Project Brainstorm: Using Neuroscience to Connect College Students with Local Schools

Neuroscience can be used as a tool to inspire an interest in science in school children as well as to provide teaching experience to college students

Equity, Diversity, and Community as the Basis for Critical Zone Science and Education

Abstract Responding to the social and environmental challenges of the Anthropocene requires that we integrate science across multiple perspectives, approaches, and disciplines in equitable and culturally responsive ways. While critical zone (CZ) science has made large strides in bridging natural, social, and education science disciplines, the field has been slower to address the lack of diversity, especially in terms of “race” and ethnicity. This means that CZ science and education do not fully reflect all communities they must serve, and representation and access to careers in the field therefore remain limited to mostly white individuals. Despite best intentions, predominantly white science and education teams frequently consider values such as diversity, equity, or inclusion in later stages of work instead of centering these values as the foundation from the outset. Here, we reflect on how our CZ Collaborative Network Project has both struggled with, and is learning to, authentically center and uphold our values in our own work. Our goal is to normalize the concept that culturally responsive CZ science and education requires intentional trust and relationship building, flexibility, and continued learning. To support our evolving work, we have relied on team science practices, and we offer insights into the strategies and tools that help us with our aspiration to center and integrate our values of diversity, equity, and community into team processes

The SORDS trimodal imager detector arrays

The Raytheon Trimodal Imager (TMI) uses coded aperture and Compton imaging technologies as well as the nonimaging shadow technology to locate an SNM or radiological threat in the presence of background. The heart of the TMI is two arrays of NaI crystals. The front array serves as both a coded aperture and the first scatterer for Compton imaging. It is made of 35 5x5x2" crystals with specially designed low profile PMTs. The back array is made of 30 2.5x3x24" position-sensitive crystals which are read out at both ends. These crystals are specially treated to provide the required position resolution at the best possible energy resolution. Both arrays of detectors are supported by aluminum superstructures. These have been efficiently designed to allow a wide field of view and to provide adequate support to the crystals to permit use of the TMI as a vehicle-mounted, field-deployable system. Each PMT has a locally mounted high-voltage supply that is remotely controlled. Each detector is connected to a dedicated FPGA which performs automated gain alignment and energy calibration, event timing and diagnostic health checking. Data are streamed, eventby- event, from each of the 65 detector FPGAs to one master FPGA. The master FPGA acts both as a synchronization clock, and as an event sorting unit. Event sorting involves stamping events as singles or as coincidences, based on the approximately instantaneous detector hit pattern. Coincidence determination by the master FPGA provides a pre-sorting for the events that will ultimately be used in the Compton imaging and coded aperture imaging algorithms. All data acquisition electronics have been custom designed for the TMI.Domestic Nuclear Detection Office of the United States Department of Homeland Securit

Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin

Very small samples from the Shroud of Turin have been dated by accelerator mass spectrometry in laboratories at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich. As controls, three samples whose ages had been determined independently were also dated. The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval. © 1989 Nature Publishing Group