iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

The UNM "Experience Nuclear Engineering 2026" summer camp was a blast. Among many other hands-on activities, high-school students operated the Lobo Fusor fusion device, a state-registered accelerator that produces 2E+5 neutrons per second and can make radioisotopes in small quantities. ☢️fun

A student operates the Lobo Fusor at UNM, July 2026

The Lobo Fusor at UNM (with a neutron detector)

Neutron activation of indium by ENE2026 participants on July 17, as attested by a gamma radiation spectrum.

Neutron activation of dysprosium by ENE2026 students on the Lobo Fusor.

040

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

I'm honored to be taking over the 44-year-long tradition of nuclear criticality safety short courses at UNM from Bob Busch this year. We still have some spots open! For crit safety professionals, students, and enthusiasts, this is a fantastic in-person introduction to the field. #NukeSky

UNM 2026 criticality safety courses registration flyer

2216

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Here's a gamma radiation spectrum from an ion exchange column used to make 18-FDG at a cyclotron radiopharmacy. A couple odd TECHNETIUM isotopes are spotted...along with other byproducts of proton activation of the Havar target window. ☢️fun

HPGe gamma spectrum of F-18 ion exchange column

Ion exchange column for fluoride in 18-FDG processing system

0133

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

I'm pleased to announce the 2nd annual UNM nuclear engineering camp for HS students (see alt text or QR for website link). Come operate our nuclear reactor, get a free scintillation detector, play with plasma, and more. Message me with questions! Registration is filling up quickly. #NukeSky

UNM Nuclear Engineering summer camp for 2026: https://experiencenuclearengineering.totalcamps.com/About%20Us

0187

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

A pleasant morning today at the DeLongchamps and Red Bluff uranium mines near Pyramid Lake in Nevada with Taylor Wilson. Both were small producers in the 1950s and '60s and offer nice specimens of autunite and radiation-darkened quartz phenocrysts. ☢️fun

View southwest from above DeLongchamps Mine adit

Taylor and Chloe at the DeLongchamps Mine adit

Gamma radiation track showing DeLongchamps at SW and Red Bluff to NE

290

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Taylor Wilson and Chloe graced us with a visit at the UNM nuclear reactor. He's now working on the frontiers of radiobiology (among other things).

Taylor Wilson and GF Chloe visit the UNM nuclear reactor.

020

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

A trip to visit Dr. Tim Koeth, @univofmaryland.bsky.social. I got a couple of my nuclear engineering summer campers and a current UNM NE student in to see the UMD nuclear reactor at power...and Tim's cyclotron, making neutrons!

The University of Maryland nuclear reactor, College Park, running at 100 kW. With Tim Koeth.

Tim Koeth measuring the thermalization time of neutrons produced by D(d,n) reactions in his cyclotron.

Tim Koeth, UMD grad students, one of my students, and Tim's cyclotron.

061

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Another December highlight: 12-year-old Aidan McMillan's hobby Farnsworth fusor in Dallas, producing around 150000 neutrons / second from deuterium fusion, built over three years of effort. He has great mentorship, especially regarding safety, which is obviously important for kids. #HobbyNuke

Aidan McMillan, 12, of Dallas operates his DD Farnsworth Fusor in December 2025.

A calibrated "Bonner ball" neutron survey meter indicates about 5 mrem/h from the fusion neutrons. With a little math, we can determine that the fusion reactions are producing about 150,000 neutrons per second.

041

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

A solstice celebration in Butcher's Hill, #Baltimore was a highlight of my holidays, something I found refreshingly original. The crankie theater featuring Ravioli and Dorito is the work of @marthasi.bsky.social.

A crankie panorama show for the winter solstice in Patterson Park, Baltimore

Robbin and Pippin near our rowhouse in Butchers' Hill

081

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

WaPo wants my subscription dollars back. But as long as this is a Jeff Bezos-owned rag, they have no hope of "holding power to account" and no chance of getting me to subscribe again. Laughable.

030

Reposted by Carl Willis

Ted Miguel @tedmiguel.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Nobel prize winner George Akerlof (my former colleague) on the firing of statistics officials: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | What to Do When the President Acts Like a Five-Year-Old?

