Abstract
Nuclear physics is struggling to lure new students.
NUCLEAR SCIENCE: End of the class?
Asked what advice he would provide to graduate students starting their studies in nuclear science, a recently minted nuclear physics PhD answered pointedly: “If it is not a case of ‘I am compelled to study in this field,’ I would say find something more useful, i.e., something to make you more employable.”
How low can it go? Fewer and fewer undergraduate science students (below) are seeking a career in nuclear physics.
The response articulated the frustration of a generation of young nuclear physicists and seemingly validated the perception previous generations worried had developed about their field. It also typified the majority of replies to a 2004 survey conducted by the Energy Department/National Science Foundation Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC)'s education subcommittee. The number of nuclear physicists graduating from U.S. universities dropped by 3 percent per year for the last decade, according to Ed Hartouni, the leader of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's nuclear and particle physics division. One culprit: image–both among the general populace and prospective students. To the public, “nuclear” conjures up negative images, curtailing the discipline's pull from an early age; to students pursuing science, nuclear physics constitutes a “mature” field, with its seminal findings long revealed. It's a notion working nuclear physicists refute. “I'm tackling some of the most compelling problems of the day–for example the origin of the elements,” says Jolie Cizewski, a NSAC education subcommittee member and professor at Rutgers University's Department of Physics and Astronomy. “I passionately do not feel that I'm in an irrelevant field.”
Nuclear engineers, who apply the basic research done by nuclear scientists, faced a similar perception problem in the nineties. Graduation numbers plummeted thanks in part to a waning nuclear power industry considered hazardous and near extinction. “It was hard enough to get undergrads into it, but then they'd go to their parents,” says Jeffrey Freidberg, the former head of MIT's Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. “The parents would say, ‘Are you nuts? No one is building any plants! And they're dangerous!’” As interest dwindled, more than half the number of university research reactors closed, and many university nuclear engineering programs either merged into larger departments or shuttered altogether, further depressing enrollment numbers.
But at the nadir, nuclear power started to reclaim some of its appeal. The Bush administration promoted its viability, and advocates, which included prominent environmentalists, stumped for it as a clean energy source. Plus, Chernobyl's horrors missed a generation. “Most of the kids who are entering college today weren't even born when Chernobyl happened,” says Michael Corradini, chair of the University of Wisconsin's Department of Engineering Physics. “I have to explain it to them. The sad thing is that nobody cares about history, and the good thing is that nobody cares about history.” Parents and students sensed a thriving job market developing. Hence, since about 2000, universities such as Wisconsin have experienced a boom in nuclear engineering undergraduates.
Hartouni predicts that the renewed interest in nuclear power–coupled with Homeland Security initiatives such as cargo interrogation–should also substantially spike the need for nuclear physicists. To meet this increased demand and stem the enrollment dip, the NSAC education subcommittee has suggested, among other things, that a concerted effort be made to encourage greater diversity. “With women comprising half the population but only 15 percent of nuclear physics PhDs, you could dramatically increase the number of nuclear scientists if you increase the number of women,” Cizewski says.
Whatever the course, Hartouni strongly advises against letting the field diminish. “I need people with a broad skill set so when a surprising problem arises, I have the right people to work on it,” he says. “We could choose not to nurture nuclear physics because we don't regard it as an important aspect of future technological problems, but we can't predict that accurately. The danger is guessing wrong. Then what?”
JOSH SCHOLLMEYER
Q+A Gil Loescher
A survivor of the August 2003 suicide bombing of the U.N. Baghdad headquarters, refugee expert, and the subject of the documentary Pulled from the Rubble talks about his recovery and present-day humanitarian challenges.
Gil Loescher with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Brussels five months after the Baghdad bombing.
