Nuclear physics

Raeanna Sharp-Geiger Appointed Argonne’s Chief Operations Officer

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, January 30, 2024

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has named Raeanna Sharp-Geiger as chief operations officer.

Key Points: 
  • The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has named Raeanna Sharp-Geiger as chief operations officer.
  • View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240130291572/en/
    Sharp-Geiger joins Argonne from DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory.
  • In her role as the chief operating officer for Physical Sciences at Los Alamos, she oversaw the advancement, improvement and direction of operational activities enabling fundamental and applied science and engineering for the lab’s national security mission.
  • Her dedication to developing operations professionals and innovative teams will help us keep accelerating the science that drives U.S. prosperity and security.”
    View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240130291572/en/

General Fusion and TRIUMF sign MOU to develop key technologies for new LM26 fusion machine

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, October 25, 2023

This groundbreaking machine is designed to reach fusion conditions in 2025 and set a path for scientific breakeven equivalent in 2026.

Key Points: 
  • This groundbreaking machine is designed to reach fusion conditions in 2025 and set a path for scientific breakeven equivalent in 2026.
  • TRIUMF and General Fusion will collaborate on projects in key areas including neutron diagnostics and a state-of-the-art ion temperature diagnostic for LM26.
  • “British Columbia is a hub for technology innovation and General Fusion is pleased to advance our transformative LM26 machine with an organization that is both local and has international renown,” said Greg Twinney, CEO, General Fusion.
  • General Fusion will leverage TRIUMF’s existing capabilities in high energy particle physics, materials science and testing to support the development of General Fusion’s Magnetized Target Fusion technology.

Mirion Technologies Gamma Detector to Play Crucial Role in NASA’s Psyche Mission

Retrieved on: 
Monday, October 16, 2023

The Psyche mission , led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, aims to explore the asteroid believed to be composed primarily of metallic iron and nickel.

Key Points: 
  • The Psyche mission , led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, aims to explore the asteroid believed to be composed primarily of metallic iron and nickel.
  • By leveraging the Mirion gamma detector technology, the mission is poised to shed light on the early formation of our solar system.
  • The gamma-ray detector provided by Mirion is equipped with advanced sensing capabilities, enabling precise measurements of gamma radiation emanating from the asteroid.
  • “We are thrilled to be part of the Psyche mission, contributing our expertise in gamma spectroscopy technology to support NASA's groundbreaking exploration of the asteroid,” said Loic Eloy, Mirion Technologies Group President.

Silicon Valley Bank Appoints Head of Global Payments and Head of Global Digital Solutions

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, August 22, 2023

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ --  Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank, today announced Martin Murrell has been named Head of Global Payments and Milton Santiago was named Head of Global Digital Solutions. The new leaders will further SVB's commitment to innovative products, client solutions and exceptional client experience.

Key Points: 
  • SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank, today announced Martin Murrell has been named Head of Global Payments and Milton Santiago was named Head of Global Digital Solutions.
  • As Head of Global Payments, Murrell will lead the teams responsible for SVB's core payments products, including commercial card, merchant services and embedded payments.
  • As Head of Global Digital Solutions, Santiago is responsible for defining SVB's digital strategy and aligning technology investments in support of the strategy.
  • With more than 30 years of digital transformation experience, Santiago has led transformation for several global commercial banks and has founded numerous digital solutions, including CashPro.

'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds': who was atom bomb pioneer Robert Oppenheimer?

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Robert Oppenheimer is often placed next to Albert Einstein as the 20th century’s most famous physicist. He will forever be the “father of the atomic bomb” after the first nuclear weapon was successfully tested on July 16, 1945 in the New Mexican desert. The event brought to his mind words from a Hindu scripture: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.Who was Robert Oppenheimer?Two years later, he completed his PhD in physics at one of the world’s leading institutions for theoretical physics, the University of Göttingen, Germany.

Key Points: 


Robert Oppenheimer is often placed next to Albert Einstein as the 20th century’s most famous physicist. He will forever be the “father of the atomic bomb” after the first nuclear weapon was successfully tested on July 16, 1945 in the New Mexican desert. The event brought to his mind words from a Hindu scripture: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.

