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Radioisotope Production
Published in Frank Helus, Lelio G. Colombetti, Radionuclides Production, 2019
Notwithstanding the value of nuclear physics research that had been carried out with the early cyclotrons, it was their contribution to medical research, through the generation of radioactive isotopes, that was of the greatest help to Ernest Lawrence in raising funds with which to build a larger cyclotron. The 60-in cyclotron, capable of accelerating deuterons to about 20 MeV, which was completed in 1939 was known from its conception as the “medical cyclotron”, and was indeed a prolific source of radioisotopes. However, within a few years the volume of its output (and that of the several other cyclotrons which had been built elsewhere by then) was totally eclipsed by the primitive nuclear reactors — called at the time ‘ ‘atomic piles” — which were hastily developed as part of the U.S. war effort, following the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939.
Radioactive waste and the decommissioning of radioactive facilities
Published in Alan Martin, Sam Harbison, Karen Beach, Peter Cole, An Introduction to Radiation Protection, 2018
Alan Martin, Sam Harbison, Karen Beach, Peter Cole
Before the discovery of nuclear fission and its utilization as a source of energy, the disposal of radioactive waste did not present a significant problem. It has been estimated that the total quantity of radioactivity in use in research and medicine in 1938 was less than 30 TBq, corresponding to about 1 kg of radium derived from natural sources. Today, a single large power-generating reactor may contain in excess of 108 TBq of fission products and there are more than 400 power reactors in the world. With the increasing emphasis on protection of the environment, the management of waste has become an important factor in both the economics and the public acceptability of nuclear power.
Radiobiological research at Compton, 1964–1978
Published in Kiheung Kim, The Social Construction of Disease, 2006
However, in the meantime, the head of the microbiology department, David Haig, was devising a new experimental plan in association with Tikvah Alper, who was in charge of a radiation unit at Hammersmith Hospital, London. Alper, one of the pioneers of British radiobiology, has an interesting background. She was born in South Africa, the youngest daughter of a Russian–Jewish political refugee. She majored in physics at Capetown University, and after obtaining an MA, went to Germany to research into delta rays from alpha particles under Lise Meitner, a German–Jewish woman physicist who was to play a major role in the discovery of nuclear fission (Fowler 1995: 111). Alper's paper on delta rays won the British Association Junior Medal in 1933 and, according to Jack Fowler, until the 1960s her work on delta rays was still one of the few that provided evidence of cluster sizes (1995: 111). However, Alper could not obtain her PhD in Berlin because of the growth of anti-Semitic tendencies in Nazi Germany. Meitner and her work on the discovery of nuclear fission vanished from view when she had to escape from the Nazi regime.2 Alper, who was also Jewish, was unable to complete her research and returned to South Africa, where she married a bacteriologist, Max Stern. While she was in South Africa, she was offered the headship of the Biophysics Section of the newly established National Physics Laboratory. However, she circulated a petition against Apartheid in 1951, and had to leave the laboratory and South Africa.
Creativity and positive psychology in psychotherapy
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2020
When it comes to the concrete social and political circumstances conditioning the creative process, ethical aspects should also be considered. In 1942, the Austrian-American economist Schumpeter proposed the concept of creative destruction in the economic and political discourse on creativity. It was highly apposite as an apologia for unrestrained markets. By the end of the 20th century, creativity had become a magical formula claiming to improve individuals and society. This view was very popular before the financial crisis of 2007 put a damper on the optimism generated by the idea of economic creativity. The dangerous features of short-lived innovations have become dramatically, indeed tragically, apparent in climate change. In the scientific innovations of the 20th century, this danger is equally apparent. One of the greatest advances in modern physics, the discovery of nuclear fission, led to the creation of nuclear weapons with all their unbelievable potential for destruction.
Days of Future Past: Reply to Open Peer Commentaries on “Revising, Correcting, and Transferring Genes”
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2020
It is maybe a little overdramatic and overwrought to compare gene editing to the development of nuclear energy, but like nuclear energy gene editing is a technology with enormous power and possibility. In a comment published late last year, Jennifer Doudna, one of the co-discoverers of the CRISPR gene editing platform, wrote that “…the genome editing toolbox will soon make it possible to introduce virtually any change to any genome with precision” (Doudna 2019, 777). We are no longer in a world where it is possible to be naïve about the development of technologies that can do things like “introduce virtually any change to any genome with precision.” We know that there are multiple different paths that we could take through this space of possibilities, and that the factors affecting which way things will go are multifarious. In the near century since the discovery of nuclear fission, we have learned not to take for granted that technologies will develop the way we expect and want them to. We’ve also learned not to assume that development can be insulated from the larger forces that shape the world. We are currently living through an unprecedented global health emergency that has, among its many other effects, made the future a great deal more uncertain and unstable. Who knows what futures for revolutionary biomedical tools will be opened up by the changes currently being wrought in the world.
Neutrons are forever! Historical perspectives
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2019
Biological effects of neutrons were of almost immediate interest; reports on these were beginning to emerge already by 1935 (Zirkle 1947). Due to the concurrent discovery of the neutron and development of the cyclotron at the University of California at Berkeley, by 1936 fast neutrons were even being considered for cancer therapy (Lawrence JH and Lawrence EO 1936). In the same year, suggestions were made for enhancement of therapy by the capture of slow neutrons by the loading of tumors with selected nuclei that have a very high neutron capture probability, such as 10B (Locher 1936). The discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 added further interest regarding the biological effects of neutrons – as well as considerable concern!