Windscale Nuclear Accident - 50 years on

About 6 weeks ago there were many articles on the news and in the press regarding the 50th Anniversary of the Windscale fire of 1957, and a new report which had just been published. The author of that report, Professor Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, will present a talk on his work in DIT Kevin Street next week:

The Windscale nuclear reactor accident - 50 years of investigations
by Prof. Richard Wakeford University of Manchester.
Venue: DIT Kevin St. Dublin 8.
Thur. 6th December 6.30pm

See DIT Update.

Nanotechnology health concerns

The Economist has recently run a column on the health concerns behind nanotechnology and the public perception of the area. Good to see these issues getting broader coverage it has to be said. Worth a browse.

See The Economist.

Is radiation as bad as is believed?

Interesting article in Der Spiegel which suggests that a mounting number of studies are coming to surprising conclusions about the dangers of nuclear radiation. It might not be as deadly as is widely believed.

See Der Spiegel.

Anticipated Technology Innovation in the next 25 years

This is an interesting one for possible future course development!

In an interesting "futurology" experiment, Social Technology's Technology Foresight program convened a "group of experts in technology, innovation, and business strategy from the Association of Professional Futurists, Tekes, Duke University, Hasbro, Worldwatch, General Motors, Shell, Johnson Controls, and Oxford University, among others." What emerged was a list of top 12 areas for technology innovation between now and 2025.

To put this in context, would you have foreseen what you do now with technology 25 years ago?? Mobile Phones and iPods? You'd have expected Windows to be a bit more advanced though, that's for sure.

See Change Waves.

Congratulations to Dr Brenda Rowan

Our congratulations to Brenda Rowan who successfully completed her PhD viva last Friday. Dr Rowan's supervisors were Dr John Doran, Dr Sarah McCormack, and Professor Brian Norton and her thesis was entitled: "The Development of a Quantum Dot Solar Concentrator".

The thesis was examined by External Examiner Prof Tariq Muneer, Research Director, School of Engineering and Built Environment, Napier University and by Internal Examiner Dr Robert Howard.

Brenda now moves on from DIT - our best wishes to her in her new postdoctoral research position at Heriot Watt.

Four quark meson postulated by physicists

Physicists at the Belle experiment in Japan have suggested the possibility of the existence of a four-quark meson. This is being used to explain the results of experiments on colliding electrons and positrons at the KEK and BaBar laboratories in Japan and at the Standford linear accelerator respectively. The decay path of these mesons is such that the original particle observed, dubbed Z(4430), must contain four quarks as opposed to the two-quark model predicted by quantum chromodynamics (QCD).

See Physics World.

Ultra low field MRI makes its mark

Physicists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have demonstrated that MRI can be successfully performed using fields in the millitesla range with SQUIDs, and also that magneto-encephalographic images can be produced simultaneously. This advancement has implications for the cost-effectiveness of MRI in the future, replacing the costly 1 to 1.5 Tesla magnets that are currently used.

See arXiv.org.

Light wormholes

Allan Greenleaf of the University of Rochester in New York describes how electromagnetic wormholes for the instantaneous transmission of light could be created theoretically, in an analogous way to the construction of wormholes in space-time.

See Nature Physics.

Star collision forms supernovae?

Two articles in this weeks edition of Nature predict that the most luminous supernova ever recorded (SN2006gy) either resulted from the collisions of two massive stars, or the collision of material ejected by two or more stars. This challenges current thinking of supernovae formation through the collapse of massive stars.

See Zwart et al, Woosley et al both from Nature.

DIT Scientists organise Ireland's first conference on nanotoxicology

DIT's Gordon Chambers and Maria Davoren recently jointly organised Ireland's first conference on nanotoxicology with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and the Irish Society of Toxicologists. While our bodies have been exposed to naturally occurring nanoparticles throughout our evolution, engineered nanoparticles are a new departure and bring new issues.

From the Irish Times: "Safety is the focus now," says Chambers, whose work looks at how lung cells respond to carbon nanotubes (tiny cylindrical structures) in the lab. "For years people were looking into developing applications for nanoparticles and nanotechnology, but now most people's attention has turned to the safety and biocompatibility of these materials," he says.

See The Irish Times.
(Requires paid subscription or internal DIT access)

Physics society talks - Dr Vincent Toal on Holography

The Physics Society speaker for this week is Dr Vincent Toal who will discuss Holography. The meeting takes place on Wednesday November 14th at 6.30 in Room K0.07. All are welcome and the Physics Society will hold its regular meeting after the guest speaker.

See DIT Physics Society.

Where does Quantum meet Classical?

On what scale do the quantum world and the classical world begin to cross into each other? How big does an "observer" have to be?

Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and their collaborators at the University of Frankfurt, Germany; Kansas State University; and Auburn University have established that quantum particles start behaving in a classical way on a scale as small as a single hydrogen molecule. They reached this conclusion after performing what they call the world's simplest — and smallest — double slit experiment.

See Science Daily.

Award for Excellence in Medical Research

Dr Pat Goodman from the school of Physics in DIT together with his collaborators (M. Agnew & M. McCaffrey, DIT, G. Paul, Trinity College Dublin and Prof L. Clancy RIFTFS) were awarded an Irish Doctors Award at a ceremony held in the Shelbourne hotel last week.

The awards are for excellence in Medical research, and are awarded for the best research paper published in an indexed peer reviewed journal in the past year. Dr Goodman and colleagues won the respiratory medicine award for their publication on the Irish smoking ban.

Effects of the Irish Smoking Ban on Respiratory Health of Bar Workers and Air Quality in Dublin Pubs
Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2007 Jan 4
Goodman P, Agnew M, McCaffrey M, Paul G, Clancy L.

Photo shows Dr Goodman and Prof Clancy - click for larger view)

RF-STM speeds probe scanning enormously

Scanning Tunneling Microscopes (STM) are capable of imaging lateral distances as small as 1 angstrom and can measure changes in height as small as 0.1 angstrom.

Researchers have found that by adding an external radio frequency (RF) source to the STM setup that they could measure the resistance at the tunneling junction by examining the characteristics of the wave that gets reflected back to the RF source. With knowledge of the junction resistance, the researchers can much more easily deduce the distance between the tip and the surface allowing for 100 to 1000 fold increase in measurement speeds. The researchers who developed this technique have dubbed their modified method as RF-STM.

See arstechnica, original research article in Nature.

LHC Cools Down

As the Large Hadron Collider at CERN nears operational status, the cooling process of detection equipment begins. Hamish Johnston of Physics World desribes the monumental task and cost that this involves.

See Physics World.

Ultrasound from the inside out

Scientists in New Mexico and Taiwan are testing an ultrasound probe about the size of a grain of rice that could offer panoramic views from inside the human body.

The silicon-based device could ultimately be sent through blood vessels in the brain or swallowed like a pill for localised diagnosis.

See NewScientist.

Science Week '07 timetable of events

The timetable of events for Science Week 07 at Kevin Street is online now.

See Science Week 07.

Femtosecond laser pulses for destroying viruses

A physicist and his biologist son destroyed a common virus using a femtosecond pulsing laser, without harming healthy cells. "We have demonstrated a technique of using a laser to excite vibrations on the shield of a virus and damage it, so that it's no longer functional," said Kong-Thon Tsen, a professor of physics at Arizona State University.

The laser shattered the virus at low energy: 40 times lower than the energy level that harms human T-cells. Other types of radiation, like ultraviolet light, kill microbes on produce, but would damage human cells. The virus-deactivating laser works on forced resonance - tuning the laser to the same frequency the virus vibrates on.

See Wired.