One group was born in the mid-1950s during the era of atomic testing.

NPR: How A-Bomb Testing Changed Our Trees

Recalling an era when the word "atomic" conjured modernity and mystery, the Smithsonian-run Atomic Testing Museum remains an intriguing testament to the period when the fantastical - and destructive - power of nuclear energy was tested just outside of Las Vegas.

BBC: Vintage Las Vegas

Atomic bomb testing, as well, was the domain of just a few nations.

BBC: Greenpeace Rainbow sails again

One might be an Iranian decision to expel nuclear inspectors or withdraw from the NPT, as North Korea did in 2003 before making and testing atomic bombs.

ECONOMIST: Nuclear proliferation

Pakistan's problems are complicated by its testing of atomic weapons in May, two weeks after India conducted similar explosions.

CNN: Bracing for a Default

The latest work on sea urchin growth rates uses measures of the isotope carbon-14, which has increased in all living organisms following the atmospheric testing of atomic weapons in the 1950s.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Red sea urchin 'almost immortal'

Perhaps the most spectacular failure of the United States was in misjudging how soon the former Soviet Union ended America's nuclear monopoly in August 1949 by testing its own atomic weapon.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Questionable intelligence on Iran

Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency, and Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, head of IAEO, will attend the testing on Wednesday, IAEO spokesman Mohsen Delaviz told ISNA on Monday.

CNN: Iran to test nuclear power plant