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Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility, launched its first collection of fiction stories on Friday 7th September with the help of a 6ft leaking, inquisitive alien slug - the star of a witty and strangely credible story entitled The Sound of Science.
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A collaboration of scientists from the University of Nottingham, STFC’s ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, Diamond Light Source, the University of Oxford and Peking University in China, have created a new low-cost material that can capture harmful gases, offering exciting prospects for combating atmospheric pollution.
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The discovery of a synthetic molecule made up of 60 simple components able to reorganise themselves to produce new functions will lead to better understanding of Nature’s processes.
The incredibly complex structure of the pentagonal prismatic molecule was discovered when researchers working at The University of Queensland, The University of Cambridge, and Randolph-Macon College in the USA, formed the structure by transforming a tetrahedral molecule into a second structure - a barrel-like ...
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Researchers from the University of Oxford and Diamond Light Source have discovered a new material, a Calcium hexaboride (CaB6) compound crystallising in a previously unknown crystal structure. Published in Physical Review Letters these findings can pave the way to customised boron-based intermetallics. The ordinary CaB6 is a semiconductor with an amazing hardness and high melting temperature governed by a high chemical stability. It has been investigated for a long time due to its relevance ...
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Dr Sihai Yang from the University of Nottingham is the winner of the 2011 Diamond PhD Investigator Award, a new initiative that rewards outstanding synchrotron research by Early Career Scientists.
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Tom Carey, a Diamond/University of Birmingham PhD student who has been working on the synchrotron's Powder Diffraction beamline (I11), has been presented with the British Zeolite Association's Founders' Award for the most promising postgraduate student of the year. Tom received his Founders' cup trophy and cash prize at the British Zeolite Association's 35th Annual Meeting in Chester on the 19th July.
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Diamond Light Source is being used to improve low cost methods for carbon capture. Scientists from the University of Leeds are using the UK’s national synchrotron to investigate the efficiency of calcium oxide (CaO) based materials as carbon dioxide (CO2) sorbents. Their results, published in the journal of Energy & Environmental Science, provide an explanation for one of the key mechanisms involved. This new knowledge will inform efforts to improve the efficiency of this economically viable ...
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A collaboration of scientists from Diamond Light Source and the University of Reading has revealed the binding mechanism of a so-called ‘light-switch’ effect complex, a type of chemical compound that fluoresces on binding to DNA. There are two possible applications for these compounds – in sensitive diagnostic tests and as sensitizers for photodynamic therapy. The team used the Diamond synchrotron to determine exactly how the photoreactive metal complex binds to DNA, revealing that the ...
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It was with great excitement and anticipation that almost 2,000 visitors arrived at Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility, to take part in a special series of Inside Diamond open days, held to mark the facility’s 10th Anniversary.
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The first researchers to use the new Oxford Instruments high-field superconducting magnet at Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility, are searching for “hidden magnetic states”. If found, they will provide important confirmation of a theoretical model which could have important applications in magnetic data storage. Diamond’s BLADE beamline is providing them with the tools for the search.
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Stitching, sculpture and slug-like aliens all formed part of a special 10th Anniversary event that was on Friday 11th May at Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility, on the Harwell Science & Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
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For our tenth anniversary celebrations we will be holding open days for the public on the 16th, 17th and 19th June 2012.
Inside Diamond is a series of public events, welcoming visitors to Diamond to meet our scientists, find out about the exciting work taking place here, and have a tour of the synchrotron itself.
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Water, essential to life… or is it?
Proteins are large biological molecules that are synonymous with living things. They allow us to convert food into energy, supply oxygen to our blood and muscles, and drive our immune systems.
It is the general understanding that since proteins have evolved in a water-rich environment, they are dependent on water to survive and function. Researchers at the University of Bristol have used the Circular Dichroism beamline (B23) at Diamond Light Source to ...
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The traditional picture of comets as cold, icy, unchanging bodies throughout their history is being reappraised in the light of analyses of dust grains from Comet Wild2. A team led by the University of Leicester has detected the presence of iron in a dust grain, evidence of space weathering that could explain the rusty reddish colour of Wild2’s outer surface. The results were presented by Dr John Bridges at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester on Tuesday 27th March
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Diamond, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility and one of Oxfordshire’s flagship science institutes, was formed a decade ago, on the 27th March 2002, when the Wellcome Trust and the UK Government signed the Joint Venture Agreement and Diamond Light Source Ltd was born.
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A doughnut-shaped scientific building in the Oxfordshire countryside provided the unusual inspiration for a new international science fiction prize as the names of the winners are revealed this week by its organisers Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility.
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In October 2010, a dam failure at an aluminium producing plant in western Hungary released around one million cubic metres of toxic red sludge into nearby towns and villages and across agricultural land. The sludge was a mixture of water and mining waste containing heavy metals and was deemed a threat to the environment by Hungarian officials. A large cleanup operation ensued. A team from the University of Leeds has used Diamond’s Microfocus Spectroscopy beamline, I18, to study samples of ...
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Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility and one of Oxfordshire’s flagship science institutes, is celebrating its 10th Anniversary in 2012. A special programme of events are planned to mark this milestone and a number of them took place as part of the 2012 Oxfordshire Science Festival, which ran from the 3rd-18th March.
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Scientists from across the European Union are calling Oxfordshire home thanks to the pull of Diamond Light Source.
The UK’s national synchrotron science facility is based at Harwell and, while the majority of staff are from the UK, it employs scientists from around the world, including workers from more than half the EU member states.
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A new theory developed by Prof Gerrit van der Laan, from the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Diamond Light Source, and published this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, provides a powerful sum rule that scientists can use to explore the properties of novel materials, such as those used for spintronics devices. Such materials require constant refinement of their physical qualities in order to keep up with the rapid advancement in a wide range of technologies, ...
