Balancing Nuclear Reactions

All nuclear reaction have similarities and all nuclear reactions balance in the same way. Here is an example of a nuclear reaction:

This looks very different from a normal chemical reaction. There doesn't appear to any conservation of matter--the uranium is gone and two new elements have appeared out of nowhere.
The reaction is considered balanced, however, since the total mass number on the left side of the equation is equal to the total mass number on the right and because the total atomic number on the left is equal to the total atomic number on the right.