11-Jun-2018: Scientists in Germany seek to find mass of Neutrinos
Researchers in Germany have started collecting data with a 60 million euro ($71 million) machine designed to help determine the mass of the universe’s lightest particle.
KATRIN’s 200-ton device called a spectrometer will measure the mass of atoms before and after they decay radioactively—thereby revealing how much mass the neutrino carries off. Technicians built the spectrometer about 250 miles from Karlsruhe, Germany, where the experiment will operate.
Researchers say determining the mass of neutrinos is one of the most important open questions in particle physics and will help scientists better understand the history of the universe. Some 200 people from 20 institutions in seven countries are working on the project.
The problem for physicists is that neutrinos are impossible to see and difficult to detect. Any instrument designed to do so may feel solid to the touch, but to neutrinos, even stainless steel is mostly empty space, as wide open as a solar system is to a comet. What’s more, neutrinos, unlike most subatomic particles, have no electric charge—they’re neutral, hence the name—so scientists can’t use electric or magnetic forces to capture them. Physicists call them “ghost particles.”
To capture these elusive entities, physicists have conducted some extraordinarily ambitious experiments. So that neutrinos aren’t confused with cosmic rays (subatomic particles from outer space that do not penetrate the earth), detectors are installed deep underground. Enormous ones have been placed in gold and nickel mines, in tunnels beneath mountains, in the ocean and in Antarctic ice. These strangely beautiful devices are monuments to humankind’s resolve to learn about the universe. It’s unclear what practical applications will come from studying neutrinos.
Scientists working at Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) discovered in 2001 that a neutrino can spontaneously switch among three different identities—or as physicists say, it oscillates among three flavors. The discovery had startling implications. For one thing, it showed that previous experiments had detected far fewer neutrinos than predicted because the instruments were tuned to just one neutrino flavor—the kind that creates an electron—and were missing the ones that switched. For another, the finding toppled physicists’ belief that a neutrino, like a photon, has no mass. (Oscillating among flavors is something that only particles with mass are able to do.)
22-Mar-2018: DAE unit develops device to measure uranium traces in water
An instrument "Fluorimeter", has been developed to measure traces of uranium in water by the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), an Indore-based unit of the DAE.
The device costs Rs 1 lakh and it will be especially helpful in areas like Punjab where uranium traces in water sources have been found to be at dangerous levels.
Basically, this instrument was developed to find out uranium deposits in the country, but after getting reports that uranium traces were found in water sources in Punjab, scientists developed a more advanced version of it in the interest of public health.
It can be easily taken anywhere and water can be taken from any source for testing. The instrument can instantly reveal if uranium traces are present in water. For mass production of Fluorimeter, the DAE has transferred its technology to its other unit, Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL).
In 1996, it was being imported from Canada at a cost of Rs 19 lakh per unit. With our continuous research we were able to develop an advanced Fluorimeter costing just Rs one lakh. In the event of mass production, it's cost will further reduce.
The instrument is capable of examining traces of uranium in a sample of water from 0.1 PPB (Parts-per-billion) unit to 100 PPB. Notably, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board has fixed the permissible radiological limit to 60 PPB of uranium concentration for drinking water.
Experts have said people should avoid using water from sources where uranium traces are more than the limit set by the AERB. Drinking water with high levels of uranium traces increase radiological and chemical risks to human health.
Uranium is a radioactive element. If in any source of water it's quantity is more than the permissible limit, then use of such water may cause thyroid cancer, blood cancer, depression and other serious ailments. Even kids face the threat of cancer (if they consume uranium-laced water for long).
17-Mar-2018: India to restart research on cold fusion
India is taking tentative steps towards restarting research into Cold fusion, some 25 years after it was shut down at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) following global criticism heaped on the idea. Three research groups have taken up the theme
When hydrogen, the main element of water, is introduced to a small piece of the metal nickel or palladium, a reaction occurs that can create excess heat and transmutation products. Excess heat means more heat comes out of the system than went in to the system. The excess heat can make hot water and useful steam to turn a turbine and produce electricity.
No radioactive materials are used in cold fusion. It occurs as the tiny protons, neutrons and electrons of hydrogen interact, releasing energy slowly, through heat and photons, without the dangerous radiation associated with conventional nuclear reactions, and cold fusion makes no radioactive waste.
Cold fusion seeks to produce nuclear energy without harmful radiation, complex equipment and the application of very high temperatures and pressures. But it has no conclusive theory explaining it and flies in the face of a well-established physics law that goes against easy fusion of nuclei. There is no guarantee that every time a cold fusion or LENR experiment is done, energy will be produced.
Research is underway in the U.S., Japan, China, Russia, Italy, France and Ukraine too. Given the challenge posed by the science behind LENR and its potential payoffs, the Indian government should fund academic institutions that are willing to enter the fray.