Month: December 2012

Imperial in the news: three million dollar boson

Over the last few years, particle physics has been the science subject on everyone’s lips, with the probable discovery of a Higgs boson this summer the icing on the expensive, but ultimately enthralling, cake.

Adding to the glamour of rigorous study of particles unimaginably small and hard to pin down, Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner has taken it upon himself to award multi-million dollar prizes for scientists working in the field.

The New York Times reports that one of his latest prizes, worth $3 million, has been dedicated to the groups working at the Large Hadron Collider in CERN, including the particle detectors Atlas and CMS.

Imperial in the news: electric cars

When the Racing Green Endurance team drove their SRZero down the Pan-American Highway in 2010, they drastically altered the image of electric cars across the world.

They proved that long journeys were possible, with the right supporting infrastructure, and, perhaps just as importantly, that electric cars don’t have to look like a G-Wiz or operate like a golf buggy. They can be sleek and sexy too, as illustrated by the growth of demand and production from manufacturers such as Tesla, Fisker and Venturi.

The Guardian blog interviewed Clemens Lorf and Alexander Schey [both Mechanical Engineering], who were part of the team prior to a talk about the project and the future of the industry, focusing especially around fuel cells and energy sources.

Imperial in the news: sibling rivalry

A new ‘cinematic MRI’ machine used at the Robert Steiner MR Unit at Imperial’s Hammersmith campus is being used instead of ultrasound to gain an even greater picture of fetal development in twins.

Importantly, it picks up changes in brain development that could indicate that one fetus is receiving more nutrients than the other. In cases of twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), where the twins share a placenta rather than have one each, it can identify earlier whether there is a need for treatment that could save the lives of both fetuses.

Dr Marisa Taylor-Clarke [Surgery & Cancer] spoke to Reuters in a video about the technique, which was featured on the Huffington Post website.