The breakup of the Soviet Union has led to welcome progress in nuclear disarmament but also to a worrisome vulnerability of the vast nuclear stockpiles accumulated there.
Lungs are very hard to image.
Magnetic resonance imaging of inhaled noble gases optically pumped to high levels of nuclear polarization may offer the solution clinicians are looking for. Sodium atoms kicked by standing waves provide a new probe of quantum chaos. Several features of quantum chaos have been demonstrated in a system of sodium atoms interacting with a modulated standing wave of light. The system can be tuned continuously from a regime that can be described classically to one where a quantum description is necessary. Astronomical image processing may improve breast cancer diagnostics.