Changes in mouse breast tissue after exposure to fracking chemicals

07-Feb-2018 - In a study, environmental scientists led by Laura Vandenberg at the University of Massachusetts Amherst report that they observed changes in mammary gland development of female mice exposed during early development to the chemicals used in unconventional oil and gas (UOG) extraction - including ...

How to combat radiological weapons

Safety assistance system warns of dirty bombs

04-Sep-2017 - The threat of terrorism in Europe has been on the rise in recent years, with experts and politicians particularly worried that terrorists might make use of dirty bombs. Fraunhofer researchers have developed a new system that will be able to detect possible carriers of radioactive substances, even ...

Seeing more with PET scans

New chemistry for medical imaging

28-Jul-2017 - Researchers have found a surprisingly versatile workaround to create chemical compounds that could prove useful for medical imaging and drug development. The chemical mechanism, discovered by scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC ...

Improved remote detection of hazardous radioactive substances

14-Jun-2017 - A recent study, affiliated with UNIST has introduced a method for the remote detection of hazardous radioactive substances. With the help of this newly-developed detection device, the detection of various types of radioactive materials can be done from a remote distance. In their study Professor ...

New explosion gas-signature models can help locate and identify underground nuclear tests

18-Mar-2016 - Through experiments and computer models of gas releases, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have simulated signatures of gases from underground nuclear explosions (UNEs) that may be carried by winds far from the detonation. The work will help international inspectors locate and ...

X-ray vision? Laser-derived X-ray method finds hidden nuclear materials

23-Dec-2015 - Physicists at the Diocles Extreme Light Laboratory at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have demonstrated that their unconventional laser-based X-ray machine could provide a new defense against nuclear terrorism. In proof-of-principle experiments, the UNL scientists used the laser-driven X-ray ...

Help in the Search for the Needle in the Haystack

Physicists render usable method for detecting extremely rare inert gas isotopes for water dating

17-Oct-2014 - In the earth and environmental sciences, radioactive isotopes, atom variants that decay over time, play a major role in age determination. A radioactive isotope of the inert gas argon (39Ar), for example, is used to determine the age of water or ice. Such isotopes are extremely rare, however – ...

Purdue-Stanford team finds radioactive decay rates vary with the sun's rotation

01-Sep-2010 - Radioactive decay rates, thought to be unique physical constants and counted on in such fields as medicine and anthropology, may be more variable than once thought. A team of scientists from Purdue and Stanford universities has found that the decay of radioactive isotopes fluctuates in synch with ...

Scientists discover 45 new radioisotopes in 4 days

10-Jun-2010 - The world’s most powerful beam of heavy ions has enabled Japanese scientists and their international collaborators to uncover 45 new neutron-rich radioisotopes in a region of the nuclear chart never before explored. In only four days, a team of researchers at the RIKEN Nishina Center for ...

Screening method for anti-HIV therapeutics?

20-May-2009 - A new and easy method for the detection of microRNA and RNase H activity could be used for screening anti-HIV therapeutics say Chinese scientists. Zhengping Li and co-workers at Hebei University have developed a rapid, quantitative and sensitive method for the detection of microRNA (miRNA) and ...