Nuclear technology offers unique tools in the quest for sustainable development.
Such technology is often the best to gather information and provide solutions
that would not otherwise be possible or practical: to diagnose and treat disease,
to breed better crops and fight insect pests; to assess new sources of fresh
water; and to monitor pollution. While many may only think of energy, nuclear
technology has a much larger role to play in human development.
Where it can make a difference, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
provides support to 134 Member States for using this technology to solve the
important challenges they face.
Isotopes, stable and radioactive forms of chemical elements, can be used
to label materials under study. Since both stable and radioactive
isotopes can be identified and measured using appropriate equipment, labelling
is often used in diagnostic medical tests, in studies of underground sources
of water, and to trace pollutants, such as heavy metals and pesticides.
Stable, non-radioactive, isotopes are used in nutritional studies to trace
the metabolism of vitamins and trace minerals in supplements.
Other nuclear techniques use radiation which can be focussed into beams and,
depending on its intensity, can be used to kill cancer cells, to sterilize
tissue grafts for burn victims, to sterilize food against insects or disease
causing pathogens, to make insects sterile so they cannot reproduce, to induce
desirable genetic changes in crops, or to scan body organs for abnormalities.