© 2025 KSUT Public Radio
NPR News and Music Discovery for the Four Corners
Now Playing
Four Corners Public Radio
Now Playing
Four Corners Public Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Four Corners Public Radio
Now Playing
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Neighborhood Up in Arms over Home Cyclotron

Civil engineer and nuclear technician Albert Swank wants to build a circular particle accelerator, or cyclotron, in his garage in a well-manicured residential area adjacent to downtown Anchorage, Alaska.

But some of his neighbors aren't too comfortable with the idea, and they've convinced the city assembly to propose a law specifically forbidding the cyclotrons in residential areas.

Swank wants to rebuild a cyclotron being decommissioned at Johns Hopkins University to create radioactive isotopes for Alaska hospitals. The isotopes are used to treat cancer and are also used in imaging machines.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Xeni Jardin
Xeni Jardin can be heard on NPR’s Day to Day, offering technology insights for listeners nationwide. Jardin is also a contributing writer for Wired Magazine, as well as a tech culture journalist and co-editor of the collaborative weblog BoingBoing.net, the award-winning "Directory of Wonderful Things."
Related Stories