Nuclear batteries are not a new invention, but they’ve fallen out of commercial favor since the 70s, when they were used in pacemakers. Nuclear batteries were an ideal solution for these medical devices due to their longevity, but were ultimately eliminated due to governmental unease about radioactive isotopes walking out into the world untracked and unreturned. Now, a new generation of scientists is working on the return of the nuclear battery, but this time with a much broader variety of applications. The science behind nuclear batteries…