Underground Bunker Research Articles

ORLaND — a neutrino facility at the Spallation Neutron Source

We outline the perspectives for low energy neutrino physics that would come with the proposed construction of the Oak Ridge Laboratory for Neutrino Detectors (ORLaND). This facility would be near the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), presently under construction at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). It would be located in an underground bunker next to the first target station of the SNS, large enough to house one large general purpose 2 kt liquid scintillation detector and several 100–200 ton detectors optimized for specific neutrino-nucleus cross section measurements.

ORLaND: A proposed neutrino facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, USA, ORLaND is a collaboration proposing a major neutrino physics facility at the Spallation Neutrino Source (SNS) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. An underground bunker is proposed adjacent to the first target station of the SNS. The bunker is designed to house one large detector (2000 t) and a number of smaller (200 t) detectors. A comprehensive program of neutrino experiments is being developed that could span the lifetime of the Spallation Source.

Electromagnetic Fields and Circadian Rhythms-Reply

In Reply. —I appreciate Dr Schwartz's comments and would agree that the effects of power frequency EMFs on human behavior are important to study. However, I would disagree that the effects of EMF on human circadian rhythms are well-documented. There is only one existing report of such an effect, that cited by Dr Schwartz, ie, the work of Wever conducted on humans and finches in an underground bunker, first published in 1973 and recently reviewed by Wever. 1 The human work has never been replicated, either by Wever or by anyone else. A recent attempt to replicate the observations on finches, conducted in the same German bunker under conditions identical to those used by Wever, failed to show effects. 2 While there is work suggesting that EMFs do affect circadian rhythms in rodents, 3 one must be cautious in extrapolating these results to humans. For one thing, the exposures used

Desynchronization of human circadian rhythms.

Fifty human sub jects have been kept in an underground bunker in conditions of continuous illumination, each in complete isolation and without any time-telling device. Rectal temperature was recorded continuously by means of an electric thermometer, and urine samples, collected in intervals of the subjects own choice, were analyzed for excretion of water, sodium, calcium and potassium. Several systems of electric contacts served to survey the subjects general activities. All subjects showed free-running circadian rhythms, the average periods of wakefulness and sleep ranging from 23.9 to 50.0 hours. 36 subjects remained internally synchronized during the whole experiment. In 5 cases, the rhythm of activity and the rhythms of vegetative functions were synchronized in a 1: 2-ratio for parts of the experiment. 9 subjects showed different circadian frequencies in activity and in body temperature; in two of these subjects, desynchronization started immediately after being enclosed in the bunker, in the remaining 7 subjects after 9 to 23 days of confinement.