Iridium Netwerk’s medical physics team redefines best practice in radiotherapy QA

29 Oct 2021 Sponsored by Sun Nuclear Corporation

The SunCHECK Quality Management Platform is delivering long-run benefits for medical physicists and – more importantly – patients at Iridium Netwerk’s clinics in Belgium

Streamlined QA: the SunCHECK Quality Management Platform provides the QA “engine-room” for Iridium Netwerk’s radiotherapy physics service, with 17 medical physicists and six physics assistants working across four clinical sites. (Courtesy: Iridium Netwerk)

A relentless focus on workflow efficiency, standardization and automation has helped medical physicists at Iridium Netwerk transform patient and machine QA best practice across the healthcare group’s multi-site radiation oncology programme in the Greater Antwerp region of Belgium. The catalyst for change was the clinical roll-out, through late 2017 and early 2018, of the SunCHECK Quality Management Platform from Sun Nuclear Corporation, the US-based manufacturer of independent QA solutions for radiotherapy facilities and diagnostic imaging providers.

 

High-temperature superconducting joints make an all-superconducting NMR magnet

29 Oct 2021 Isabelle Dumé

The first persistent-mode medium magnetic field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) magnet that uses superconducting joints between high-temperature superconductors. (Courtesy: Y Yanagisawa)

Researchers in Japan have built the first nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) magnet that incorporates high-temperature superconductors with truly superconducting joints between them. This breakthrough all-superconducting configuration enables the device to operate at relatively high magnetic fields in so-called persistent mode, making it suitable for applications such as maglev trains and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

 

The COP26 climate summit: what scientists hope it will achieve

29 Oct 2021 James Dacey

Courtesy: UK government

As the COP26 climate summit gets underway in Glasgow, the stakes could not be higher. If we want to limit the average global temperature rise to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, then ambitions need to be raised.

What is matter really made of? How does the stuff around us escape annihilation in the fearsome heat of the Big Bang? And will we ever be able to understand the very first moments of our universe?

  What is matter really made of? How does the stuff around us escape annihilation in the fearsome heat of the Big Bang? And will we ever be able to understand the very first moments of our universe?

Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/RlilcMT-RaY Harry's book "How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch" is available now: https://geni.us/harrycliff Using the latest experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva and labs and observatories around the world, including a neutrino detector buried a kilometre under an Italian mountain to a gravitational wave detector nestled in the humid pine forest of Louisiana, particle physicist Harry Cliff will reveal what the newest findings tell us about the the fundamental ingredients of matter and their origins.

 

Sterile neutrinos ruled out by MicroBooNE, but mysterious excess remains unexplained

28 Oct 2021 Hamish Johnston

No sterile neutrinos here: a component of MicroBooNE’s time projection chamber being installed. (Courtesy: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab)

Neutrino physics has rarely been straightforward, and many surprises – and four Nobel prizes – have emerged in the 90 years since the particle was first proposed. Now, it looks like the first results from the MicroBooNE neutrino detector at Fermilab in the US are keeping the faith with this tradition.

 

The physics of burn-in and burnout

28 Oct 2021

This article is the fourth in a series of essays written by Black physicists and co-published with Physics Today as part of #BlackInPhysics week 2021, an event dedicated to celebrating Black physicists and their contributions to the scientific community, and to revealing a more complete picture of what a physicist looks like. This year’s theme is “burnout”.

Problems and symptoms For Larry Gladney, being a physicist means “there’s literally a universe of mystery mocking your ambition to understand how reality works” but burnout is neither inevitable nor equally distributed. (Courtesy: Larry Gladney)

Three years ago I left the University of Pennsylvania, where I was dean of natural sciences, former chair of the department of physics and astronomy, and an endowed chair in that same department.

 

Gold nanoparticles show promise for imaging and therapy of vascular disease

28 Oct 2021

Contrast enhancement: In vivo CT images of abdominal aortic aneurysms in mice with and without GNPs. The images showed significantly higher CT attenuation values in the perivascular area (yellow arrows) in mice injected with GNPs. (Courtesy: CC BY 4.0/Mol. Imaging Biol. 10.1007/s11307-021-01654-5)

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) show potential as CT contrast agents for imaging macrophages in areas of vascular inflammation, according to preclinical research from Japan. Such GNPs could also act as light absorbers in photothermal therapy, the research team report in Molecular Imaging and Biology. These findings could one day help in the diagnosis and treatment of vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis (plaque build-up in arteries) and abdominal aortic aneurysm (a swelling in the aorta).