57531

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

☢️fun gamma ray spectrum of the day: photonuclear activation from a 15-MV cancer therapy accelerator. As part of our summer camp, we ran 5000 MU (5 kGy in water, basically) with an HPGe detector in the vault. Some of the observed nuclides are formed in the detector itself, some in the linac head.

Gamma spectrum from linac vault. In-116m and Ge-75m are formed by photoneutron capture in the detector itself. Mn-56, W-187, Nd-141m, Re-184, and Cu isotopes are formed by photonuclear and neutron captures in the structures of the treatment head. All of this is on top of a very strong Al-28 signal from neutron-capture activation of the HPGe cryostat.

1180

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

"Experience Nuclear Engineering 2025"--a pilot one-week residential summer camp for high-schoolers--concluded at #UNM this past weekend. I had a lot of fun planning all the hands-on components, including #nuclear reactor operations, and made a lot of new friends! ☢️fun #NukeSky

High school students perform an approach to critical experiment using the UNM AGN-201M nuclear reactor.

ENE2025 participants in the UNM NE hot cell.

UNM ENE2025 campers visiting the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center's new 15-MV Elekta linac (and measuring radiation from photonuclear reactions in the head)

At the Mark-17 bomb site near Albuquerque.

1140

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Albuquerque rose to the occasion today to send a message of resistance against the lawless Trump regime and its sycophants. I saw a lot of enthusiasm and homemade signs.

1296

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

The UNM NE Department is hosting a FREE residential summer camp July 20-26 for HS students. See link in attached flyer for details. #Nuclear #Engineering @unm.edu @unmengineering.bsky.social #NukeSky ☢️fun

0102

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

#UNM Nuclear Engineering is hosting a residential, hands-on summer camp for HS students, July 20-26. It's FREE to attend--and should be a lot of fun. I'm director. Spread the word & register here: experiencenuclearengineering.totalcamps.com/About%20Us Questions? Let me know! #NukeSky ☢️fun

experiencenuclearengineering.totalcamps.com

031

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

The Mind Research Network (www.mrn.org) on UNM North Campus uses a nice 3-tesla MRI for research. If you're in #Albuquerque, sign up for a study, contribute to important research, get cool images & corporeally experience Faraday's Law. T1- and T2-weighted examples of my own dome attached.

t1-weighted MRI scan through the eyeball

130

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

Gingersnap is home and ready to #chonk out after getting treated for hyperthyroidism with iodine-131. His head reads about 10 mR/h at 10 cm. Not great, not terrible, as they say. ☢️fun

2344

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

F-18 is widely used in medical PET imaging. I ran a gamma spec on a discarded F-18 vial (F-18 all decayed away, no activity measurable on a Geiger counter), and the traces of radioactive Re, Co, Cr, and Tc point to a variety of proton reactions on W, Fe, and Mo in the cyclotron target! ☢️fun

A discarded vial that once contained cyclotron-produced F-18 FDG for PET diagnostic imaging.

Low energy end of the HPGe spectrum, F-18 vial

High energy end of the HPGe spectrum, F-18 vial

3141

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

It's wages-of-sin-are-death Wednesday out on Central Avenue. I was invited to "get up with Jesus on the cross today," which I politely declined.

050

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Jeff #Bezos is a disgrace--an enshittifying force in US civics and the marketplace, along with fellow dissipated plutocrats / trumpanzees Musk & Zuckerberg. Accordingly, I've decided to unsubscribe from his rag (WaPo) and his junk emporium (Amazon Prime). Feeling better already.

5756

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

In "honor" of the appointment of RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health, I made a short video that looks at the kinds of radioactive products that flourish in the alt health and wellness ecosystem of a society struggling with declining information literacy. #NukeSky ☢️fun www.youtube.com/shorts/S4Qjz...

youtube.com

Contemporary radioactive quackery

YouTube video by Carl Willis

4237

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

For sale: Polimaster PM1703GN PRD. Working fine (both gamma & neutron response). This device uses both CsI and LiI scintillator modules and reads in roentgen units for gamma and counts/sec for neutrons. Has data logging abilities. $200 OBO. #HobbyNuke

Response to photons (here, saturating the uR/h readout) and neutrons (saturating the CPS readout) in a graphite thermal column with PuBe sources present.

