Hva er galt med en del folk?!? (#marypoppins)

På lørdag var jeg i Folketeateret og så Mary Poppins sammen med mamma og Carina. Det var årets bursdagspresang fra oss til Carina, og forestillingen absolutt meget bra, på alle mulige måter, og spesielt imponert var jeg over Charlotte Brænna som hadde tittelrollen - fantastsik! Detssuten var det veldig morsomt å se flere "kjente" fjes fra min egen dansetid, på scenen :)

Det som derimot IKKE var noen god opplevelse, var hvordan enkelte folk tydeligvis syns at regler er for alle andre unntatt dem selv, og dermed oppfører seg...!

Ved siden av oss hadde vi feks en gjeng bestående av kanskje tre voksne damer, og det jeg antar var barna deres - i utgangspunktet ikke noe annet enn hyggelig med det. Så, etter at forestillingen er godt i gang, reiser en av damene seg opp, snur seg mot venninnene og barna, tar opp telefonen og tar bilde av dem. Med blitz! Det er altså helt mørkt i salen, og vi andre prøver å følge med på hva som skjer på scenen, men blir avbrutt ved at vi i prinsippet får en lummelykt rett i ansiktet. Den samme gjengen tok også bilder mot scenen, med blitz, flere ganger ila forestilling - rikitgnok hakket "bedre" for oss, siden vi da "bare" ble lyst i øynene sånn halvveis fra siden, men hvorfor gjør de det når alle har fått eksplisitt beskjed om å IKKE bruke blitz?!?

Det var også ganske mange som brukte blitz når de tok bilder senere i forestillingen.

Hvorfor tenker en del at "jaja, det er regler, men de gjelder selvfølgelig ikke for meg"? A**h****s, altså.

Men for å gjenta det; det var en veldig flott forestilling, og jeg syns det var kult at Folketeateret faktisk oppfordret publikum til å ta bilder ila forestilling, og bruke marypoppins-hashtaggen - men det er selvsagt IKKE kult hvis folk ikke klarer å oppføre seg som følge av det. Jeg syns det er utrolig merkelig hvordan noen bare ikke syns de trenger å ta hensyn til andre...

I går var det skikkelig kos dag for Alexandra og meg: Vi sov begge hos mamma og pappa fra lørdag til søndag, så først hadde vi skikkelig kosemorgen med mamma, og så dro Alexandra og jeg i det fine været innover til byen og Naturhistorisk Museum - siden jeg hadde lovet Alexandra en tur inn i Zoologisk museum. Fra giftshoppen måtte selvsagt den fine boken "Ida" av Jørn Hurum bli med oss hjem, sammen med en fin plakat med norske, giftige planter :)

dette ^^ er SÅ bra!

Etterpå gikk turen til Sagene Lunsjbar, før vi kom oss hjem. Dagen ble avsluttet med at vi begge to krøp opp i sengen til Anders og meg (han har jo vært bort i nesten en uke nå  men kommer hjem i kveld, da <3) og så filmen Malificent. Den kan absolutt anbefales - enten du er barn eller voksen! Såååå gøy at Alexandra har blitt så stor at vi kan se litt mer ordentlige filmer. Elsket tvisten de har laget i denne filmen om Tornerose, og ikke minst den onde feen; som kanskje ikke er så ond allikevel, når alt kommer til alt...;)

Nå er det tid for å sende avgårde artikkelen min til veiledere, og kanskje kan den sendes til medforfattere ila en to ukers tid? Det hadde virkelig vært noe!

Ten facts about neutrinos

Friday again - facts again <3

You know the drill, say no more:

1. a neutrino is a en elementary particle
2. a neutrino is not a neutron - neutrons are made up of quarks, and are thus not elementary particles
3. there are three types of neutrinos: they're called electron neutrino, muon neutrino, and tau neutrino (they all also have an antiparticle)
4. the name neutrino actually means "little neutron", but I have to tell that story another time...;) (In short: Pauli proposed that there should be a particle called a neutron, before the actual neutron was discovered. Then, what we know today as a neutron was discovered before the neutrino, and by that time the term neutron was taken, and this particle became a neutrino).
5. neutrinos don't have any electric charge (so they are not at all affected by the electromagnetic force), and they're almost massless - but only almost...! They do have a tiny tiny tiny mass: the heaviest one is more than 4 million times lighter than the electron (the next lightest particle). Since they are so light, neutrinos move at a speed more than 80% of the speed of light at room temperature
6. neutrinos are created in radioactive decay (like beta-decay), nuclear reactions (like in a reactor when a heavy nucleus fission, or in the sun when light nuclei fuse), when cosmic rays hit atoms, and in supernovae. Most of the neutrinos here on Earth come from the nuclear reactions that take place in the Sun <3
7. every second, a trillion trillion neutrinos pass through your body, and since they do have (a tiiiiiny) mass, this means that there's a constant flow of matter through your body ALL THE TIME. Since their mass is so small, they don't add up to much mass - about 0.0000000000001 kg of neutrinos will pass through your body in a lifetime :D (If you add up the mass of all neutrinos that have passed through every single person who ever lived, over everyone's total lifetime, the sum is 0.15 kg)
8. neutrinos are extremely difficult to detect, so you need really huge detectors if you want to try... For example, the OPERA detector (a good neutrino detector) consists of 1000 tonnes of mass to try to catch a neutrino, but even if this detector was a block of lead a light-year in length, you'd only have a 50% chance of stopping a neutrino!
9. they are often called ghost particles, since they can actually change from being one kind to being another - an electron neutrino changing into being a muon neutrino changing into being a tau neutrino (this is weird: like if you went into a Mercedes and drove for a while, and then suddenly the car changed into being a BMW, and then when you arrived at your destination you were driving and Audi. W. E. I. R. D.)
10. in 2011 neutrinos were sort of detected to move faster than light - which shouldn't be possible. Of course it turned out to be an experimental mistake, and we are still very very certain that Einstein's theory of special relativity is true <3

Bonus facts: According to my colleague, Cecilie, neutrinos fabulous :D Happy Friday!

Finish it!

I need to start finishing stuff, or, really "finishing" - meaning, I need to work hard on one thing at a time, and then send it off, instead of just saying to myself oh no it's not good enough yet, I need to work just a little bit more, and then a liiiitle bit more, and the even a liiiiitle little bit more. If I continue like that I will never be able to make this phd. Therefore, my new mantra is Finish It!

And here's my "finish it-plan" for the next three weeks: 

Tomorrow I'm "finishing" the draft of the uranium-234 article, next week I WILL make stuff for Cecilie (that I should have done several months ago), after that I'll analyse fission of uranium-233 and make figures and send it all off to supervisor-Jon, and after that I'll make some kind of outline for one of the most important chapters in the actual thesis - "the bridge" (and by the end of the week I'll send it to supervisor-Sunniva).

Since I'm "finishing" the uranium-234 article tomorrow, I spent much of today on the webpages of the journal where we're planning to submit it, and when I left the office this afternoon it was really starting to look like the real thing (it's amazing how much getting stuff in the right style can do ;) ).
I also read the guidelines for people who are planning to submit manuscripts, and I had to smile about this (highlighting done by me :D ):

LanguageIf your native language is not English, please consider enlisting the help of an English-speaking colleague in preparing the text.
Use a spell checker. (Referees are not favorably impressed by careless mistakes.)

Luckily, I have a native English speaking supervisor/co-author, so I think he'll make sure there are no careless mistakes in the final manuscript - we don't want to p*** off the referees :P

Videoforedragsblogg - kompetent uten realfag?

Før jul holdt jeg foredrag på arbeidsgiverforeningen Spekters Arbeidslivskonferanse "Jobb for livet!". Foredraget kalte jeg "Kan man være en kompetent borger uten realfag?", og før du evt går av skaftet fordi det høres elitistisk og kjipt ut, kan jeg avsløre at det stor grad handler om et slags oppgjør med den holdningen om at "jeg skjønner ikke noe, gidder ikke noe, og dette skryter jeg av"-holdningen som fins blant en god del folk, om realfagene.

Jeg mener at det i dag riktignok er ganske mye fokus på at realfag er viktig, men jeg savner aspektet med at realfag faktisk er viktig for alle, for å kunne være en god, deltagende borger - realfag er almmenndannelse! Hvor er fokuset på realfag som allmenndannelse, altså noe alle trenger?

Jeg vil gjenta professor Svein Sjøbergs fire punkter om, egentlig naturfag, men jeg vil heller kalle det realfag, for jeg vil ha med matematikken og: 
Realfag er en viktig del av allmenndannelsen vår fordi det er en god forberedelse til yrke og utdannelse i et høyteknologisk og vitenskapsbasert samfunn (som jeg antar at vi kommer til å fortsette å være, med mindre man ser for seg et slags postapokalyptisk samfunn - og så pessimistisk vil jeg ikke være ;) ), det har betydning for praktisk mestring av dagliglivet i et moderne samfunn, naturvitenskapelig kunnskap er viktig for informert meningsdannelse og ansvarlig deltagelse i demokratiet, og til slutt så er naturvitenskapen/reafagene en viktig del av menneskets kultur. (Svaret på spørsmålet mitt om man kan være en "kompetent borger" uten realfag er altså fra mitt ståsted nei...)

Det hele ble visst filmet, og den filmen kan sees HER :)

70% extra work - 5% extra quality (#phdlife)

I've heard this saying about science: you work 70% extra to rise the quality of your work by 5%. 

Yesterday I went through my analysis again, to be absolutely certain that I know exactly what kind of parameters and numbers and stuff that I put into it, and I've reproduced two figures. So it's not just about producing results and figures, but also about reproducing. Not like a big leap forward, but I really feel that yesterday was a good example of those "70% extra work", just to rise the quality of my work with more or less nothing.

At least; don't accuse us scientists for being lazy and not walking that extra mile...;)

beautiful library last spring <3

Today I'll hopefully reproduce two more figures, and continue writing on my article. It's library day today, like every Wednesday - meaning I'm spending the day at the library with some of my fantastic colleagues, since they're awesome, and the library is a great place to work when I need absolute silence and concentration mode <3

Hello

hello from your empty draft

at least put in some fancy graphs

and tell them, "I'm sorry, it's gonna be late"

Just found this text at PHD Comics - sort of like the story of my life these days...:P My empty drafts are my second article, my third article, and my actual thesis. (OMG!)

----------------------------------------------------------

Anders left a couple of hours ago, and I'm still at home, waiting for my mother to come. We're going for a little "winter holidays" lunch. Will be nice <3 I'm postponing most of today's work 'til this afternoon/evening - one of the great things about having a job like mine is the flexibility!

Stupid

I feel so incredibly stupid. I don’t understand how I’m ever going to be able to finish this, and I’m almost 100% certain I have fooled somebody real good, since they’re actually paying me for doing such a shitty job, where I don’t understand anything of what I’m doing…

Finishing a phd is really like being on the worst emotional rollercoaster - where one day you feel like you’re actually accomplishing something just because you finally managed to make a figure, and the next day you realise that even if you have that figure, how will this ever turn into an article that a real scientific paper will publish.

It’s not particularly fun.

PS: Tomorrow Anders is going away for a week, and even though I do enjoy my own company, I know I’ll miss him so much. Especially now - he really is my biggest supporter, and I hate that he won’t be here.

Friday FACTS: Black holes

Happy Friday!

I'm at Anders (not my Anders, but my good friend) and Charlotte's fantastic cabin at Nordseter (Sjusjøen). We just had a nice dinner, we're drinking wine, talking, and there's a fire in the fireplace <3 I'm about to put away my laptop for the weekend, but before I do that, what could fit better now than ten facts about black holes? Close to nothing :D Here goes:

1. Black holes are called “black” because they swallow all light, and no light (or anything) can ever escape it
2. Black holes are made when stars die and collapse (*sad*)
3. Black holes are super super super dense, and NOTHING have a higher density than a black hole
4. It's not really like what people think of as a hole, but maybe more like what we would normally think of as a sphere. But then again, it has the "traplike" properties of a hole (since you can fall into is, as if it was a hole in the ground), so you can probably think about it as a three dimensional hole ;)
5. A black hole with the size of a sugar cube weighs the same as the entire earth: 1000000000000000000000000kg (24 zeros!) - 1 septillion kilos :D
6. We know nothing about what happens inside black holes
7. If a black hole came into our solar system it would swallow the earth. This is extremely unlikely, but it’s still more likely than for example winning the lottery ten times in a row (but less likely than being struck by lightening)
8. Black holes have a horizon (or really an "event horizon", which is the boarder of the black hole) where time stands still (at least it looks like it’s standing still if we are looking at a person who is falling into it) this horizon is the point of no return, where it's absolutely impossible to escape falling into the hole. It's really just like as a a clock runs a bit slower closer to sea level than up on a space station, a clock run really slow near black holes, and this all have to do with gravity 
9. If you fall into a black hole you would be stretched (to death) like spaghetti, since whatever part of your body that reaches the horizon first will feel soooo much more gravity (since the hole is so dense and heavy) than the rest of the body that's outside the horizon
10. When black holes collide, they make gravitational waves - which were discovered last Thursday!

By the way: today I managed to finally make this figure I was talking about yesterday, so then I'm one step closer to a new article. Next week I want to finish the rest of the figures to the article, and then I'm suddenly quite close to finishing the thing.

PS. This week I just have to give you a sort of fact number 11: we don't believe that inside black holes you find book shelves. (Hint: "Interstellar")

Failure

Today I've tried making a figure. So far I haven't completely succeeded.

I managed to make the dotted lines pink, though - I guess that's one small step towards success, but it doesn't help when part two of the figure (which you don't see here) looks like I don't even know...

ATHENAS!

I løpet av den tiden som har gått siden Fukushimaulykken, og jeg begynte å blogge i september 2011, har det blitt en god del foredrag. Dette trives jeg bare bedre og bedre med, og det som begynte med noen små foredrag om thorium og kjernekraft (ikke at jeg på noen måte syns det er kjedelig eller dumt å snakke om thorium, kjernekraft og egen forskning - jeg snakker fremdeles veldig gjerne om dette!) har gradvis utviklet seg til mer og mer spennende oppdrag. Blant annet har jeg fått holde tre TEDx-foredrag, jeg har fått snakke for arbeidsgiverforeningen Spekters Arbeidslivskonferanse (Kan man være en kompetent borger uten realfag?), diverse videregående skoler har invitert meg for å snakke om kjernefysikk og forskning og sånn, og i høst fikk jeg holde hovedtalen under åpningen av Universitetet i Stavanger. 

I september i fjor ba også Kathrine Aspaas meg om å snakke om Rosa forskning da hun lanserte den siste boken sin, Rosa er den nye pønken (noe jeg syns var fryktelig stas), og etter dette foredraget ble jeg kontaktet av Athenas, som lurte på om jeg kunne tenke meg å samarbeide med dem om foredrag. 

Athenas er Norges største formidler av foredrag, og jeg takke selvsagt ja til dette. Jeg er veldig stolt over å få være på listen sammen med alle de andre utrolig dyktige foredragsholderne de samarbeider med!

Les mer HER.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

På Høyskolen i Sør-Trøndelag

"Historien om en rosanerd"; på "Jenter for realfag"

"Om kjernefysikk og forskning og sånn"; på Røyken VGS

-------------------------------------------------------------

TEDx-foredraget kan sees ved å trykke på bildet over

Foredraget for NFF kan sees HER (bildet over er kun en screen shot)

Foredraget for Cappelen Damm kan sees HER (bildet over er kun en screen shot)

------------------------------------------------------

Til slutt noen hyggelige kommentarer jeg har fått etter foredrag jeg har holdt :D

"Var på foredraget ditt nå i dag, SÅ inspirerende! Var så godt å høre på deg - selv valgte jeg også å begynne på danselinjen på vgs, men sluttet og måtte gå et år om igjen. Det var et tungt valg, så det var så fint å høre på noen andre som har gjort det samme. Nå går jeg realfag og jeg stortrives :) igjen; takk for et veldig godt og inspirerende foredrag!" 

"Hei! så foredraget ditt på ONS på onsdag og ville bare si det var utrolig interessant og inspirerende!" 

"Var på "jenter for realfag" på torsdag, og ble så utrolig imponert over ditt foredrag! Du virket så engasjert i det du holdt på med, og jeg ser så utrolig masse  opp til deg. Hadde fulgt med på bloggen din og lest om deg i a-magasinet en stund før foredraget, og jeg gledet meg til å høre hva du hadde å si, det var utrolig morsomt å høre om historien din, og hvordan man aldri må gi opp. Håper jeg en dag kan jobbe med deg og diskutere thorium og uran med deg, heheh :)"

Looking at plots, looking at code, again. Phd life as normal.

Good evening hearts <3

Today I've spent most of the day on going through the program code that sorts all of my experimental data for the millionth time. I had to check some numbers and plots in three different versions of the program that should give exactly the same results. This morning they didn't, but after going through them, first alone, then with Supervisor Sunniva, they finally gave what seems to be the same result! That means I can correct some things that I now know were wrong, and then I'm certain that everything that goes into my article is correct ;)

And I learned more about how the program works, so even though I hate spending time on these "silly" things, I guess it's still good. But it's kind of boring, though; not everything about science is SUPER FUN :P

These are the plots that first made me wonder if there was something wrong in one of the sorting programs/codes. See they're not the same? The upper one is shifted somewhat down on the y-axis. After I finished playing a code detective today, both plots look identical :D

I'm also trying to read up on the molten salt reactor, which is not my field of expertise, so if anyone can tell me how it's not a problem if you loose the flow in such a reactor I would be really happy! I know that in such an emergency the temperature in the fuel would rise, and then all of it would go into the emergency dump tanks, but I don't really understand why this is always presented as some sort of "quick fix"...

---------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow is "writing day", and I'll spend it at the library, with my article. Yes, it's the same as always. The plan is to work on the introduction/motivation part of the paper, and then some on one of the sub parts of the results. I also want to make a figure that shows energy of the particles together with energy from gamma-radiation from the experiment ("particle-gamma coincidences"), if there's time *hoping*. 

Guess I have to start the day by blocking Facebook with the SelfControl app - I tried it today and it seems promising ;)

Monday - T-205

So it's Monday, and this week didn't start off all that bad (except Alexandra was screeming for dad and telling me she can't decide anything and besides she hates me...#thejoysofbeingtheparentofasixyearold:/):

I went directly to the library after I left (the screeming) Alexandra in kindergarden: There I spent half the day on continuing to try to understand everything the data sorting program (hint: I still don't, but I'm getting baby steps closer) does, and then the other half of the day on my paper - got through the comments from Jon, and continued on writing about the "gamma ray strength function". I didn't get far, but at least it went forward instead of backwards. Also I planned a Skype meeting with Jon on Thursday (good, then you have to work focused this week, Sunniva ;)).

All of the sudden it was half past four, and time to get Alexandra.

Now I've finally sat down, waiting for some chili to get heated, and writing this little update for you. I'm also working on a blogpost about hairdos - some "working your ass off hairdos", actually ;)

this was A just before she got mad and told me she hated me (for the second time today) - I'm very happy that Anders got home just before she was going to bed, and by some sort of magic managed to get everything great again <3

PS: I'm sorry there were no Friday Facts last Friday - I'm just trying to focus a lot on my PhD these days, and since we were celebrating Alexandra's birthday on saturday, there wasn't any time left for blogging...or I would've had to steal time from my PhD time, and right now that's normally not an option...<3

PPS: It's 205 days left until my goal of handing in my thesis. H.E.L.P.

On this day

Today I've:

- worked on a "script" where I gather a lot of the information about what we use to analyse my data

- met up with Fabio

- tried Fabio's program for sorting data (looks like it working very well *excited*)

- made a list of what I need to do with analysis number 1 and analysis number 2

- made a HUGE pot of chili (no, it's not really related to my PhD...)

- been excited about the discovery of gravitational waves (all though I haven't really had any time to read anything about it, since I've been busy with preparing for Alexandra's birthday party)

I have not:

- made a list about the "nuclear physics year" - all anniversaries and all that (for example, today is Leó Szilard's birthday; the guy who first conceived the nuclear chain reaction, and patented the idea of a nuclear reactor - with Enrico Fermi)

- finished the "script"

- replied all those e-mails that are waiting and waiting

- gone through my receipts and stuff from yesterday's trip to Trondheim (very bad Sunniva - it should really be done the minute you get home, or it ends up just being postponed forever)

- written that blogpost about what I think about young girls in Norway today, whose biggest dream is to meat a "guy with some money"...

- finished that section in my paper that I thought I'd finish some time before christmas

- gone through the comments I got from Jon (my supervisor in Paris) on my paper

I'm going to (but not tonight :P):

- make a "nuclear physics year" list

- answer a lot of e-mails...(and maybe also become better at answering them more or less right away)

- make 5 different figures for paper number 2 

- finish the "script"

- try Fabio's program on the analysis I think I'm more or less finished with - as a double check of my results :D

- look at all the comments I got from Jon - and probably do something about them

- try to get Sunniva (my supervisor here in Oslo) to read parts of my paper - after I've worked on Jon's comments, and finished that section that I thought would be done last year

- make more figures (from another analysis), and collect them together with similar figures from Fabio's analysis in a document and send it off to Jon and ask him what he thinks

- start working HARD on my thesis - especially the chapter that I call "the bridge" where I'm supposed to explain how the experiments we do in Oslo are connected to full scale nuclear fuel simulations

- make 14 days goals; from now and until summer (?)

- read what Gry called "the most boring paper ever" (but it's probably - or hopefully - exactly what we need) :P

And the phdlife just goes on and on and on... Now I'm going to get me a bowl of chili - and then it's e-mail time <3

A new little something

So today I went to Trondheim; I started the day by getting up at just a little bit past four (Anders <3 gave me coffee, even though he was NT getting up at this time), then flying to Trondheim, talking to about 300 girls science and technology and all that. 

I have started this “tradition” to always get a little present for myself when I’ve finished a talk - a little sort of pat on the back “you did good” kind of thing - from me to me :) Normally it’s something I get when I’m at the airport, and quite often it’s some kind of jewellery... This time I bought a “silver” ring with “diamonds”, from one of my favourite cheap brands - Snö of Sweden - just perfect! 

I like that by doing it this way, my things end up having a little story - they're memories from when I've gone to different places, talking about different things, to different people. I think that's nice <3

I love sparkles, and sometimes a girl needs some sparkles ;)

Hope you all had a great Wednesday!

AGR

Happy birthday, Alexandra Grønstad Rose! Today you're turning 6, and I just can't believe how time flies. It really feels strange that you're already the oldest one in kindergarden, and in a couple of months you're starting school... I love you to Proxima Centauri and back <3

----------------------------------------------------------------

But then there's something funny. So AGR are Alexandra's initials, but it just hit me that AGR is also a type of nuclear reactor: the Adcanced Gas cooled Reactor. So, me, Sunniva Rose, nuclear physicist, gave my daughter a name which is an acronym for the type of nuclear reactors they have in Britain.

O.

M.

G.

!

- my beautiful girl -

Fuel on a Friday - 10 Facts

I can’t believe it’s Friday already. 

This week has just gone by so fast. It started with Alexandra still being sick on Monday, and then on Tuesday I went to Stavanger, and spent around 50 hours there - giving two talks, and talking to so many interesting people. (I think I’ll have to write about some of my thoughts about the Norwegian oil industry - just not right now.) Yesterday I got home, and the evening was spent with Anders; we shared a bottle of wine, he worked on his code and I scanned all my receipts from the trip, and sorted them into the right folders (not fun doing, but it feels GREAT when you’re done, especially when you realise you’ve spent roughly 9000NOK on travelling, that you of course want, and will get, back ;)). Then we made the working your ass off thai chili, and around that time I got a migraine…:/ 

However, today is Friday, and luckily I woke up this morning feeling great again - hopefully there'll be many months before I get another migraine attack!

So Friday is luckily NOT equal to migraine, but it IS equal to FACTS! It's finally time for ten Friday Facts about Fuel - nuclear fuel, of course:

1. the fuel in a nuclear power plant is placed inside the reactor core. Mostly all the fuel soaked in water because water is great for cooling the fuel, which is the same as removing the heat - which is exactly what we want; we want water to be heated so that we can produce steam and thus generate electricity with a turbine <3
2. we often call it "burning" the fuel, but it's no real burning going on - the fuel is the place where the fission chain reaction happens (the energy from nuclear power comes from fission of nuclei inside the fuel :) ), so when I talk about (nuclear) fuel I mean material where there’s a chain reaction going on.
3. nuclear fuel is made out of slightly radioactive elements; it can either be uranium, plutonium, or thorium
4. a small part of the fuel has to be fissile; meaning it has to have a really big chance of splitting if it's hit by a neutron. The fissile material can be either uranium-233, uranium-235, or plutonium-239
5. thorium is NOT fissile, so thorium must be mixed with something that is. This means that in thorium based fuels it is actually not the nuclei of the thorium atoms itself that fissions - thorium is first transformed into uranium-233, and then this uranium nucleus is the one that fissions and releases energy :D
6. the fissile part of the fuel is typically just 5% of the total of the fuel. The rest of the fuel (so, the majority of the fuel, really) is either thorium-232 or uranium-238.
7. the "flame" in nuclear fuel is the neutron. There is of course no real flame, and there is also no burning (see point number 2.), but I think that calling the neutron "the flame" is a nice analogy, since the neutron is what makes the nucleus fission and then release all the energy <3
8. the most common nuclear fuel is called UOX, which is for uranium oxide, meaning that it’s not pure metallic uranium (uranium as an element is a metal), but uranium and oxygen ( the oxides are used rather than the metals themselves because the oxide melting point is much higher than that of the metal and because it cannot actually burn, since it's already in the oxidized state.)
9. used fuel can (and should, in my opinion!) be recycled, since it has a lot of material that is really useful (actually: typically only half a percent of all the fuel fissions during the years it's in the reactor, so if you throw away all that's left after a couple of years, you throw away A LOT of resources). If you recycle these materials - which can be uranium-235 that just hasn't fissioned yet, or plutonium-239 that has been made during the time the fuel was in the reactor - you have to mix them with fresh fissile material, and when you do this the fuel is called MOX. MOX is short for Mixed Oxides :D
10. if you get really got at recycling, and you have the kind of reactors that are optimized for this type of MOX fuel (see point number 9.), you can actually end up getting 200 times more energy from the fuel than you normally get today!

- my fuel when I got to Stavanger airport yesterday: Chablis and Cæsar salad - as I started going through all the receipts (a lot!) rom just two days travelling -

Looking back - part 2

Finally - here's part 2 of the looking back at 2015 blogpost. This has taken too long, I know, but I guess my excuse is I'm trying to fix my PhD thingy (that's my excuse for everything this year :D).

July

Anders went with the guys to Asia. I missed him sooo much it's close to embarrassing :P These were pictures he sent me as he was looking through his phone - you see, I'm pretty sure he missed me to...<3

I went to Spain and Toledo, to David and Lucia's wedding...

 ...looking like this :)

And I worked on the same f*****g paper I'm trying to finish now...

August

I was honoured to give the main speech for all the new students at the University of Stavanger. OMG! It felt great.

I was a guest at the radio show "Salongen".

Anders and I (and Ann-Cecilie) went to Berkeley. We had a fantastic trip, and I don't think I have ever seen Anders as happy as he was when he rented this car...

(I still haven't got to do all the stuff I was supposed to do just before, and during the week we spent in Berkeley, and that does of course not feel especially good...why does everything take so much time?)

September

We went to Konserhuset to celebrate research and the Norwegian Research Council, and I'm quite sure we got much less food and wine than we've got there before... Was still a fun night, though :)

I wrote about what goes on inside our CACTUS. CACTUS is the name of the detector system you see here - it has that name because it looks like a cactus :D

And I gave a talk at the book launch of Kathrine Aspaas' "Rosa er den nye pønken" - I feel very honoured to be mentioned in the book <3

October

Maybe the busiest month of last fall?

Since Anders was gone all of July, I promised Alexandra we would go someplace warm and nice, where they had lots of ice cream, a pool, and sea. Alexandra, Anders and I ended up going to Fuerteventura and Las Playitas - we were soooo satisfied with that place, and really want to go back to that exact hotel :)

I got glasses.

Anders and I were guests at "Abels Tårn".

I gave a talk at "Radiologisk Høstmøte", and annoyed some people by writing about How to dress as a female scientist.

I gave my third TEDx talk at TEDxBergen: "Could nuclear weapons save the planet?", and was so happy Anders could join me in Bergen <3 

November

Focus, focus, focus! I started the #teamsunnivarose tag, and focused hard on working hard :)

December

I worked on my analysis and my paper on uranium, prepared for Christmas, and wrote about the anniversary of the Chicago Pile no 1 - the very first nuclear reactor.

Part 1 of the looking back at 2015 is HERE.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm still at home, waiting for a delivery from IKEA that will arrive some time between now and one o'clock. Boring, but luckily I can do quite a bit of working from home. There will be focus on my paper (oh yes, it takes forever - that's life in academia for you), and later today there will of course be Friday Facts here on the blog ;)