X-rays are such an important and familiar part of the electromagnetic spectrum, but is there a way to safely bring x-rays into your lecture? The demo team at the University of California at Berkeley seems to have managed this. They have an x-ray safe box that they use to produce a live x-ray image on a fluorescent screen. In this article, we…

Science and technology play an important role in modern medicine and experience shows that, although school students and their relatives are likely to have experienced some of the complex procedures available today, they are generally not aware of the science behind them. Demonstrations that link school science to medical procedures can therefore…

X-ray fluorescence is subject to significant matrix effects, which must be corrected in order to obtain accurate quantitative results. These are due to both absorption and enhancement effects, which are a consequence of the fact that both the analyte and the matrix absorb and fluoresce in the X-ray region, and this affects the magnitude of the…

In this article, Fishbone-based advanced computational thinking (FACT) pedagogy is proposed by fusing fishbone pedagogy and computational thinking pedagogy for enhancing teaching-learning process while teaching engineering and science courses, for engineering and science students respectively. The proposed FACT pedagogy has been implemented using…

To understand critical problems associated with solid waste and its consequences for the environment, a laboratory experiment is presented on the synthesis of aluminum-based metal-organic framework (MOF) MIL-53(Al) from household waste (PET bottles and aluminum foil/can), for undergraduate students of chemistry. This work is designed to teach…

This laboratory experiment demonstrates the important utility of transition-metal complexes as catalysts in the addition reaction of carbon tetrabromide (CBr ) to select alkenes. This application offers students the opportunity to understand why transition-metal complexes are worth synthesizing. The experiment builds on fundamental theories…

Advances in three-dimensional (3D) printing allow for digital files to be turned into a "printed" physical product. For example, complex anatomical models derived from clinical or pre-clinical X-ray computed tomography (CT) data of patients or research specimens can be constructed using various printable materials. Although 3D printing…

Every year millions of people contract cancer in the world, and according to prediction of the World Health Organization by the year 2030 there will be about 27 million new cases. Because of these figures and the resulting social and economic implications of this disease, radiotherapy, which is one form of treatment that uses ionizing radiation,…

Here we describe an experiment for the undergraduate physical chemistry laboratory in which students synthesize the intermetallic compounds AlNi and AlNi3 and study them by X-ray diffractometry. The compounds are synthesized in a simple one-step reaction occurring in the solid state. Powder X-ray diffractograms are recorded for the two compounds…

Planar x-ray imaging is a ubiquitous diagnostic tool and is routinely performed to diagnose conditions as varied as bone fractures and pneumonia. The underlying principle is that the varying attenuation coefficients of air, water, tissue, bone, or metal implants within the body result in non-uniform transmission of x-ray radiation. Through the…

William Henry Bragg moved from Cambridge in Britain to South Australia to take up a professorship at the University of Adelaide in 1885. He brought with him a broad interest in many areas of physics, but when Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays in the 1890s, Bragg's interest was stimulated. William's Australian-born son, Lawrence (WL Bragg), began…

It is essential for medical students to learn and comprehend human anatomy in three dimensions (3D). With this in mind, a new system was designed in order to integrate anatomical dissections with diagnostic computed tomography (CT) radiology. Cadavers were scanned by CT scanners, and students then consulted the postmortem CT images during cadaver…

Here is a brief history of the work of two of Australia's most famous scientists, Sir William Bragg and his son Sir Lawrence Bragg. Jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in 1915 for their groundbreaking research into the use of X-rays to study the chemical structure and function of molecules, they have contributed to our heritage and to science at an…

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2014 the International Year of Crystallography. Throughout the year 2014 and beyond, all the crystallographic associations and societies active all over the world are organizing events to attract the wider public toward crystallography and the numerous topics to which it is deeply interlinked.…

Modern drug discovery programs require the contribution of researchers in a number of specialist areas. One of these areas is structural biology. Using X-ray crystallography, the molecular basis of how a drug binds to its biological target and exerts its mode of action can be defined. For example, a drug that binds into the active site of an…