UC Berkeley team to study nuclear detection for homeland security <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2007/09/04/BAMVRSDNN.DT L&o=0> Edward Morse heads up a team of scientists that includes ... What do a terrorist nuke and kitty litter have in common? They can look the same to a radiation-detector. So can a bunch of bananas. All of them give off gamma rays and thereby highlight a critical problem in efforts to protect the nation from smuggled nuclear materials: How can screeners find the bad stuff without slowing the inspection of imported goods to an economy-crippling crawl? A five-member team of UC Berkeley researchers has just begun to tackle the dilemma. It's a key part of a new Academic Research Initiative sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security to tap the brainpower of the nation's best university scientists. The Berkeley team's $1.4 million grant - awarded after a tough national competition and potentially renewable for a total of $7.1 million over five years - is designed to develop nuclear-detection technology, improve risk assessment and help train a new generation of experts for a world that must cope with the rapidly expanding dangers of nuclear-materials proliferation. "We have a history in Berkeley of working in nuclear technology that goes back to the Manhattan Project," said team leader Edward Morse, a professor of nuclear engineering. "My way of looking at it is, it is really like the next Manhattan Project." Although radiation detectors have begun to operate at the nation's ports, their thoroughness, accuracy and speed remain in question. And many common sources of radiation can trigger false positives that require considerable expertise to sort out, Morse said. "They're not going to set things up so that they have a bunch of professors sitting around with monitors looking at every container for 12 hours," Morse said of the nation's evolving import-inspection system. "Talk about disrupting the economy - it would stop the economy." Funding for the new Academic Research Initiative comes from the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, a 2-year-old addition to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The National Science Foundation handled the screening and selection of researchers in the crowded field of 133 applications from universities across the nation. Only two large awards, of $1.4 million each, were given for the first year. One went to Cal and the other to Texas A&M University, which will look at broad detector concepts and radiation-signal analysis, in addition to training future researchers in the field. About $5 million in additional funding is being divided into smaller awards for 20 other projects around the country. The Berkeley project, which began Saturday, was selected for its potential scientific advancement in nuclear detection and for "the integration of both graduate and undergraduate students into the research plan," said Bruce Hamilton, a program director at the National Science Foundation. Developing more nuclear scientists is a key goal in a nation that has seen a sharp decline in nuclear engineering departments at American universities in the past generation, said Nick Prins, a deputy assistant director at Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. "You need to train the next generation," he said. "There is a shortage." The only nuclear engineering department left in California is UC Berkeley's, after programs closed at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara, said the chairwoman of Berkeley's department, professor Jasmina Vujic. An important strength of the Berkeley project is its multidisciplinary approach, Morse said. The five-member team includes not only Morse and two other nuclear scientists, Eric Norman and Brian Wirth, but also physics professor James Siegrist, who heads the physics division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Dorit Hochbaum, a professor of industrial engineering and operations research, who will work on assessment systems for the large and sometimes contradictory inspection data. The team will collaborate with colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore national labs, which conduct related research. The work supported by the Academic Research Initiative is designed to be longer term than the work now being done at national labs and elsewhere, which focuses on the next generation of detection technology, said Andrea Hoshmand, a program analyst at the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. The academic program will focus on the generations beyond the next one, said Hoshmand. "We're looking at a pretty long pipeline. But you never want that pipeline to run dry." The Berkeley grant is the largest in a welcome boost in grants this year for the nuclear engineering department, Vujic said. The increased funding reflects a change of fortune and employment prospects for those working on nuclear matters, in both detection and nuclear energy, she said, noting that freshman applicants to the department have increased between 30 and 40 percent a year in recent years. U.S. graduate applicants are up too, she said. Professor Joonhong Ahn, who has staffed the department's table at UC Berkeley's annual "Cal Day" open house for the past decade, said he has noticed a marked turn-around in student and parent views. "Back in the 1990s, parents' attitudes were so negative that if their kids tried to approach our table, they almost dragged them back," he said. "Now it's just the opposite." False positives Common substances that can set off radiation detectors: -- Potassium nitrate fertilizers -- Granite or marble -- Vegetable produce -- Camera lenses -- Thoriated tungsten welding rods -- Gas lantern mantles -- Porcelain bathroom fixtures -- Ceramic tile -- Kitty litter -- Medical isotopes Source: AMETEK's ORTEC Products Group E-mail Charles Burress at [EMAIL PROTECTED] This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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