UK Gets Super-Scope February 6, 2007

Read more Gadgets , Gizmodo UK

As gadgets go, this one is big. About the same size as five football pitches, actually. The UK’s largest science facility, costing £300m, opened for business yesterday.

Dubbed the Diamond Light Source synchrotron – or uber microscope – it's a machine that allows intense beams of x-rays and ultra-violet light to penetrate inside matter to an atomic or molecular level.

This light is concentrated into beamlines, which are now open for use by all manner of scientific, academic and technical organisations. There are seven beamlines available for scientists to fight over right now and the queues are growing. Thankfully, the pitiful sight of academics throwing haymakers at each other will be offset by the rollout of 14 more beamlines this summer.

For more on the synchrotron, go here.-Martin Lynch

news technology gadgets science future geek