 

Inverse Problems Involving Non-linear Hyperbolic Equations (Lecture - 1) by Matti Lassas

WORKSHOP ON INVERSE PROBLEMS AND RELATED TOPICS (ONLINE) ORGANIZERS: Rakesh (University of Delaware, USA) and Venkateswaran P Krishnan (TIFR-CAM, India) DATE: 25 October 2021 to 29 October 2021 VENUE: Online This week-long program will consist of several lectures by experts on different types of inverse problems and the underlying basic techniques to understand them. The targeted audience for these lectures are Master's and PhD students, and researchers with a strong background in PDEs. Prior experience of research in inverse problems will not be assumed. The topics that we cover during this week-long program are: 1. Calderon problem. 2. Fractional Calderon problem. 3. Geometric inverse problems. 4. Integral geometry problems. 5. Inverse problems for Maxwell's equations. 6. Inverse problems involving non-linear equations. 7. Inverse problems for hyperbolic and transport equations. 8. Probabilistic inverse problems. 9. Machine Learning approaches in inverse problems. CONTACT US: program@icts.res.in PROGRAM LINK: https://www.icts.res.in/discussion-me...

 

Compositions of exoplanets and their stars have a surprising relationship, study reveals

27 Oct 2021

Formative years: artist’s impression of the formation of a planet in an accretion disc surrounding a Sun-like star. The illustration shows rocks and iron molecules in the foreground. (Courtesy: Tania Cunha/Planetário do Porto - Centro Ciência Viva & Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço)

The chemical compositions of rocky planets are linked to that of their host stars, but the relationship is not as simple as previously thought – an international team of astronomers has discovered. The correlation was established by researchers led by Vardan Adibekyan at Portugal’s University of Porto, who studied the abundance of iron in 22 exoplanets orbiting Sun-like stars. The team says that its findings suggest that exoplanets resembling Earth (called super Earths) and exoplanets resembling Mercury (super Mercuries) are the result of different formation processes.

 

Ultrasensitive frequency comb breathalyser targets real-time disease diagnosis

27 Oct 2021

Disease detection: The breathalyser identifies biomarkers of disease by measuring the frequencies and intensities of light absorbed as a laser frequency comb passes through breath samples in a glass tube. (Courtesy: Ye Labs and Steven Burrows, JILA)

A team of US-based researchers has developed an innovative frequency comb breathalyser that is one thousand times more sensitive to disease biomarkers than the previous version – paving the way for substantial improvements in the use of non-invasive human breath analysis to detect and monitor disease.

 

The Science of Cooperation – with Nichola Raihani

 

Inverse problems for transport equations (Lecture 1) by Alexandre Jollivet

WORKSHOP ON INVERSE PROBLEMS AND RELATED TOPICS (ONLINE) ORGANIZERS: Rakesh (University of Delaware, USA) and Venkateswaran P Krishnan (TIFR-CAM, India) DATE: 25 October 2021 to 29 October 2021 VENUE: Online This week-long program will consist of several lectures by experts on different types of inverse problems and the underlying basic techniques to understand them. The targeted audience for these lectures are Master's and PhD students, and researchers with a strong background in PDEs. Prior experience of research in inverse problems will not be assumed. The topics that we cover during this week-long program are: 1. Calderon problem. 2. Fractional Calderon problem. 3. Geometric inverse problems. 4. Integral geometry problems. 5. Inverse problems for Maxwell's equations. 6. Inverse problems involving non-linear equations. 7. Inverse problems for hyperbolic and transport equations. 8. Probabilistic inverse problems. 9. Machine Learning approaches in inverse problems. CONTACT US: program@icts.res.in PROGRAM LINK: https://www.icts.res.in/discussion-me...

 

Major US and European labs join forces to tackle climate change

26 Oct 2021 Michael Banks

Going green: Waste heat from the European Spallation Source, which is under construction in Lund, Sweden, will eventually be connected to the local heating system rather than being vented into the atmosphere (courtesy: Perry Nordeng/ESS).

Top physics facilities in Europe and the US have come together to tackle the climate crisis. The labs – including CERN, the European Space Agency, Fermilab and the Los Alamos National Laboratory – have announced that they will step up their scientific collaboration on carbon-neutral energy and climate change as well as share best practices to improve the carbon footprint of big-science facilities.

 

Ice microfibres are super flexible and springy

24 Jul 2021

Elastic ice

Micromanipulators bend an ice microfibre. Courtesy: Peizhen Xu, Bowen Cui, Xin Guo and Limin Tong, Zhejiang University

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Scientists in China and the US have created extremely flexible and elastic microfibres from ice. These fibres, which defy the usual rigid and brittle nature of ice, exhibit excellent optical quality and have mechanical properties that are near ice’s fundamental limits. They could be used for optical applications, environmental sensors and to study ice physics, the researchers claim.

