A small Texas reactor reached criticality in under a year, aiming to produce medical isotopes that US hospitals now import

Every day, more than 40,000 Americans undergo a diagnostic scan that depends on technetium-99m, a radioactive isotope used to image the heart, spot cancer and check kidney function. Every milligram of the molybdenum-99 that produces it currently arrives in the United States from aging foreign reactors, since the country has no domestic supply of its own.

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