A fluorescent glucose, ZNBDG, was rapidlj consumed by 4 diflerent species of microorganisms: Escherichia coli, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Candida tropicalis. E. coli and L. acidophilus became fluorescent enough for microscopic observation within I rnin, while S. cerevisiae and C. tropicalis became fluorescent in a longer time span. All of the 14 coliforms that were isolatedfrom various foods consumed 2NBDG and became fluorescent within I rnin. Therefore, ZNBDG is expected to be a useful indicator of viable cells irrespective of species as long as they could assimilate glucose. This 2NBDG method is valid in counting small amount of cells, such as 10-1 00 cells, accurately and carefully. Also, the 2NBDG method was successfully applied to the rapid detection of a small number of E. coli in milk. The feasibility of the 2NBDG method is discussedfrorn the viewpoint of food safety control.
The achievements in nuclear reductions during the Obama Administration were modest, in part because of waning public pressure. But the nuclear deal with Iran was important. Thanks in part to a former senior Iranian diplomat, Hossein Mousavian, joining Princeton's Program on Science and Global Security in 2010, the Program was able to make two significant technical contributions to that deal. The discussion then turns to the importance of foundation support for policy research in the United States, the necessary ingredients for successful policy activism, including working with citizens' groups, the role of the Program in training the next generation of activist technical-policy analysts, and a new initiative to engage more US physicists to help educate the public and Congress about the continuing dangers from nuclear weapons and about policy options for reducing those dangers.
The Fukushima accident of 2011 pulled von Hippel back into the reactor-safety world. He was invited to join a Congressionallymandated four-year study of the lessons that could be learned from the Fukushima accident to improve the safety of US nuclear plants. During that study he learned more about both a much worse accident that almost happened at Fukushima, and about how the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission had come to use "riskinformed regulation" as a way to avoid requiring costly safety upgrades opposed by US nuclear utilities. He campaigned unsuccessfully at both the national and state levels to move the nuclear utilities away from densely packed spent fuel pools by moving fuel that had cooled for more than five years to dry-cask storage. He also promoted on-site dry-cask storage in Japan and South Korea as an alternative to reprocessing. This last chapter ends with some stories of his father, also a physicist, who would not be intimidated and who was a leader in the development of the field of materials science and engineering.
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