Indonesia Goes Ahead with Nuclear Plant

The video is pretty long but I thought I'd post it anyway. Indonesia is building a plant on the East Coast in Sumatra, a big risk considering that "it sits on the volatile volcanic Pacific Ring of Fire and experts warn that a repeat of the 2004 tsunami could cause a catastrophic disaster."

-Karin

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/101east/2011/09/20119147571781154.html

radiation shielding tech

http://www.emfields.org/shielding/overview.asp

--Hani Eid

Did Cosmic Ray Radiation Affect Evolution?

This seems to be a topic that has come up at various times over the last 50-100 years (the amount of time we've known about radiation and the fact that a lot of it comes from space). My impression is that the role of cosmic radiation in evolution and extinction over the history of the Earth is still under debate.

Some "astrobiologists" have recently argued that massive amounts of radiation from a relatively nearby exploding star (supernova) could have caused "extinction events," and there's lots of interesting discussion about how changes in cosmic ray radiation could affect the earth's climate.

Read about some of these ideas in this Space.com piece.

The Work of Jan Tichy

Jan Tichy teaches at SAIC in the Video & New Media Department. I thought this was interesting in light of our conversation about Israel's "we have no-nuclear power" stance. Tichy is himself Israeli (as am I), which makes this really interesting.

"My work deals with political and social issues drawn mainly from urban and industrial contexts. I make installations using paper or porcelain as sculptural materials and video projection as a time-based source of light. The projected animation reveals and enhances the sculptural elements, creating layers of narrative. I use photography, video, sound, and sculpture to explore how the physical and psychic space of these artificially constructed environments manifests itself as subject to change through the interventions of time, nature, and political action. In my works I deal with controversial charged sites; some inaccessible to the public, and with non-specific environments, raising awareness to issues like nuclear power, abandoned oil fields, secret prison, etc.; unfolding social unconscious and pointing out problematic implications. I work with abstract forms and architectural elements. The use of formal and minimal visual language emerging from my photographic background (both in the objects and the animation) is intended to open the narratives to different interpretation, ranging from urban landscapes to organic structures, generating eerie atmosphere and feeling of alienation. The light that illuminates the dark space in my works became my language and I persistently seek to expand my vocabulary. This projected light allows me to turn the whole space into a sculptural object."

SAIC PROFILE: http://www.saic.edu/gallery/saic_featured.php?type=gr&album=1292

Work about Nuclear power: http://www.artiscontemporary.org/features_detail.php?id=49

Posted by Adam Rose

A Gallery of Atomic Images

I'm curious what you all think about this (click the image of the map below to go to the page):
 
This is a "gallery" put together by some folks at IBM who do research using a device called a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) to obtain images of structures at the size scale of single atoms and molecules. They can also use the device to manipulate individual atoms to create silly structures like "carbon monoxide man:"



Lots of interesting things to think about here, but not the least is the choices made in how these images are colored and displayed. Thoughts?

Atoms - Old School and Cutting Edge (Readings for Sept. 16)

So, we have gotten an introduction to radiation in the news, and worked on distinguishing radiation and radioactivity.  Perhaps it's time to delve into the deeper structure of matter and understand atoms, nuclei, and radiation more carefully?

Here are readings/viewings for next week, with a few guiding comments to consider what might be important for next week's quiz and/or discussions.  Also remember that reviewing the slides from this week (on portal) is important!

1) Your basic intro to atoms will be a totally awesome 1950s animation introducing the atom and the physics of uranium fission.  This is called A is for Atom and it's about 15 minutes long.  As you're watching, consider this an introduction to the key concepts of "isotopes," "transmutation" and "fission."  Also, pay attention to the technological/practical applications of radioactivity that the video talks about, as well as the overall tone and attitude of the piece towards nuclear technology.

2) Are new elements still getting discovered and added to the periodic table?  Two readings about Ununseptium, from The New York Times and a Discovery Magazine blog.  Key concepts here:  What's an "atomic number?"   How are new elements "discovered?" Is Ununseptium radioactive?  Do scientists know if there's an end to the periodic table?

3) Whoa - anti-atoms! BBC article on trapping anti-hydrogen.  There's a lot here - key concepts are:  What is antimatter?  What is an anti-atom?  Why are they so hard to study?  Why are they interesting to scientists?

Alas, I looked for some good articles to cover "Can we see atoms?  Photograph them?" but everything I found was crappy.  We'll talk about it in class!

Welcome Fall 2011 Unstable Nucleus Class! Time to learn about Radiation!!!

It's time to get this blog going again...with some readings for next week!  We already have a lot of ideas to figure out in this class.   Beginning with:  what exactly is the distinction between the words "radiation" and "radioactivity"?  Where in nature and technology do we encounter different forms of radiation and radioactivity?

The articles in the readings for this week will show some places where these topics are popping up in the (mostly recent) news.  If you followed the lecture pretty well, then you can skip straight to those articles.  If you'd like a little more review, a decent introduction to radiation and radioactivity can be found at the How Stuff Works website:  http://science.howstuffworks.com/radiation.htm.

Readings for this week:

1.  Granite Countertops!  This is one of my favorite weird articles for this class - New York Times article on radioactive countertops.

2.  Food affected by the Fukushima disaster in Japan.  This is an ongoing concern right now.  This is not the greatest article ever (it's pretty confusing) but will get us started as we watch for more news on the subject:  Bloomberg article on contaminated mushrooms and other foods.

4.  Cell phone radiation.  Here's a status update from May on what's known about cell phone radiation and cancer, from CNN.

5.  Radiation used in cancer treatments.  Many types of radiation are used to treat cancer.  Here's a recent article from the Telegraph on a radiation "miracle cure."

6. Radiation exposure from air travel.  This is an LA Times article from last winter that brings up lots of interesting stuff to discuss.

An interesting question to ask (no, you won't be quizzed on this!) is whether the radiation discussed in each article comes from radioactivity or not.  As you read through this, also take note of some of the specialized vocabulary that comes up - in the next class we will work on clarifying some of the terminology and understanding radiation better.