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Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Preparing for PhD Day!
This is a blogpost there are good reasons why I shouldn't write...but I do it anyway, and if you are a PhD candidate here at the University, you should definitely keep on reading (if you're not, you should at least read the end of this blogpost):
On June 10th, the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and the Science Library are arranging PhD Day, and all PhD candidates at the Faculty are invited to participate in the Poster session (aka Poster competition). There's a 10 000 NOK prize for the best poster, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to win it... However, I also really want all PhD candidates here at the Faculty to know about this day, and this poster competition; it's more fun the more we are, and it's more fun in winning if there's a real competition 😉 

Deadline for submitting an abstract for the competition is one week from now (May 9th). I'm pretty sure that if you actually try making an abstract you will be accepted to the Poster session, and that it's not like for a conference where it's normally a bigger chance of rejection than being allowed to make a poster or give talk... If your abstract is accepted, remember that your poster will be on display for students, fellow PhD candidates, professors, faculty members, and possible future employers on PhD Day 2016.
This is the third year that the Faculty and the Science Library are arranging this day, but for some reason, this is the first time I'm actually planning on participating in all that happens (Poster competition): 
The poster is supposed to be more popular than if it was for a pure, nuclear physics conference; this day is, after all, for all of us at the Faculty, and not just nuclear physicists, but that's what I think is the most fun to prepare anyway - perfect for me, in other words <3 What I've also realized is that even thought this is a popularization of my research, the story that I'm telling is still the same as when I'm going to the ND16 conference in September, and preparing this for PhD Day is actually forcing myself to really try to find good answers to these important questions: 

what is my story?
why are my results interesting?
what are the important things that we did?

I think (hope!) making this popular poster will contribute to making my talk at the conference better...:)

I've spent most of today reading about "prompt fission gamma rays", which is the topic of my poster (planning on finishing, and submitting, my abstract tomorrow). It maaaaay be that I'm calling gamma radiation for nuclear sweat … 😀 Don’t know with you, but I mean, if a nucleus is excited, or “hot” (as my nucleus is), it cools by emitting gamma rays - sounds like sweat to me 😉

Read EVERYTHING about PhD day HERE

Even if you're not a PhD student, and not participating in the poster competition, you should come to the Science Library this day: You can see all the posters, and hopefully learn about all the different, cool things that people are studying at our University, and you can vote for which poster should win the audience best prize (2000,-). The poster session starts at 11.
Then, from 3 it's the most awesome BBQ (food from Strøm Larsen), the bar opens, and at 3:30 it's "Smashing Physics: news from the energy frontier", by Jon Butterworth. This should be good!
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PS: My poster will be pink; I see no reason why a scientific poster couldn't be pink <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til SoMe lately

Good morning, and happy Monday everyone <3

I'm just here to say a quick hello, before going to the University; unfortunately it will be a short week this week, because of Thursday, so I have to be very effective today and tomorrow (on Wednesday I'm getting Alexandra in kindergarden and everything, so then it's just time for a normal, short day). 
The clock is ticking too fast :/ 
Maybe it's a good idea to have one, main goal this week, instead of trying to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that? If so, my main goal this week is called "prompt fission gamma rays" - in there is gathering figures for supervisor Jon, trying to get a Skype meeting with Jon (we've been trying this for weeks now :P), reading stuff, working on poster for PhD day and more... Yeah, I think one goal is good 🙂
I also want to share some everyday snaps from Instagram and Snapchat - I've been a little bit "better" at this lately. Especially I've been inspired by Jill Walker Retteberg (professor in digital culture at the University of Bergen), and also by Anders, on how to use Snapchat to tell little science stories - my plan is to explore these possibilities in the future (when I remeber it, and have the time, obviously), starting last week, really. So follow me on @sunnivarose on Instagram and sunnivarose on Snapchat 😉

morning bliss in Rose Castle, featuring Andrea, Anders, and Alexandra
the most beautiful pink roses ever, from Anders 
after working out - for a body that's gonna be healthy for ever 😀
playing Cars Against Humanity this Saturday - hilarious!
left: physicist outfit 1 - jeans, sneakers, white shirt, and a big scarf
middle: saturdate outfit - ready for Mathallen and Champagneria with the best guy <3 (btw: I love this skirt from HM!)
right: physicist outfit 2 - beige chinos, pink top, and pink cardigan
the dress - from Ellos of all things...I should've got several 

evening shift at the cyclotron, before I got the migraine...

