A shorter half life
Physicists from the University of Strathclyde, UK, have successfully turned radioactive nuclear waste into a substance which can be handled safely.
Iodine-129 is one of the major waste products from nuclear power plants and has a half-life of 15.7 million years, making it difficult and dangerous to dispose of.
The research ream irradiated Iodine-129 with a laser beam and succeeded in turning it into a related molecule, Iodine-128, which has a half-life of just 25 minutes.