Latest press releases
Remember: A personal dosimeter is waiting in your first aid kit!
12 August 2021
When proper precautions are taken, radioactive substances are extremely safe to use. But what if they leak into the environment in an uncontrolled manner? Then it becomes crucial to find out the dose of radiation people may have absorbed. Unfortunately, the average person does not possess a radiation dosimeter. The Institute of Nuclear Physics PAS has a new solution to this problem – and it can be found in your first aid kit.
GEM simplifies the internal structure of protons and their collisions
9 June 2021
Inside each proton or neutron there are three quarks bound by gluons. Until now, it has often been assumed that two of them form a “stable” pair known as a diquark. It seems, however, that it’s the end of the road for the diquarks in physics. This is one of the conclusions of the new model of proton-proton or proton-nucleus collisions, which takes into account the interactions of gluons with the sea of virtual quarks and antiquarks.
Cell mechanics research is making chemotherapy friendlier
27 May 2021
Malignant tumour cells undergo mechanical deformation more easily than normal cells, allowing them to migrate throughout the body. The mechanical properties of prostate cancer cells treated with the most commonly used anti-cancer drugs have been investigated at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow. According to the researchers, current drugs can be used more effectively and at lower doses.
We know the cost of free choice and locality – in physics and not only
20 May 2021
Do we have free choice or are our decisions predetermined? Is physical reality local, or does what we do here and now have an immediate influence on events elsewhere? The answers to these questions are sought by physicists in the Bell inequalities. It turns out that free choice and local realism can be skilfully measured and compared. The results obtained reveal surprising relationships of a fundamental and universal nature, going far beyond quantum mechanics itself.
Creation without contact in the collisions of lead and gold nuclei
29 April 2021
When heavy ions, accelerated to the speed of light, collide with each other in the depths of European or American accelerators, quark-gluon plasma is formed for fractions of a second, or even its “cocktail” seasoned with other particles. According to scientists from the IFJ PAN, experimental data show that there are underestimated actors on the scene: photons. Their collisions lead to the emission of seemingly excess particles, the presence of which could not be explained.