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Publisert 7 kommentarer til 10 differences of the RBMK and a PWR
Since it was 30 years since the Chernobyl accident on Tuesday, I was thinking it would be a good idea with 10 facts related to that as a little "comeback" of Friday Facts (so sorry that I don't manage to make these facts every week, it's just that lately I've either been travelling, or really busy with my PhD, which I sort of have to prioritize sometimes 😉 ). Or, not just ten facts, but ten differences between the Chernobyl type RBMK reactor ("reaktor bolshoy moshchnosty kanalny", meaning high-power channel reactor), and the standard pressurized water reactor (PWR). 
Ready? 
Let's go!
  1. PWR is the most common type of reactor in the world operated in countries like USA,  Belgium, Brazil, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan (the Fuksuhima reactor was not a PWR, though), Russia, Spain, and Sweden, and several more. The RBMK was a Soviet develloped design - only built in the former Soviet Union.
  2. the PWR uses water as both moderator (for slowing down all the neutrons from really high energies, to really low energy - which is what we want <3 ) and as cooling medium, but the RBMK uses graphite as moderator, and water as cooling medium. Normally we say that the PWR is light water (light water is what we normally just call "water", instead of heavy water) moderated and cooled, and the RBMK is graphite moderated and light water cooled.
  3. the RBMK was designed with a positive void coefficient; I'll don't go in detail on that now (if you want me to, I can make a separate blogpost about what this means), but in short it is the reason why the RBMK is unstable under certain conditions
  4. the tip of the control rods of the RBMK actually didn't control the reactor/absorb the neutrons -it was made out of graphite that speeds up the fission process, instead of a material that actually shuts it down
  5. the control rods of the RBMK could be withdrawn completely from the reactor - even if it wasn't allowed (no one should EVER be able to overrun safety systems, like it was done the night of the accident)
  6. it took almost half a minute to insert the control rods into the RBMK reactor; on a PWR it takes around a second or so
  7. a PWR needs fuel which is enriched to 5% uranium-235, but the RBMK only needed 2% - so it was economical with the fuel
  8. the RBMK could have its fuel changed while it was running. This, together with the low enrichment (no 7) made it ideal as a producer of weapons plutonium 
  9. a PWR is passively safe, but the RBMK definitely wasn't
  10. the Chernobyl reactor didn't have any outer barrier; meaning the reactor was placed more or less in a warehouse rather than a full containment building. Therefore, when the reactor actually exploded, the radioactive inside of it could get out, and fresh air (oxygen...!) could get in, making a strong fire that lasted for days

These are just the first ten big differences I could think of, but there are even more. 
When I, or other nuclear scientists, say that Chernobyl could never happen in a modern, Western reactor, it's not because we just don't want to see reality or something silly like that, but it's because of these facts listet above - which makes that accident physically impossible in, for example a PWR...!
testing of reactor grade concrete - the concrete stays intact, as the plane is just disintegrated (plane vs concrete: plane 0, concrete 1)
PS: There are still some RBMKs operating in the world today, but major modifications have been made to these reactors.

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Not a good night…
the experiment is behind this thick, blue door (just before the migraine)
I had such plans for last night! I had the evening shift at the cyclotron, and in addition to baby sit the experiment, I was planning to answer a lot of e-mails, prepare for my teaching today, work on my  gammas from fission results, and I had planned to make a long blogpost about Chernobyl.
Then I got a migraine, and could just barely be at the lab, and didn't get to do anything at all! Luckily the cyclotron was behaving, so it was an easy shift, and I could even get an hour sleep - the only thing that helps.
The annoying thing is that now, even though the pain is gone, I'm really exhausted - wish I could just stay here in bed and sleep for a couple of hours, but I'm teaching the nuclear physics students about thorium and nuclear energy in a couple of hours, and I din't at all get to prepare my teaching yesterday. Meaning I have to do it now. 
Well well, hoping I'll feel better very soon (*poof* away with exhaustion...!), and hope you all will have a productive and good day!
If all goes as planned, I guess my todo list look something like this:
  1. prepare teaching
  2. answer e-mails
  3. teach
  4. work with TALYS - where to go next...?
  5. make figures of gammas, gather them and send them to supervisor Jon
  6. (start preparing for PhD day???)
  7. work out (which I'm not particularly fond of, but I want my body to last for 70 more years, and then there's no getting around going to the gym)