Who was Robert Oppenheimer?

    • Two years later, he completed his PhD in physics at one of the world’s leading institutions for theoretical physics, the University of Göttingen, Germany.
    • Throughout his life, Oppenheimer would be judged either as an aloof prodigy or an anxious narcissist.
    • Before the outbreak of the second world war, Oppenheimer worked at the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology.
    • His partner, Kitty Puening, was a left-leaning radical and their social circle included Communist Party members and activists.

The second world war

    • His ideas about chain reaction in an atomic bomb gained recognition among the US defence community.
    • His ability to master the large-scale workforce and channel their energy towards the needs of the project earned him respect.
    • He proved to be more than just an administrator by being involved in the interdisciplinary team across theoretical and experimental stages of the weapons development.

The nuclear test

    • On July 16, 1945 the nuclear test, code named Trinity, took place.
    • Shortly after the atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Oppenheimer confronted the US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, demanding that nuclear weapons were banned.
    • Truman’s rebuttal did not prevent Oppenheimer from advocating for the establishment of controls on the nuclear arms race.

Arms control

    • But his chief concern was the unavoidable arms race.
    • He advocated for the establishment of an international body that would control the development of nuclear energy and its usage.
    • Oppenheimer urged strongly for international arms control.
    • The investigation that followed in 1954 exposed Oppenheimer’s past communist ties and culminated in his security clearance being revoked.

McCarthyism and academic freedom

    • In the era of Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunts, his fellow scientists considered Oppenheimer as a martyr of the cause of academic freedom.
    • He toured internationally with talks about the role of academic freedom unrestrained by political considerations.

Cosmological models are built on a simple, century-old idea -- but new observations demand a radical rethink

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, June 28, 2023

It suggests that when averaged on large scales, the Cosmos is homogeneous and matter is distributed evenly throughout.

Key Points: 
  • It suggests that when averaged on large scales, the Cosmos is homogeneous and matter is distributed evenly throughout.
  • This allows a mathematical description of space-time that simplifies the application of Einstein’s general theory of relativity to the Universe as a whole.

Einstein’s legacy

    • As a 50-year-old textbook reminds us:
      Matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move.
    • Matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move.
    • Read more:
      Dark matter: our review suggests it's time to ditch it in favour of a new theory of gravity

Ideas about matter have evolved, but not geometry

    • We can trace the astrophysics of “stuff” from tiny seed ripples in the primordial fireball all the way to complex structures today.
    • They look back all the way to when the first atoms formed, and the Universe first became transparent.
    • We receive that same light today, but cooled to minus 270℃ and diluted by the expansion of the Universe.

A ‘lumpy’ Universe

    • The expansion of the Universe has been halted entirely within the largest matter concentrations known as galaxy clusters.
    • But the idea that the Universe is spatially homogeneous endures.
    • Billions have been spent trying to directly detect dark matter, but decades of such efforts have yielded no definitive detection of what makes up 80% of all matter and 20% of all the energy in the Universe today.

An anomalous sky

    • Superimposed on it are fluctuations, one of which is abnormally large and has the shape of a dipole: a yin-yang diagram covering the whole sky.
    • We can interpret this as an effect due to relative motion, provided we define the cosmic microwave background radiation as the rest frame of the Universe.
    • These anomalies have long been explained as a result of unaccounted physical processes in modelling microwave emissions from the Milky Way.

Matter within the sky

    • They found that matter, too, is unevenly distributed.
    • Conventionally, we assume that an all-sky average of the Universe’s present expansion rate gives one well defined value: the Hubble constant.
    • Using cosmic microwave background data from individual opposing hemispheres, a standard expansion history implies different Hubble “constants” on each side of the sky today.
    • If matter is much more varied and interesting than expected, then maybe the geometry is too.

