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Asked by to Becky, Clara, Daniel, Simon, Thomas on 12 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by fish238.
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Simon Albright answered on 12 Mar 2014:
What I’m doing will help to reduce the amount of dangerous and illegal goods entering the country. That would mean fewer drugs, less terrorism and less smuggled alcohol and tobacco etc all of which would be good! 😀
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Becky Martin answered on 12 Mar 2014:
Hopefully my work will improve the safety of people who live near nuclear power stations, by helping us to understand who is at greatest risk if there is ever an accident.
It’s important to understand these things so that you are prepared for the worst, but I hope for the best! If we are lucky, my type of models will only be used for training purposes. 😉
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Daniel Roach answered on 12 Mar 2014:
By being able to model and understand the forces between atoms in polycrystals (most drugs, proteins etc are polycrystals – lots of tiny crystals all jumbled up together), we can design and create new materials for medicine (nanotube repairs for tiny blood vessels in the brain or heart), new drugs that target cancer cells, new ways to store energy safely, thermoelectric materials that convert heat back into electricity… the list goes on!
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Thomas Elias Cocolios answered on 12 Mar 2014:
My work can be applied to perform isotopic ratio test and date precisely samples (Have you ever heard of carbon-14 dating? Well, the same, but with many more different isotopes!)
The aim is to study the transport of water in aquifers or in deep sea current to better manage the water resources in areas where there is a shortage (e.g. Australia) or to better understand the impact the oceans have on the weather patterns and climate change… Quite a long way from my potato-like shapes!
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Clara Nellist answered on 13 Mar 2014:
What we learn from doing particle physics research can be used in hospitals to take better images of the body (which helps doctors to diagnose patients better) and to treat people who have cancer.
One of my favourite uses of particle physics in medicine is called hadron therapy. When you treat cancer with x-rays, you kill the tumour, but the healthy parts of the body around the tumour get a lot of radiation. This is not good. But, if you use a type of particle called a hadron, like a proton for example, you can focus where this radiation goes. So more of it kills the cancer tumour, and very little of it damages the heathy bits so the person recovers faster!
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