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Publisert 4 kommentarer til "Chernobyl equals 100 Hiroshima bombs…" (foredrag)
"Radiation and reason" by Wade Allison
So tonight I'm preparing for a talk I'm going to give at Kongsberg Library tomorrow, which is the day that marks the 30 years anniversary for the tragic accident in the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, and I feel like I need to address some of the myths and misconceptions about the accident and its consequences. The statement in the title of this blogpost is one of these myths, and it's of course NOT true. 
CHERNOBYL DID NOT EQUAL 100 HIROSHIMA BOMBS!
The thing is that this statement comes from someone (only) looking at the release of one isotope of caesium, and then comparing how much of this isotope was released in the Hiroshima atomic bomb explosion, and how much was released in Chernobyl. It is true that the release of one particular isotope was 100 times bigger from Chernobyl than from the Hiroshima bomb, but that tells us more or less zero... 
The reason why there was a bigger release of caesium from Chernobyl was that even tough the source of energy is fission in both a nuclear power plant and an atomic bomb, the fission process isn't exactly the same: the atomic nucleus is divided in different ways in those two, and you don't get the same fission products (caesium isotopes are some of them) from a nuclear power plant versus a bomb. (Remember, there was no nuclear explosion in the Chernobyl reactor - the radioactive release came from the normal operation.)
You do get caesium in both fission processes, but the amount of the different isotopes is different, and there's no problem finding certain isotopes that were released in much higher quanta in the Chernobyl accident than the Hiroshima bombing (like caesium).
What does this tell us?

Nothing, really.

The only thing it might tell us something about is that caesium is produced in different quanta in an explosion versus a power plant.

What does this saying makes us feel or think?
It makes us scared.

It makes us instantly think that Chernobyl was 100 times worse that the Hiroshima bomb. The accident was bad, but it doesn't even come close to dropping an atomic bomb on a city...!
What really kills in a nuclear explosion/atomic bomb is the extreme release of force, and not the radioactivity - believe it or not. The release of one specific caesium isotope from Hiroshima actually isn't particularly interesting. And the fact that there was a release of one certain type of caesium that was 100 times greater in the Chernobyl accident than the Hiroshima bombing does not tell us that Chernobyl was like 100 Hirsohima bombs!
Quote from this interesting article with five facts about nuclear power plants:

There's no getting around it: Chernobyl was awful. The design of the reactor was terrible, its purpose for being was terrible, its operation was terrible, the test they were performing when it blew up was terrible. The reactor was designed to primarily produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. The reactor was housed in a warehouse rather than a full containment building. It was designed so overheating sped up the reaction until the whole thing burst like an overinflated balloon. But we don't have to fear nuclear energy just because the Soviets did it the dumb way. That would be like banning cars because some drunk guy crashed one while trying to steer with his penis.

PS: I'm going to be a guest on Tidenes Morgen on P13 tomorrow morning around 8 AM, it will not be about the Chernobyl accident, but maybe it'll be fun to listen to 🙂

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Grandmothers of Chernobyl
On Tuesday it's 30 years since the tragic accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and I see all kinds of articles and films and talks about the accident popping up on Facebook (and basically all over the internet) these days. Not so strange, really.
A friend of mine posted this video of "The Moonshine Grandmothers of Chernobyl", about old women living inside the exclusion zone in Chernobyl, that I really think you should watch 🙂 (Click on the link just below the picture.)

It's soon time for bed here in Rose-castle - we have a busy week in front of us, where I'm giving a talk about the Chernobyl accident at the library in Kongsberg, being a guest on "Tidenes Morgen" (P13), going to a funeral (unfortunately), and of course trying to work hard on my research - time flies, and by the end of this year there is no more money coming my way from the University anymore... 
Plan for tomorrow: get up super early, get Alexandra to kindergarden, work on Tuesday's talk, go to funeral, more preparation of talk, get home, work out, sleep...
Hope you all have had a great weekend!
See you tomorrow 🙂