InWith AI Offers a Free 'Chatbot Clone' to Everyone Worldwide

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, March 21, 2023

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., March 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- InWith AI, a personalized chatbot that is revolutionizing the application of artificial intelligence (AI), today announced the launch of a new social platform available free to anyone in the world. InWith AI's proprietary database is built using advanced AI capabilities, generative chat functions and multilingual dialogue features, with languages implemented from all over the world.

Key Points: 
  • The InWith AI platform gives users the ability to create an AI Chatbot Clone, which can personally interact with others 24/7, using a question-and-answer format.
  • "Your social media can now talk with people, not at them," InWith AI CEO and Founder Michael Hayes said.
  • "And InWith AI is striving to make AI fun and useful to individuals on a global scale."
  • InWith AI is moving generative AI forward by allowing users to integrate the technology into their everyday lives.

NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. Proudly Presents its Second Proprietary Portable Advanced Micro Nuclear Reactor Design “ODIN” being developed by the Leading Nuclear Experts in the Field

Retrieved on: 
Friday, February 24, 2023

Figure 1 - NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. Second Proprietary Portable Advanced Micro Nuclear Reactor Design, “ODIN”, a Low-Pressure Coolant Reactor

Key Points: 
  • Figure 1 - NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. Second Proprietary Portable Advanced Micro Nuclear Reactor Design, “ODIN”, a Low-Pressure Coolant Reactor
    The second Advanced Nuclear Reactor (ANR) design in development at NANO Nuclear, “ODIN” aims to diversify its technology portfolio, as the design requirements can be met through different technological solutions.
  • “Our second proprietary Advanced Nuclear Reactor design, ‘ODIN’ adds another disruptive technology that we are confident will add enormous value to our company.
  • “The future of energy is nuclear,” said Prof. Eugene Shwageraus, NANO Nuclear Energy's Lead of Nuclear Reactor Engineering.
  • “I am very pleased to be a part of this endeavor and I believe in the team behind NANO Nuclear Energy.

CNL and TRIUMF to Collaborate on Nuclear Science & Technology

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, January 24, 2023

CHALK RIVER, Ontario and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 24, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology laboratory, and TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre, are pleased to announce that they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore and pursue collaboration opportunities in nuclear and materials science and technology. Designed to foster closer ties between two of Canada’s leading nuclear research organizations and leverage their complementary capabilities, the new agreement identifies areas of cooperation that includes the delivery of joint research projects and the sharing of scientific information and equipment.

Key Points: 
  • CHALK RIVER, Ontario and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 24, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology laboratory, and TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre, are pleased to announce that they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore and pursue collaboration opportunities in nuclear and materials science and technology.
  • This agreement is an opportunity to accelerate key areas of research and innovation, better utilize CNL and TRIUMF’s respective resources to accomplish shared goals, and continue leveraging national science infrastructure for the benefit of Canadians.
  • “CNL and TRIUMF have worked together constructively in the past to pursue joint research, and we see this agreement as an opportunity to really grow this relationship into the future,” commented Dr. Jeff Griffin, CNL’s Vice-President of Science and Technology.
  • To learn more about TRIUMF and their work as Canada’s particle accelerator centre, please visit www.triumf.ca .

US Capital Expands London Office with Appointment of Managing Director Prodi Bhattacharya

Retrieved on: 
Friday, December 30, 2022

San Francisco, California, USA, Dec. 30, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- US Capital is pleased to announce that Prodi Bhattacharya, Ph.D., has joined the group as a Managing Director at US Capital’s regional headquarters in London, established in 2020.

Key Points: 
  • San Francisco, California, USA, Dec. 30, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- US Capital is pleased to announce that Prodi Bhattacharya, Ph.D., has joined the group as a Managing Director at US Capital’s regional headquarters in London, established in 2020.
  • Dr. Bhattacharya brings over 23 years’ experience in banking, corporate finance, and asset management to US Capital.
  • Before joining US Capital, he was Director of Corporate Finance at the IQEQ Group, where he was responsible for the private market CrossDeal activity within the group.
  • Commenting on his appointment, Dr. Bhattacharya said, “I am delighted to be joining US Capital as it seeks to expand its European and global footprint.