6100

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

For sale: Exploranium GR-100 PRD, working fine but heavily used, with scratches on the screen! The GR-100 is the gamma-only version of this detector (though it has a neutron indicator lamp). It's a little CsI scintillator with dosimetric readout and data logging. $150 OBO. #HobbyNuke

Response in a ~1 mrem/h photon environment with some neutrons present.

272

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Hand-loading of nuclear fuel into the #UNM AGN-201M reactor, part of an approach-to-critical teaching lab we perform every year. The fuel is enriched UO2 in HDPE plastic. With our 5W licensed power, the dose rate near the core is less than 10 mrem/h. #NukeSky

1396

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

He's a big trump donor & climate denier. Like any of this cabinet, I'd wait to offer congratulations publicly unless & until he demonstrates an ability to be reasonable and not corrupt in office! Perry didn't know what DOE did 😂, but merits an attaboy (I suppose) for not being flagrantly corrupt.

040

Reposted by Carl Willis

Megan Keener @meganrkeener.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Using Pu-242 has resulted in some of the best colors I’ve ever seen as a chemist. 🤩 @realtimechem.bsky.social @berkeleylab.lbl.gov #plutonium #realtimechem #fblockrocks #radiochemistry

34910

Reposted by Carl Willis

Ralf W @raflw.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

The New York Times is so blatantly in the tank for Trump. Calling Canada and Mexico "recalcitrant" is just beyond the pale. It's straight up propaganda.

Peter Baker of the NYT writes "With Canada, Mexico, China, Colombia and the Middle East, President Trump has wasted no time threatening to use American might to force recalcitrant countries to back down and do what he wants."

651237309

Reposted by Carl Willis

Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Several conversations today w people in the key executive departments. And while the particulars are hard to pin down my impression is that the Musk take over stuff is considerably worse than is being presented in the press. By this I don’t necessarily things they *done* yet but the level of …

560181856299

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Another nucleus explodin' in the CdTe Advacam Minipix at 38,000 feet from #cosmic rays. See downthread for the corresponding data extracted & plotted w Matplotlib. ☢️fun #physics #fission

290

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

FREE to a good home: 3-rank 2-manual + pedal pipe #organ located in storage in #Albuquerque. Pipes & chest vintage 1917 Moller, case is hardwood & more recent. Action is electric. 8' closed wood, 4' open metal, 8' reed (oboe). You need to have a hobby mentality to set up & maintain.

Organ in storage currently...does not fit in our house after I got married.

98043

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Countries targeted by trumpist tariffs should retaliate by punishing the front-row plutocrats at the felon's inauguration. That's where the money is, that's the true tumpanzee base, that's who would bawl the loudest, and that would make a lot of people happy. pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/b...

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Canada shouldn’t retaliate with US tariffs; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 6 – CONCLUSION) (15 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

060

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Punishing local trumpist sycophants must be a priority in this era of destructive governance. In #Albuquerque around #UNM, I recommend a shutout of Flying Star Cafe in Nob Hill. The owners are full-blown red-hatted MAGAs, see @boycottmaganm.org. Time for better neighbors (& better food).

271

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Greetings from our new fixer-upper rowhouse in #Baltimore. We booked travel here for the inauguration back when we dared dream about a Harris presidency. Alas! Instead, we're enjoying each other, this great city, & the kindness of neighbors. In the spirit of Candide, we'll cultivate our garden.

4130

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

America's #oligarchs are a dissolute, intellectually-bankrupt, and deeply insecure bunch. #Zuck wouldn't be able to cut it as a $20/h offshore code monkey for his own company & I'm pretty sure #Elon hasn't done any work AT ALL in twenty years. We need to really rethink our notions of meritocracy.

