In Brief - 70-year-old atom-buster to be junked

One of the oldest artifacts of America’s first experiments with nuclear power, a 70-year-old atom-busting machine, will be junked, Columbia University has announced.

The 60-ton cyclotron has sat dormant in the basement of the New York university’s physics department since 1965, when the school sent parts of it to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Columbia decided it was time to remove the rest of the cyclotron to make room for equipment for a science building being built next door, Andrew J. Millis, chairman of the physics department, said Thursday. He said a Smithsonian official told him the museum lacked the resources to store the particle-accelerating machine.