 

Qubits for the future: YouTube documentary explores how quantum computing could promote sustainability

26 Oct 2021 Laura Hiscott

Taken from the October 2021 issue of Physics World where it first appeared under the headline "Qubits for the future". Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.

Laura Hiscott reviews Quantum Technology | Our Sustainable Future by The Quantum Daily

Still image from Quantum Technology | Our Sustainable Future. (Courtesy: The Quantum Daily)

How could quantum computing help us to fix climate change? This is the question at the heart of Quantum Technology | Our Sustainable Future, a half-hour-long documentary published on YouTube in July.

 

Scanning the cosmos for signs of alien technology

20 Oct 2021

Taken from the October 2021 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.

Ever since planets beyond our solar system were first discovered, astronomers have been hunting life beyond our world. While biological signatures are crucial, the idea of scouring the skies for signs of technosignatures from advanced civilizations is gaining momentum, as David Appell discovers

Probing pollution One indication of advanced alien life could be industrial pollution. Therefore, the presence of gases such as nitrogen dioxide might serve as a technosignature that we could detect on exoplanets. (Courtesy: NASA/Jay Freidlander)

In 1802 the young German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss suggested a way to make our presence known to would-be Martians – by clearing a huge area in the Siberian forest, planting it with wheat, and creating a pattern indicative of the Pythagorean theorem. Some 80 years later, astronomer Percival Lowell – founder of the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, and proponent of the idea that astronomers had spotted canals on Mars – suggested digging our own canals in the Sahara desert. His plan was to fill the canals with oil and set them alight, thereby attracting the attention of residents of the red planet.

 

Calderon problem (Lecture 1) by Venkateswaran P Krishnan

WORKSHOP ON INVERSE PROBLEMS AND RELATED TOPICS (ONLINE)

ORGANIZERS: Rakesh (University of Delaware, USA) and Venkateswaran P Krishnan (TIFR-CAM, India)

DATE: 25 October 2021 to 29 October 2021 VENUE: Online This week-long program will consist of several lectures by experts on different types of inverse problems and the underlying basic techniques to understand them. The targeted audience for these lectures are Master's and PhD students, and researchers with a strong background in PDEs. Prior experience of research in inverse problems will not be assumed. The topics that we cover during this week-long program are: 1. Calderon problem. 2. Fractional Calderon problem. 3. Geometric inverse problems. 4. Integral geometry problems. 5. Inverse problems for Maxwell's equations. 6. Inverse problems involving non-linear equations. 7. Inverse problems for hyperbolic and transport equations. 8. Probabilistic inverse problems. 9. Machine Learning approaches in inverse problems. CONTACT US: program@icts.res.in

PROGRAM LINK: https://www.icts.res.in/discussion-me...

 

Black-hole laser could have quantum computing applications

24 Oct 2021

How it works: diagram showing how a soliton (top) plays the role of a mirrored laser cavity (bottom). (Courtesy: Haruna Katayama/Hiroshima University)

An electromagnetic analogue for a black hole laser – a system that could theoretically amplify Hawking radiation from the event horizon of a black hole and make it observable – has been proposed by Haruna Katayama of Hiroshima University in Japan. The idea follows on from demonstrations of analogues using Bose-Einstein condensates and has the potential to provide new insights into the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravity. If built, the device could even advance technologies such as quantum computing.

 

ASTRO convenes in-person conference for the cancer care community

24 Oct 2021 Sponsored by Physics World corporate partners

Clinicians, researchers and healthcare professionals will be able to reconnect at the annual meeting of American Society for Radiation Oncology, which will be held as an in-person event in Chicago, Illinois

Back on site: The ASTRO Annual Meeting will include a three-day exhibition, where over 160 companies will present their latest technologies, services and product developments. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Chaay_Tee)

The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) will once again welcome delegates to its annual meeting, which is due to take place in Chicago, IL, on 24–27 October 2021. Thousands of oncologists, clinicians, researchers and healthcare professionals are expected to come together to share knowledge and experience, and to reconnect with colleagues and friends at an in-person event.

 

Magic smartphone trees: technology for a circular economy

23 Oct 2021 Laura Hiscott

Taken from the October 2021 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.

Laura Hiscott reviews Brave Green World: How Science Can Save Our Planet by Chris Forman and Claire Asher

3D and 4D printing could play a key role in tackling the challenges we face as a species. (CC BY SA Jonathan Juursema)

“How incredible would it be if a smartphone could be grown like an apple on a tree?” So ask physicist Chris Forman and science communicator Claire Asher in their new book Brave Green World: How Science Can Save Our Planet. As fantastical as it might sound, they are not just idly imagining such a scenario.

