• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • WordPress
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
Science Update

Science Update

Sharing Science | Satisfying Curiosity | Debunking BS

  • Spotlights
  • Reality Check
  • Why Is It?
  • Radio Archives
  • Sciup @ School
Home » Radio Archive » Daily Show » Muon Inspection

Muon Inspection

July 2, 2015
https://podcast.scienceupdate.com/150702_sciup_muon.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window

BOB HIRSHON (host):

800px-Fukushima_1_Nuclear_Power_Plant_021-300x225
Nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant before the March 2011 tsunami. (Kawamoto Takuo/Creative Commons CC BY 2.0, via flickr)

Putting space radiation to work. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Everything on earth is being showered with harmless but high-energy muon particles, produced when cosmic radiation from deep space hits our atmosphere. Los Alamos nuclear physicist Matt Durham and his colleagues have developed an imaging system that uses those muons like x-rays, to find corrosion, cracks and other defects inside pipes, bridges and buildings.

MATT DURHAM (Los Alamos National Laboratory):

So one of great things about muons is they’re incredibly penetrating, so they can go through many many feet of concrete and allow us to examine the object of interest and get a good image of it.

HIRSHON:

Currently, the team is helping Japanese engineers find weak spots in the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. In the future, they hope to turn their attention to infrastructure problems here in the United States, locating defects before they become catastrophic. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Category: Daily Show, Station DownloadTag: Astronomy & Space, Engineering & Technology, Physics
Previous Post:Wolves & Monkeys
Next Post:Brains & Bacteria

Sidebar

Radio Program Archives

Want to learn more about the brain? The environment? Here you can browse the topics that come up regularly on Science Update.

Search the Archives

Categories

  • Daily Show
  • Station Download
  • Weekly Show

Find By Tag

  • 2020
  • Acoustics & Sound
  • Aging
  • Animal Behavior
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Astronomy & Space
  • Biology
  • Brain Science
  • Bugs
  • Chemistry
  • Children & Families
  • cicadas
  • Climate & Weather
  • Communications
  • Computer Science
  • Economics & Business
  • Education
  • Energy
  • Engineering & Technology
  • Environment & Conservation
  • Genetics & Evolution
  • Geology
  • Marine Science
  • Materials Science
  • Mathematics
  • Medicine & Health
  • Microbiology
  • Nanotechnology
  • Nutrition & Food Science
  • Paleontology & Dinosaurs
  • Physics
  • Plants & Agriculture
  • Political Science
  • Reality Check
  • Social & Behavioral Sciences
  • Sports & Fitness
  • spotlight
  • Spotlight Bugs
  • Terrorism & War
  • Why Is It? Questions
  • Wildlife
  • Year in Review

Find By Date

Science Update
  • About Science Update
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

Mayan Honeybee hives
House sparrow wearing top hat rides aboard a red fireworks rocket

Copyright © 2023 · Springtail Media LLC · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Pongos