first, cytogenetic studies of certain abnormalities, and the cytogenetics and anthropological studies of the Olympic Games held in Mexico in 1968; second, the study of the effects of radiation on hereditary material; and third, the study of population genetics in Drosophila and in Mexican indigenous groups. The program played a key role in reshaping the scientific careers of Mexican geneticists, and in transferring locally sourced research into broader networks. This case shows the importance of international collaborative networks and circulation in the constitution of national scientific elites, and also shows the national and transnational concerns that shaped local practices (AU)

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Human population studies and the World Health Organization

This essay draws attention to the role of the WHO in shaping research agendas in the biomedical sciences in the postwar era. It considers in particular the genetic studies of human populations that were pursued under the aegis of the WHO from the late 1950s to 1970s. The study provides insights into how human and medical genetics entered the agenda of the WHO. At the same time, the population studies become a focus for tracking changing notions of international relations, cooperation, and development and their impact on research in biology and medicine in the post-World War II era. After a brief discussion of the early history of the WHO and its position in Cold War politics, the essay considers the WHO program in radiation protection and heredity and how the genetic study of «vanishing» human populations and a world-wide genetic study of newborns fitted this broader agenda. It then considers in more detail the kind of support offered by the WHO for these projects. The essay highlights the role of single individuals in taking advantage of WHO support for pushing their research agendas while establishing a trend towards cooperative international projects in biology (AU)

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Quickening nature’s pulse: atomic agriculture at the International Atomic Energy Agency

Mutation breeders in the 1960s seemed poised to use atomic energy to speed up mutation rates in plants in order to develop new crop varieties, for the benefit of all people. Although skepticism had slowed this work in the United States, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nurtured the scientific field, its community of experts, and an imagined version of the future that put humans in control of their destiny. The IAEA acted as a center of dissemination and support for experts and ideas even when they had fallen from favor elsewhere. Through the lens of the IAEA, plant breeding bore the appearance of a socially progressive, ultra-modern science destined to alleviate population pressures. Administrators at the IAEA also were desperate for success stories, hoping to highlight mutation plant breeding as a potential solution to the world’s ills. The community of mutation plant breeders gained a lifeline from the consistent clarion call from the Vienna-based agency to use atomic energy to understand the natural world and quicken its pulse with radioisotopes (AU)

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Microalgas: ¿los primeros ingenieros nucleares? / Microalgae: the first nuclear engineers?

Self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions ran spontaneously 1.7 billion years ago at Oklo (Gabon, Africa) are a mystery. It was hypothesized that the microalgae concentrated enough rich-uranium in Oklo as for a natural reactor to start operating. The key to understanding as microalgae could do this is in an extremely U-contaminated pond of Saelices uranium-mine (Spain). Some microalgae colonized this extreme pond due to spontaneous mutations of single-genes. These U-resistant microalgae concentrate 115 mg U/g dried-biomass by bio-adsorption and bioaccumulation and are able to enrich uranium producing isotopic fractionation 235U/238U. Consequently, microalgae could be able to build a nuclear reactor in appropriate circumstances (AU)

Las reacciones nucleares en cadena auto-sostenibles que ocurrieron espontáneamente hace 1.700 millones años en Oklo (Gabón, África) son un misterio. Hipotéticamente las microalgas concentraron suficiente uranio enriquecido para que un reactor nuclear natural comenzara a operar. La clave está en un estanque contaminado por uranio en la mina de Saelices (España). Algunas microalgas colonizaron este estanque extremo debido a mutaciones espontáneas de genes individuales. Estas microalgas Uranio-resistentes concentran 115 mg U / g de biomasa seca mediante bio-absorción y bioacumulación, siendo capaces de enriquecer uranio produciendo fraccionamiento isotópico 235U/238U. Estas microalgas podrían construir un reactor nuclear en circunstancias apropiadas (AU)

Calidad y simulaciones / Quality and simulation

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