JOSH SCHOLLMEYER
AN EXTENDED VERSION OF THIS INTERVIEW IS AVAILABLE ONLINE AT THEBULLETIN.ORG.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS: Under the sea
The three members of the Dover Air Force Base Civil Engineer Squadron never expected the World War I-era munitions shell to start oozing mustard agent. But when they began disarming the corroded projectile recovered from a local poultry farmer's clamshell driveway in July 2004, the mustard agent burned and blistered them enough to send the group to the hospital. Since then, Delaware residents and authorities have found more than 300 conventional munitions in clamshell driveways across the state. The mustard shell, however, stood alone as a reminder of a dirty U.S. legacy.
From the end of World War I until 1970, the United States and other nations disposed of their excess chemical weapons by dumping them into the oceans, believing an immense amount of water would negate the weapons' chemical agents. To some extent, they were right. “The primary breakdown step of hydrolysis by seawater is reasonably rapid,” says Peter Brewer, a senior scientist at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, who studied the issue of offshore chemical weapon dumping as a member of MEDEA, a follow-on panel to then-Vice President Al Gore's Environmental Task Force.
Whether fully dissolved or not, few weapons have risen to the surface domestically, especially given the amount of ocean dumping (see map and box). When they do, it's generally by human hands. Officials surmise that an East Coast clam-processing plant mistakenly dredged up the mustard projectile that injured the servicemen and unknowingly transferred it to a clamshell hauler, who, in turn, sold the crushed clamshells to Delaware residents as a cheap way to pave their driveways.
A lack of recordkeeping troubles experts the most. In many cases, the U.S. military simply doesn't know the exact location or number of dump sites, making scientific study of the environmental and health effects difficult. But with the Delaware incident raising awareness and pending congressional legislation mandating better accounting, this could change. Says Brewer, “It seems unconscionable to say, ‘Everything is okay. We won't bother mapping it.’”
JOSH SCHOLLMEYER
… AND THE REST
Number of chemical weapon dumps off foreign shores:
ENVIRONMENT: Midterm exam
What would happen if scientists relied on the whimsy of policy makers to determine research goals? Britain may soon find out.
Last year, British environmental policy makers emerged from a two-day workshop with a recently published list of 100 ecological questions they labeled of “high policy relevance.” The role-reversing exercise, in which scientists sought merely to facilitate the process of whittling down the number of questions, resulted in a set of unusually broad topics to address, according to William Sutherland, an ecologist from the University of East Anglia and one of the workshop's leaders.
Nevertheless, Sutherland says, “It's a good way of focusing directions.”
JONAS SIEGEL
AMONG BRITISH POLICY MAKERS' MOST PRESSING ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS:
RE: PANDEMICS: Fashion bug
The standard, powder-blue flu mask is so last year. The new trend in particulate respirator couture? Animal prints, studded suede trim, and sequins. “I hope there never is a pandemic flu,” says Patty Lamberti, the creator of the New York-based Fashion Flu Masks (fashion flu masks. com), a line of hand-decorated, CDC-approved N95 surgical masks (pictured left) partly inspired by the chic mouth coverings many women in Asia wore during the severe acute respiratory syndrome and bird flu scares of recent years. “But ultimately, it's human to want to still express your sense of style and stand out–even in the darkest of times.”
Flu chic: Stylish N95 masks
JOSH SCHOLLMEYER
EMERGENCY RESPONSE: Fighting a “dirty” war
Along-sleeve shirt and a pair of pants might be all you need to protect yourself from a dirty bomb. While a dirty bomb (often referred to as a radiological dispersion device) could present serious hazards, an appropriate response would incorporate a number of straightforward protection measures, says Stephen Musolino, a health physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. “A radiological dispersion device disperses the radioactivity,” he says. “By definition, you are releasing dilute radioactive material. In that sense, you don't get big effects.”
Musolino and Frederick Harper, a senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratory, dusted off the results of 20 years of experiments testing the aerosolization of radioactive materials and translated the underlying science into a dirty bomb-specific set of recommendations to help prepare emergency responders and the public.
JONAS SIEGEL
The new nuclear test: A 2003 Seattle dirty bomb drill. REUTERS/
