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Feb 6. PPPL colloq. Frank von Hippel, member of the International Panel on Fissle Materials. A Hiroshima type nuclear bomb
requires only about 5 kG of enriched Uranium. The nuclear arsenals of Russia, US, and other countries contain enough uranium
to make tens of thousands of weapons, so rigid controls are de rigeur. Von Hippel says that 5 kG bombs can be manufactured
by groups of terrorists who can get the uranium. Whew! Alarming.Feb 13. Selectivity in Plasma Material Processing by Mark
Kushner, Iowa State. How to etch 2 nanometer channels in silicon and polymers.Mar 27. Hamilton lecture by AB McDonald:
Canadian neutrino detector(SNO), 2000 meters below the surface of the earth in an operating nickel mine. 9600 Phototubes outside
a 12 m sphere filled with heavy water observe interactions of neutrinos with the deuterium atoms. Outside the sphere is a
30 meter barrel of ordinary water. With this arrangement the scientists were able to separate interactions of different flavor
neutrinos and show that the calculations done on the sun's output of neutrinos is correct. Original measurements made decades
ago indicated that the neutrino flux was only about 1/3 that calculated.Dec 3. A bioscience lecture at PPPL on the subject
of communication among bacteria, a phenomenon discovered by Bonnie Bassler , a professor of molecular biology at Princeton
U. A former winner of the MacArthur Award, she believes that her findings will lead to a new class of antibiotics.
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