Diamond Light Source Image of the Week

15 May 2012: A 16th century nit comb recovered from Henry VIII’s Tudor Warship, the Mary Rose, horrifies a group of Year 4 pupils from Chilton School in Oxfordshire during a visit to Diamond Light Source. Scientists from the Mary Rose Trust have been carrying out experiments at the synchrotron to find a preservation treatment that will keep the ship’s timbers protected. The nit comb is being held by Prof Mark Jones, Head of Collections at the Mary Rose Trust, and the pupil with the horrified face is 9 year old Jack Gilbert. Apparently 500 year old nits are visible in the comb!

25 April 2012: Close-up view of a capillary cell used for in-situ gas absorption/desorption studies at pressures up to 100 bar on the High Resolution Powder Diffraction beamline I11. Powder diffraction is the technique of choice for the analysis of many naturally occurring materials such as minerals and artefacts as well as novel man-made materials where synthesis is under-developed, or for highly strained materials subject to twinning.

17 April 2012: Senior Support Scientist Annette Kleppe in the Experimental Hutch of the Extreme Conditions beamline, I15. Annette is mounting a diamond-anvil high-pressure cell (dac) on the sample stage of the 6-circle diffractometer. Monochromatic X-ray beams down to 20 microns in size (delivered via a pinhole directly in front of the dac) are used to probe samples under extreme pressures. Diffraction patterns are collected with an image plate or CCD detector.

11 April 2012: Experimentall Hall Coordinator Alistair Donaldson fills a detector on beamline I20, LOLA: X-ray spectroscopy, with liquid nitrogen to keep the detector cool. As the beam energy dissipates, it creates heat, so the cold liquid helps to reduce any unwanted “noise”. The cooler the detector, the more stable and clearer the image.

27 March 2012: Diamond celebrates its 10th anniversary! Diamond was formed a decade ago, on the 27^th March 2002, when the Wellcome Trust and the UK Government signed the Joint Venture Agreement and Diamond Light Source Ltd was born. Pictured with a special celebration cake are the Diamond directors and Chairman. Tell us about your own connection to Diamond or find out something you didn’t already know about the synchrotron on our 10th anniversary blog site: www.diamond10.org

14 March 2012: As a national science facility, Diamond has an important role to play in inspiring the next generation of scientists. Saul Moorhouse, a joint Oxford/Diamond PhD student, is pictured during his high temperature solid state chemistry experiment on the JEEP beamline. Saul has designed an in-situ furnace with infrared heating, which is much more versatile than its predecessors and can quickly heat up to temperatures as high as 1100°C. It is also quicker to cool down, which is equally valuable so that precious beamtime isn’t wasted waiting for the furnace’s temperature to lower between experiments.

07 March 2012: Diamond is @OxSciFest on Friday 16th March with a public talk about super metal munching earthworms by Prof. Mark Hodson from the University of Reading. In Bright Light for a Better Planet Mark, whose research focuses on how the humble earthworm survives in toxic soils, will be joined by other scientists to discuss how Diamond is helping environmental scientists understand the world around us. Tickets are free. The talk is at 6pm, Friday 16th March at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

29 February 2012: Diamond is at the Oxfordshire Science Festival! The festival is running from 3rd to 18th March and Diamond is involved in a number of public events. Alongside the free exhibition in the grounds of the Oxford Castle Quarter, pictured, Diamond will be at the festival’s launch in Oxford’s Bonn Square on Saturday 3rd March. During the festival there will also be public talks about the research taking place at the synchrotron. More details can be found on our website.

06 February 2012: It’s National Apprenticeship Week and Diamond is in its fifth year of providing a third of support for one of the best apprenticeship schemes in the country, at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Si Beazley was Diamond’s first apprentice and now works at ISIS, the UK’s neutron source, in the electronics group.

24 January 2012: Diamond has been used to study killer T-cells in the human body which help protect us from disease. Researchers from Cardiff University and King’s College London discovered that these T-cells can inadvertently destroy cells that produce insulin. Their findings could offer new understanding of the cause of Type 1 diabetes. The image shows killer T-cells engaging and killing beta cells. The cells are stained for insulin in green, CD8 (a marker of killer T-cells) in red and with a blue nuclear stain to show the cell nucleus (the genetic material). Image courtesy of Susan Wong and Maja Wallberg.