180

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

I tossed up an indoor dipole antenna in our rowhouse in Butcher's Hill, Baltimore, connected to an AirSpy HF+ Discovery SDR, and just now noticed that I received my own 3-watt FT8 signal on 15m (from a QRPLabs QMX+) back in Albuquerque. #HamRadio #AmateurRadio

060

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Introducing the #HobbyNuke feed, a way to keep up with the amateur / avocational / student nuclear physics community on BlueSky--focusing on experiments, demos, projects, & gear (toys). To submit posts to the feed, tag posts with #HobbyNuke or ☢️fun (I will add you to the approved list). #NukeSky

Radiation fun zone. The best place to be.

54710

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Cosmic ray tracks in a CdTe hybrid pixel detector (Advacam) at 37000 feet, including a nice #fission or spallation "star". Just wish I had a bigger detector! I will put a few more event images from this flight into the thread below 👇 #NukeSky ☢️fun

39016

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Attempt at making autoradiographs with uranium glaze tiles and a 6" x-ray image intensifier tube. These are one-hour exposures captured electronically with a Fuji X-T2 camera through the II tube optic. Better images are possible with sheet film like Ilford HP5+, but it takes a week! #NukeSky ☢️fun

1100

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

As the academic semester opens, I figured I'd get a head start on my perennial (probably futile) pitch to students to resist putting AI slop in their work product. I dropped some example prompts in Poe Assistant...and rubbish blew forth. Enjoy today's episode of "Are you smarter than a LLM bot."

Creating carbon and chlorine atoms out of nothing.

Wait, what are those (n,p) and (n,a) products again??

121

Reposted by Carl Willis

Laurence H. Tribe @tribelaw.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Ann Telnaes deserves praise for sacrificing her job at the disgraced Washington Post in service of journalistic independence open.substack.com/pub/anntelna...

open.substack.com

Why I'm quitting the Washington Post

Democracy can't function without a free press

436189724543

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Jimmy Carter, whose many contributions are being celebrated after his passing, reassured a nervous nation in the wake of the Three Mile Island meltdown, visiting the stricken TMI-2 plant on April 1, 1979. When I visited in 2022, photos of him were taped to the panel. #NukeSky

Carl Willis at the TMI-2 control room near the Victoreen radiation monitors, where Jimmy Carter stood in a famous photo on April 1, 1979.

TMI-2 horseshoe control panel, near where Jimmy Carter stood for a famous photo on April 1, 1979. Most of the panel is covered in protective black acrylic sheet today.

Jimmy Carter in the TMI-2 control room, near the Victoreen radiation monitors, on April 1, 1979. Some of the monitors are off-range high because, well, it was a less-than-great day at the power plant.

4222

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

4 curies of 18F-FDG in a radiopharmacy hot cell, something you don't see every day (unless you work there). The "snow" on the image when the vial is close to the camera is from radiation (positrons & annihilation radiation) creating charge carriers directly in the GoPro sensor. #NukeSky

0194

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

🐆 are eating his face and he's having a sad because that was supposed to happen to OTHER people! Bro thought he was exceptional! 😂 This guy is allegedly a "visionary thinker," according to his LinkedIn. 🤡

030

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

In commemoration of the Dec. 22, 1938 discovery of nuclear fission by Hahn & Strassmann (and the work of Meitner & Frisch to explain it over the following Christmas break), I recorded a little experiment at the UNM reactor. Warm wishes for the holidays! #NukeSky www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEOo...

youtube.com

Fission products: a commemorative experiment

YouTube video by Carl Willis

1309

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

@robbinw.bsky.social making an amphora in the Tesuque Glassworks hot shop today. A great place for local handmade glass in Santa Fe, and lessons!

071

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

This '60s-vintage commemorative trinket from Gulf General Atomic contains a TRISO nuclear fuel simulant. The pellets are contaminated with actual fuel materials (highly-enriched uranium and thorium-232), suggesting it was made on the same equipment as the real fuel. #Nukesky

191

Carl Willis @carlwillis.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

#NukeSky Edward R. Murrow at Stagg Field on the 10th anniversary of CP-1 criticality interviews Herb Anderson, Enrico Fermi, Arthur Compton, & Leona Woods. (See my other post for a technical look at the experiment on Dec. 2, 1942.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAMa...

youtube.com

10th Anniversary of CP-1 on "See It Now" with Edward R. Murrow, 1952

YouTube video by Nuclear Engineering at Argonne

1107