Atomic Energy // Current

Maryland Doesn't Need a $10 Billion Radioactive Boondoggle

Public Citizen and a coalition of environmental organizations have filed a legal challenge to the proposed Calvert Cliffs-3 atomic... more

covelogibbs
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Pretty nuclear power plants

Some proposals to improve the way nuclear power plants look. At the moment, they all look like nothing more than concrete... more

Number1BadBoy
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One bad atom spoils the whole bunch

GENEVA (AP) — A bad electrical connection likely caused the malfunction that sidelined the world's largest atom smasher... more

TyMarshal
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NEW YORK (AP) -- Just two weeks after a Nobel Prize highlighted theoretical work on subatomic particles, physicists are announcing a startling discovery about a much more familiar form of matter: Scotch tape.

It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers.

Who knew? Actually, more than 50 years ago, some Russian scientists reported evidence of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off glass. But the new work demonstrates that you can get a lot of X-rays, a study co-author says.

"We were very surprised," said Juan Escobar. "The power you could get from just peeling tape was enormous."

Escobar, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, reports the work with UCLA colleagues in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

He suggests that with some refinements, the process might be harnessed for making inexpensive X-ray machines for paramedics or for places where electricity is expensive or hard to get. After all, you could peel tape or do something similar in such machines with just human power, like cranking.

The researchers and UCLA have applied for a patent covering such devices.

In the new work, a machine peeled ordinary Scotch tape off a roll in a vacuum chamber at about 1.2 inches per second. Rapid pulses of X-rays, each about a billionth of a second long, emerged from very close to where the tape was coming off the roll.

That's where electrons jumped from the roll to the sticky underside of the tape that was being pulled away, a journey of about two-thousandths of an inch, Escobar said. When those electrons struck the sticky side they slowed down, and that slowing made them emit X-rays.

So is this a health hazard for unsuspecting tape-peelers?

Escobar noted that no X-rays are produced in the presence of air. You need to work in a vacuum — not exactly an everyday situation.

"If you're going to peel tape in a vacuum, you should be extra careful," he said. But "I will continue to use Scotch tape during my daily life, and I think it's safe to do it in your office. No guarantees."

James Hevezi, who chairs the American College of Radiology's Commission on Medical Physics, said the notion of developing an X-ray machine from the new finding was "a very interesting idea, and I think it should be carried further in research."NEW YORK (AP) -- Just two weeks after a Nobel Prize highlighted theoretical work on subatomic particles, physicists are announcing... more

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1 month ago

Ahmadinejad's 'wipe Israel off the map' myth debunked yet again

The following is an exclusive Press TV interview with the president on his message for the world. He also sheds light on several controversial issues.

"Press TV: Alright, you just mentioned Israel and you called it the Zionist regime. A lot of controversy surrounds this issue. On the eve of your trip, the Jewish lobby is at work protesting, but behind the scenes stronger hands are at work to lobby each and every important politician in New York for both sanctions and a possible military attack against Iran. I want to know about this issue and the controversy of Israel being wiped off the map. A lot of controversy is surrounding that… was it a mistranslation, not a mistranslation? Mike Wallace had this interview with you a couple of years back. One part of it, a major part of it, was edited out. Your idea on the destruction of the state of Israel and Israel should be wiped off the map? The part you talked about democracy and referendum?

Ahmadinejad: We said we do not accept this regime and the solution that we are presenting is a humanitarian solution. It is a very clear solution. We are saying that the Palestinians should decide their destiny themselves; they should choose their own political system. What we are saying is very clear. We believe that the people whose ancestors have lived in that land and own the land although they have been deported and expelled and are under occupation, we are saying that they are the ones….

Press TV: So you did not threaten to wipe Israel off the map as an Iranian leader? That we will wipe Israel off the map?

Ahmadinejad: No. We say that the people of Palestine should have rights and when the people of Palestine exercise this right, this will happen. Where is the Soviet Union? The Soviet Union has been wiped off the map. What happened to the Soviet Union? The decision of the people, the vote of the people. When the people of the Soviet Union, the Russian people, were allowed to decide to take charge of their destiny, the Soviet Union disappeared.

The Zionist regime is an artificial regime… a fictitious regime. You brought people from different parts of the world and you have built this state. No, that cannot last, it is not sustainable. If they do not listen to our solution, this will happen one day.

Press TV: Now this issue of a fabricated regime. There have been reports that they are planning airstrikes on Iran. Every single day we are hearing reports that Israel is getting frustrated with our nuclear program….

Ahmadinejad: They are really too small to be a threat to Iran. They should protect themselves. They are not even able to protect themselves. The position of Iran is very clear. The capacity and the power of the people of Iran is very clear. The people of Iran are able to defend their territorial integrity and their national sovereignty. They know that Iran is a great country, an important power… a humanitarian power. The people of Iran know how to defend themselves and such propaganda has no impact on the people of Iran. The era of making threats is over."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is due to address the UN General Assembly in New York on September 23. The following is an exclusive Press TV interview with the president on his message for the world. He also sheds light on several... more