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til One last "natural" post
So I was on the radio this morning (Kulturnytt - you can hear it here), and one thing that Berit made a point of was "natural carrots" versus "un-natural beta-carotene": In a study someone had isolated beta-carotene (that you find in carrots), and seen that it actually may increase the risk of getting some types of cancer (I haven't read the study, so don't take this as a warning - I have no idea of how big this risk increase is supposed to be, or how much you actually had to eat to see this increase, or if the study was even done on people, or what), but eating carrots seems to be healthy...
Well, if you isolate one substance (beta-carotene) from carrots, and this turns out to potentially cause cancer, then the only thing you've shown is that this particular substance cause cancer. And that there is an element in carrots that may be bad for you.
You have not shown that carrots are healthy because they're natural, and you have NOT shown that beta-carotene is bad because it was made in a lab! 
Maybe carrots are made of other substances than just beta-carotene...? 
These other substances may either neutralisze the negative effects of beta-carotene in some way, or the positive effects from the other substances may turn out to be so much better than the negative effects from the beta-carotene, so that all in all the effect is positive. But it's NOT because carrots are natural!
Someone critized me for my first blogpost about this subject, since no-one is talking about eating uranium. Ok, here are two other examples of something that people actually may eat: 
European destroying angel mushroom (Hvit fluesopp in Norwegian) and Cowbane (Selsnepe in Norwegian). Both of these are deadly poisonous!
Even potatoes may be dangerous to eat - if you eat potatoes that have become green you may have diarrhea, cramps, or you can even die (rare!)...
So again; please just stop using "natural" as a justification of why something is good, or that stuff that's made in a lab is bad!

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til 2 years since we met…and happy birthday!
Yesterday it was two years since I was sitting alone in my office at Science Library; it was the middle of Easter, and was making my last preparations for the talk I was going to give later that day, in Hamar, at "The Gathering (TG) 2014".
As aI often do, I shared a couple of pictures on Instagram and Facebook...
...and suddenly I got a message from a guy…

I had never really talked to him before, but since I didn’t know anyone in Hamar, I was just happy to have someone to meet for a coffee, maybe eat something, maybe have a beer with.
In the middle of my talk I saw a new person in the audience, and I guessed it was Anders, and after I had finished on stage we started talking. And we talked. Ate pizza, drank beer. Shared a bottle of wine. And we talked, and we talked. And shared another bottle of wine.
There were never any coffee, but we talked for 12 hours straight  (a lot about physics, obviously, and especially about torque…:P), and somewhere between the beginning of the first bottle of wine and the end of the second, he kissed me.
I didn’t at all think that Anders was going to be the man of my dreams (it took me several months to realise); I thought he was too young, too much of a student, and too geeky. There were ups and downs from that first meeting in April until the end of December that year. First Anders was more into me than I was into him, and then it was the other way around, and then it was all a big mess!
For a long time I thought we would never happen…
it was the best of times, it was the worst of times
For some reason, something happened in January 2015, and finally we were at the same place at the same time. The emotional roller coaster ended, and we became a couple. We went on our first vacation...
...and just after we came back home from Barcelona, Anders moved in with me in Rosecastle <3

It’s so weird to think about how I’ve only known him for 2 years, because it really feels so much longer.
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So yesterday we were out celebrating the two years we've known each other, and today it's your 29th birthday, Anders. I am so grateful you sent those messages, and I am so happy we both figured out we were great for each other! Happy Birthday, I love you <3
after drinking a bottle of bubbles at Champagneria, we decided we were just tipsy enough to go bowling before we went home - perfect evening!

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til "Natural" (rant) on the radio

Remember this blogpost/rant, about how I hate the word "natural"?

Well, tomorrow I'm going to be on the radio (Kulturnytt), to rant a little bit more about why I think it's silly to use naturality as an argument for anything. Of course, a lot of things that people like to think about as natural are good, but that's not because they are "natural" - like I said in the other blogposts: a lot of things that are 100% "natural" are not at all good for us...
Judging by the first pictures you get from a "natural" google search, water is one of the things that's very "natural". Well, what if I go to the lab and make water from oxygen gas and hydrogen gas? Is there a difference on the water made in the lab or the water you get from nature?
Of course not!
(If you think there's a difference here, you're just missing basic knowledge of chemistry - you should educate yourself, and not go on and on about how "natural" is better.)

What does it even mean? What is "natural", and what is "un-natural"?