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When I studied chemistry at university, only a handful of select students were introduced to the nuclear science lab in the basement. It had a lot of spicy isot
by jandrewrogers 11mo ago
When I studied chemistry at university, only a handful of select students were introduced to the nuclear science lab in the basement. It had a lot of spicy isotopes, neutron sources, etc. Even as a chemistry student with free run of the place for years I had no idea it was in the building until the department head pulled a few of us aside.
The reason for the informal secrecy, as it was explained to me, is that every so often someone would find out there was plutonium etc in the basement and have a public freak out, including on occasion other (non-STEM) professors at the same university. These people would try to organize crusades to get it shut down because evil. Intentionally obscuring its existence greatly mitigated this drama. They appreciated us continuing the tradition of keeping it out of sight and out of mind from the general public.
The publicity around this Kodak case was an example of why no one talks about nuclear labs. The public cannot be trusted to engage in a discussion about anything “nuclear” in good faith. There are quite a few areas of science like this.
- orioni 11mo agoThis is just like how universities hide their animal research facilities. It wasn't until the final year of my biology degree that I found out we had a basement floor under our life sciences building where this research is carried out. I visited a few times as part of a research project I was involved in, and that experience was one of the factors that put me off pursuing a career in biomedical research.
- hammock 11mo agoIf we can’t have a good faith discussion then maybe it is a good idea to hide nuclear and animal labs. But with less oversight, that also invites abuse. You can probably imagine abuse on your own in an anima lab, but I would also point out after Obama banned gain of function research in 2014 U.S. scientists moved their lab to China where it continued without the same oversight, and bad things happened.
- tsunamifury 11mo agoAs a dyed in the wool leftist I more and more struggle with Obama legacy from common core to regulation to his utter selling out the American people to the cia. When he was well intentioned he seemed to be a total failure and when he was blatantly self interested he was monstrous. I don’t think the right is another option but woof… this is tough
- zoklet-enjoyer 11mo agoIt was obvious when he was president that he's a terrible person. Not sure how you're struggling with it now. He's just a guy like anyone else. Not special. We shouldn't deify presidents. I didn't vote for him in 2008 because I thought he was too inexperienced. I didn't vote for him in 2012 because he continued the war of terror.
- tsunamifury 11mo agoI didn’t say any of this. I think you are responding to Your own thoughts and not mine.
- zoklet-enjoyer 11mo ago>As a dyed in the wool leftist I more and more struggle with Obama legacy from common core to regulation to his utter selling out the American people to the cia. You're struggling now but presumably weren't struggling then even though it was obvious at the time that he was a bad person just like the rest of them.
- tsunamifury 11mo agoI actually strongly considered voting for McCain.
- anonymars 11mo agoOn the one hand, "bomb bomb Iran" On the other hand: https://youtu.be/HLAzeHnNgR8?si=rcgu4dkfY60icTuO https://youtu.be/HLAzeHnNgR8?si=rcgu4dkfY60icTuO
- sillysaurusx 11mo agoCould you describe the experience? I’ve always wondered what biomedical research was actually like.
- Projectiboga 11mo agoA standard part of preclinical research for medicines and topical ingrediants is to determine the LD50. That is the dose per unit of weight of an animal, typically lab rats, that will kill just about 50% +- some small range. That is time consuming to zero into a 50% kill rate over a statistically significant sample.
- kordlessagain 11mo agoTo be fair an operational animal lab is an order of different ethical problem than safely storying radioactive material.
- amy_petrik 11mo agoAnd the two combined present an enormous ethical challenge but also enormous potential - radioactive spiders imbuing superpowers upon humans they might bite, magical ooze creating anthropomorphic turtles, and so on
- jpvc 11mo agoOperational radioactive animals!
- billy99k 11mo agoThese public freak outs is also why we don't have abundant nuclear energy. The climate activists of the 60s-90s stopped us from building more reactors, one of the cleanest sources of energy ever known.
