A Triumph for TRIUMF

More update on the issue of a severe shortage of medical isotopes, something that I've mentioned before. It appears that the TRIUMF facility in Canada will get its funding to build an accelerator that will, among other things, generate these needed medical isotopes.

A $63-million accelerator, billed as one of the most powerful in the world, will get the go-ahead Tuesday morning at TRIUMF, the national physics lab based in Vancouver.

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell is set to announce $30.7 million for the project, which could help alleviate future medical-isotope shortages. The Canada Foundation for Innovation has committed $18 million and the remaining $14 million is to come from core federal funding for TRIUMF.

Pay attention to the fact that this is a clear non-high energy physics use of a particle accelerator.

The news report did say something rather puzzling, though, right in the very first sentence.

Canadian scientists hope to beam the country to the forefront of nuclear and isotope research with intense, high-powered light.

Er... I thought they do this by slamming protons or electrons into a target? Where did the "high-powered light" come from?

Zz.