There is the expression “bad news travels fast” - presumably, the faster it travels, the worse the news – but as we go to press we learn from CERN of ν’s putatively traveling faster than the speed of light! Perhaps no information is therefore being transmitted, but if confirmed by subsequent experiments, we might wonder what this portends for our field, already shaken recently by doubts about supersymmetry fed by other experiments at CERN, specifically the LHC, that have not turned up expected evidence for super-symmetric particles that theory predicts should have been observable. And all this comes on the heels of reports just last year from an international collaboration headed by the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany about a possible reduction of the proton radius that some had speculated might be a consequence of supersymmetry.
None of this is bad news, of course, unless one is too heavily vested in any particular understanding of physical law or impatient with the exacting process of experimental verification that is the hallmark of science. In a time of contracting budgets, such patience could understandably wear thin among political leaders and the public at large. As practitioners, teachers, and advocates of research, however, we appreciate how present understandings are contingent on past investments. So while committed to articulating and defending the fruits of past research, in today’s world we should expect to navigate shifting priorities and choices for future investments. Two contributions to this issue of the IRPS Bulletin, from Suprakash Roy and Ladislav Musilek with Marie Dufkova, explore this topic vis a vis prospects for nuclear power generation following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan six months ago. Also in this issue, we are pleased to present contributions by Mohamed Gomaa, on radiation physics-related happenings in the Middle East and an ICRP report on tissue reactions to radiation, and a summary report on IRRMA-8 by Bill Dunn. We thank these contributors for their efforts and, of course, invite your comments, contributions and suggestions for future content!