- cogman10 11mo agoClimate activists backed and propagandized by the fossil fuel industry and the KGB. And now that there are a number of barriers to creating new nuclear, the propaganda has flipped with fossil fuel companies supporting nuclear because they know it'll be decades before anything real can happen. I have nothing against nuclear and if it can be built I'm for it. But at the moment, solar + battery is quick to deploy and about as cheap as you can get.
- simianparrot 11mo agoOk but what about when it’s night time or cloudy?
- goodcanadian 11mo agoThat's where the battery comes in. Yes, I am over-simplifying the very complex problem of grid management, but so are you.
- ldoughty 11mo agoMolten salt solar power doesn't care. It remains hot. Advancements in solar also are improving with clouds. Also, you know, batteries. When someone makes it cost effective to install a device to sell your car battery power on the grid we'll also have a better time managing the grid during spikes... Would be nice if that also did home battery backup in blackouts... 70 kWh would get me through most of the ones I've experienced.
- lazide 11mo agoMolten salt absolutely does care, keeping it molten controls how much power can be withdrawn. It’s a form of thermal battery (and an inefficient one). If the sun is shining vs not (and if further withdrawal will freeze the salt) absolutely controls power output.
- fragmede 11mo agoSame thing with animal testing. You don't get to know where the monkey labs are but the alternative is we test on poor people? learn to keep secrets, people.
- kspacewalk2 11mo agoYou also don't want the very stupidest of your politicians to catch wind of it [0]. None of these puppy people would refuse stroke treatment on the same ethical grounds, naturally. [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ford-warning-scientists-medical-tests-dogs-1.7607178 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ford-warning-scientist...
- Blamklmo 11mo ago[dead]
- amelius 11mo agoYes, however I suppose it is fuel for conspiracy theories.
- theultdev 11mo agono I think it's fuel for boiling water
- vpShane 11mo agoAh yes, nuclear energy, real hot, make water boil, make things happen. You're telling me we don't have sci-fi energy harnessing capability to capture the nuclear energy itself and convert it to electricity? It's 2025!
- xg15 11mo agoFound it kind of depressing that this seems to be the current strategy for fusion as well. You have this insane device that produces a million degree hot ring of plasma and use it... to boil water...
- maximilianthe1 11mo agoScy-fi enegry generator looks inside steam turbine
- rnhmjoj 11mo agoWe are still trying to solve the problem that we can't keep the plasma hot long enough to create fusion energy, so working on exotic conversion schemes is one step too far. Consider also how complex these reactors already are, it makes sense to use the simplest method that we know works well.
- xg15 11mo agoMakes sense, but from a layman perspective it seems like introducing additional complexity and lots of inefficient, high-loss transmission steps. We start with detached electrons moving at high speeds (plasma). We want detached electrons moving at moderate speeds (electrical current). And yet, the intermediate steps involve everything from heat, steam, large-scale mechanical forces and magnetic induction, just to get back to the electrons? It feels more like the "pull in a 500MB framework instead of writing the function yourself" kind of simplicity.
- Forgeties79 11mo ago> The public cannot be trusted to engage in a discussion about anything “nuclear” in good faith. I agree the fears and subsequent responses are generally not warranted but to call it “bad faith” (by saying not in good faith) is not fair either. Some people are afraid and don’t understand it. We’ve all seen seen the disasters and communities impacted with higher rates of cancer even decades later as a direct result of the Manhattan Project. This stuff can be dangerous so it’s not meritless even if the reactions are wrong and generally uninformed. People not engaging in good faith are doing it very deliberately.
- tokai 11mo agoSame is surprisingly common when weeding books in university libraries. Care is often taken disposing of material, as it can trigger a lot of drama if discovered by the student body.
- jprd 11mo agoRPI?
- 0ckpuppet 11mo agoI suggest we should strive for a more educated public to raise the percentage of people who can have informed discussions. We've seen what happens when education is watered down, so let's try raising the bar, and pushing more science in high schools.