Category Archives: project

from the other side…

Where’s Mr. Plattner? That was a question that was to be repeated many times in the next few days. It really seemed as though that frantic hyperbole, “blown to atoms,” had for once realised itself. There was not a visible … Continue reading

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birds eye view…

The first day I arrive at the High Resolution Plant Phenomics Centre it is a glorious spring morning. It seems hard to believe that we have just lived through the last seven years of drought. Everywhere is green and even … Continue reading

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growing pains…

In the next fifty years we must produce more food than we have consumed in the history of mankind. Dr Megan Clark, Chief Executive and CSIRO Board member, 2009. My project has taken a short but relevant diversion. While clumsily … Continue reading

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new revolutions…

In 1967 an idea occurred to Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield (1919-2004), a brilliant English electrical engineer, that one could determine what was inside a box by taking X-ray readings at all angles around the object. Prior to this he was … Continue reading

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counting beans…

There was a news article circulating this week about Ron Sveden of Massachusetts who thought he had lung cancer but luckily for him the growth turned out not to be a tumour but a pea sprouting; proving that those hardy … Continue reading

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sowing the first seed…

Finally the mungs make their debut on the XCT. They were ready, soaking over night; two mungs and one little radish for good luck. Amazingly they all sprout and don’t die halfway through the sequence – nine hours of 64 … Continue reading

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back in the lab…

When you 3D X-ray a sprouting mung bean how do you keep it still and at the same time keep it from drying out? The difficulties sprouting a mung bean for 3D tomography is that they flip over when they turn their sprout down… Continue reading

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mung bean…

Without gravity, where do mungs direct their sprouts? In space, do they know what is up or down? Continue reading

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