Radioisotopes as political instruments, 1946-1953

The development of nuclear «piles», soon called reactors, in the Manhattan Project provided a new technology for manufacturing radioactive isotopes. Radioisotopes, unstable variants of chemical elements that give off detectable radiation upon decay, were available in small amounts for use in research and therapy before World War II. In 1946, the U.S. government began utilizing one of its first reactors, dubbed X-10 at Oak Ridge, as a production facility for radioisotopes available for purchase to civilian institutions. This program of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was meant to exemplify the peacetime dividends of atomic energy. The numerous requests from scientists outside the United States, however, sparked a political debate about whether the Commission should or even could export radioisotopes. This controversy manifested the tension in U.S. politics between scientific internationalism as a tool of diplomacy, associated with the aims of the Marshall Plan, and the desire to safeguard the country's atomic monopoly at all costs, linked to American anti-Communism. This essay examines the various ways in which radioisotopes were used as political instruments -both by the U.S. federal government in world affairs, and by critics of the civilian control of atomic energy- in the early Cold War

Residues: Rethinking Chemical Environments

Boudia S, Creager ANH, Frickel S, et al. Residues: Rethinking Chemical Environments. ENGAGING SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY. 2018;4:165-178.This essay offers a new approach for conceptualizing the environmental impact of chemicals production, consumption, disposal, and regulation. Environmental protection regimes tend to be highly segmented according to place, media, substance, and effect. Existing scholarship often reflects this same segmentation, by focusing on a locality, specific chemical, social movement, or regulatory body. In turn, as new environmental measures are introduced to deal with pollution and toxicity, they tend to focus on controlling future effects rather than dealing with the accumulated contamination from past industrial activity and waste. In chemical substances we encounter phenomena that are at the same time voluminous and miniscule, regulated yet unruly. Inspired by recent work on materiality and infrastructures, we focus on the concept of residues as both material and political entities. Following residues, we argue, helps us see how the past has been built into our chemical environments and regulatory systems, and why contaminants seem to always evade control

The molecular vista: current perspectives on molecules and life in the twentieth century

This essay considers how scholarly approaches to the development of molecular biology have too often narrowed the historical aperture to genes, overlooking the ways in which other objects and processes contributed to the molecularization of life. From structural and dynamic studies of biomolecules to cellular membranes and organelles to metabolism and nutrition, new work by historians, philosophers, and STS scholars of the life sciences has revitalized older issues, such as the relationship of life to matter, or of physicochemical inquiries to biology. This scholarship points to a novel molecular vista that opens up a pluralist view of molecularizations in the twentieth century and considers their relevance to current science

The Lantern Vol. 52, No. 1, Fall 1985

• Nudes • Orion • Fragments of an Epic • Sunrise • The Planting Season • Nursing Home • Hope Chest • Childhood Swing • Relationships • Elroy, Leopold, and Max • Urban Dragon • The Farmer\u27s Wife • A Ballad of Two Lovers • Betrayal • Choices • Letting Go • Emergence of a Butterfly • Poem for Every Man • Friction • Genesis • All\u27s Well • The Willow Tree • White Wasteland • Moe\u27s Happy Christmas • Rare Bird • Carnivalhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1127/thumbnail.jp

The Grizzly, April 10, 1987

Pfahler Hall Flooded • L.C.B. Visits a Second Time • Our Town Debuts • Letters: Director of Security at Sheraton Responds to Student Attack on Lorelei; Brothers of AXE Commended; Grizzly Dogged • Skunked Again • Students to Participate in Model UN Conference • Salamanca to Relate Experiences on Terrorism • Bard Graces Ursinus • Notes: UC / St. Joseph\u27s Host MBA Summer Session; Myrin Holds Semi-Annual Book Sale; New Resident Assistants Announced • Athlete of the Week: Kim Wentzel • Santangelo, O\u27Malley Jump Lady Bears to 6-0 Start • Women\u27s Tennis Served Tough Losses • Track\u27s Record: Record Breaking • Ursinus\u27 Champion Lacrosse Team: Vying for Fourth National Title • Opposition Unfavorable to Bears • Golf Team Drives Record to 8-0 • Softball Assumes First Place Position • Room Selection to Start • The Joshua Tree Rates an A • Young Democrats: Exhibiting New Challenges for the Future • Advanced TV Class Produces Ursinus Magazine For Cable Network • Arbor Day Trees Grow Money • Bear Facts: Ursinus Mascot Bearly Knownhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1187/thumbnail.jp

Advanced Preparation Makes Research in Emergencies and Isolation Care Possible: The Case of Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

The optimal time to initiate research on emergencies is before they occur. However, timely initiation of high-quality research may launch during an emergency under the right conditions. These include an appropriate context, clarity in scientific aims, preexisting resources, strong operational and research structures that are facile, and good governance. Here, Nebraskan rapid research efforts early during the 2020 coronavirus disease pandemic, while participating in the first use of U.S. federal quarantine in 50 years, are described from these aspects, as the global experience with this severe emerging infection grew apace. The experience has lessons in purpose, structure, function, and performance of research in any emergency, when facing any threat

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements