Using cosmic-ray muons to detect uranium. A very interesting story published today in Nature looks at how physicists could construct a detector for uranium hidden inside other containers (such as trucks or ships) only using cosmic ray detectors.
Essentially, natural cosmic ray are tracked before and after they pass through the object being investigated. Deflections of the cosmic rays can be used to reconstruct a density image of the contents of the object. Seeing as uranium is particularly dense, it shows up strongly in the image.
Nature paper (subscribers only)
Nature Science Update report
[David Harris: Science news]
5:33:40 PM 
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