 

Early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic penalised women in academia

22 Oct 2021

Multitasking: the drop in productivity for women at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to stem from the increased caring responsibilities that women took on (courtesy: iStock/damircudic)

Female academics submitted fewer papers than their male counterparts during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. That is the main conclusion of a study by researchers in Europe, which found that while overall submissions increased by around a third in those early months of the pandemic, the productivity of female scientists was lower than expected. The authors warn that this fall could deepen gender inequalities in academia.

 

Could the future of vaccines be syringe-free?

22 Oct 2021 Samuel Vennin

Vaccine delivery: The 3D-printed patch designed by researchers in the US contains 100 microneedles. (Courtesy: Shaomin Tian)In the global fight against COVID-19, around 6.8 billion vaccine doses have been administered across

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New ‘time lens’ could boost single-photon imaging technique

20 Sep 2021

Stretching out: graphic showing how a time lens can distinguish between two photons arriving at a detector close together. (Courtesy: Optica)

A new “time lens” that can magnify the difference in arrival times between individual photons within an ultra-short pulse has been developed by researchers in the US. Using an advanced optical setup, Shu-Wei Huang and colleagues at the University of Colorado, Boulder, showed how the arrival times of individual photons within a femtosecond-length pulse could be stretched out while retaining the quantum information that they carry.

 

Boiling droplets propel themselves across oily films

09 Sep 2021

Rapid motion: a selection of photographs of boiling droplets on oil that were taken during the study. (Courtesy: Kripa Varanasi)

A mechanism that causes droplets of boiling water to propel themselves rapidly across hot oil films has been identified by Victor Leon and Kripa Varanasi at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The duo used high-speed photography to determine the relationship between the fleeting timescales of bubble formation inside the droplet, and their motions over long timescales.

 

Metal-organic frameworks stabilize perovskite LEDs

22 Oct 2021 Isabelle Dumé

Light-emitting diodes made from perovskite nanocrystals (green) embedded in a metal-organic framework can be created at low cost, use earth-abundant materials and remain stable under typical working conditions. (Courtesy: Los Alamos National Laboratory)

Perovskite nanocrystals are promising materials for light-emitting diodes (LEDs), but they tend to clump together – an instability that destroys their light-absorbing and light-emitting properties. Researchers in the US have now succeeded in stabilizing these materials in porous structures known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). The resulting films, which can be fabricated at room temperature, could have applications in consumer electronics and medical imaging as well as photovoltaic devices.

 

Electrons flow like a fluid in a metal superconductor

08 Oct 2021 Isabelle Dumé

A small crystal of the new material. (Courtesy: Fazel Tafti, Boston College)

A team of researchers in the US has discovered that electrons in a transition metal superconductor called ditetrelide flow like a fluid rather than behaving as individual particles. The finding, which is connected to the physics of electron-phonon liquids, could shed fresh light on the fundamental properties of these technologically important materials and their potential applications.

 

Balloon-borne telescope will ‘weigh’ the universe, remembering John Enderby

12 Aug 2021 Hamish Johnston

If you built a very expensive telescope, would you hitch it to a balloon and fly it 40 km above the surface of the Earth? That is what Mohamed Shaaban at the University of Toronto and an international team will do next year when they launch their SuperBIT telescope on NASA’s superpressure balloon. Shabaan explains why the team is putting their telescope on a balloon and how the instrument will be used it to study gravitational lensing, which could improve our understanding of how much dark matter there is in the universe.

 

Celebrating Open Access Week 2021, new environmental open-access journals

22 Oct 2021 Michael Banks

IOP Publishing has recently announced three new open-access journals in environemental science (Courtesy: IOP Publishing)

Next week marks International Open Access Week 2021, which has as its theme “It matters how we open knowledge: building structural equity”. Now in its 13th year, the global event aims to promote the benefits of open-access publishing.

 

Biological systems inspire new method for extracting lithium

21 Oct 2021 Isabelle Dumé

Lithium Extraction. (Courtesy: The University of Texas at Austin)

A new way to extract lithium from contaminated water could make this technologically important metal much easier to produce. The technique, which involves passing aqueous brines through lithium-selective polymeric membranes, works in a way that mimics the potassium channels that regulate the balance of ions in biological systems.

 

Donna Strickland on her life-changing Nobel prize, previewing Black in Physics Week, nuclear fusion in stars

21 Oct 2021 Hamish Johnston

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, the Canadian Nobel laureate and laser physicist Donna Strickland talks about how winning the prize in 2018 was a life-changing event.