Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Tuesday 13 June 2017

Despite conflicts, Mideast research center to launch in fall

KARIN LAUB beamline scientist. the Arabs,” Rabinovici said.
Associated Press As the only woman on the Palestinian accelerator
ALLAN, Jordan (AP) — A advance team of the proj- physicist Maher Attal, who
top-notch research center ect, she said she always has been with the project
that brought together Iran, has to prove she’s good from the start, recalled the
Israel and other Mideast enough for the job. elation of scientists over
antagonists is launching Plans for an advanced re- each milestone, including
operations this fall in hopes gional research center go in April when they ramped
of boosting scientific dis- back to the late 1990s, a up the electrons to full
covery with the help of a hopeful period in which speed.
powerful microscope and Israelis and Palestinians “We were just shouting and
opening a window to a reached interim peace shaking hands with each
better future for a region deals, or Oslo Accords, other,” said Attal, 43, from
beset by war, boycotts that were to lead to Pales- the town of Qalqiliya in the
and closed borders. tinian statehood on lands West Bank.
It’s been a tough journey Israel occupied in 1967. Scraping together some
since groundbreaking in In this Tuesday, June 6, 2017 photo, engineer Adel Amro walks Years of negotiations $100 million for the first
2003, marked by political inside the circular corridor at the research center known by its failed, but SESAME sur- phase of the project was a
acronym, SESAME, in the countryside of western Jordan, about
rows and the 2010 assassi- 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the capital of Amman. vived. struggle. Donors included
nation of an Iranian scien- Associated Press The idea to forge meaning- the European Union and
tist linked to the project. ful scientific contacts in the member states. Jordan
Perhaps even more threat- The contraption zaps elec- Iranian, an Egyptian and a Middle East came from sci- also provided the land
ening were chronic funding trons through a circular Palestinian, were working entists involved with CERN, and the building. Still miss-
shortages, said Khaled Tou- tube at near the speed of quietly on the beam lines. the European Organization ing are a dormitory, offices
kan, the Jordanian director light, generating intense Hossein Khosroabadi, 40, a for Nuclear Research, one and a cafeteria. “We only
of the project, known by its light beams. Research- physicist from Tehran, said of the first European orga- built the core of the facil-
acronym, SESAME. ers can train these “beam the secret for getting along nizations established after ity,” said Toukan.
The undertaking was at risk lines” on their subject of is to focus on the science. the devastation of World Disagreements are aired at
of collapse several times, study, from cells to ma- “If you start talking politics, War II. biannual meetings of SES-
but has reached a point terials, in a wide range of it makes a problem for us,” CERN dwarfs SESAME in AME’s governing council
of no return, he said in an disciplines, from medicine said the beamline special- many ways, including with which includes representa-
interview. and biology to archaeol- ist. a particle accelerator that tives of member countries
“It is working, and I am ogy and environmental sci- Egyptian physicist Gihan at 27 kilometers (16.8 miles) and observer states such
surprised,” he said of the ence. Kamel, 41, said she hopes is more than 200 times lon- as France, Germany, Brit-
rare collaboration of eight The first two lines will start SESAME will open doors for ger than the one in Jordan. ain, Japan, Russia and the
members that also include operating by November, women in science. The re- But the idea of science as United States. UNESCO, the
Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus, Paki- and dozens of researchers search center will enable a tool for breaking down U.N. agency promoting
stan and the Palestinian have applied for “beam female graduate students barriers is central to both. culture and science, is a
Authority, a self-rule gov- time,” said Toukan. In all, and doctoral candidates Among the early CERN- sponsor.
ernment in parts of the Is- two dozen lines are to be to conduct their research affiliated scientists who Toukan said things got
raeli-occupied West Bank. set up eventually, in hopes in the region, sidestepping spotted the potential was heated a few times when
The centerpiece of SESAME of drawing hundreds of re- cultural norms that often Eliezer Rabinovici, a physi- regional conflicts intruded.
is a synchrotron light source searchers from the region. deter Arab women from cist at the Hebrew Univer- He said Israel threatened
— essentially a powerful Israel’s Science Ministry re- traveling to the West on sity of Jerusalem. to walk out when the Pal-
microscope — that fills a ported a growing interest their own. After the Oslo Accords, estinians demanded to
large hangar in the coun- in the project among Israeli Yet even at SESAME, where “we thought maybe that’s be listed in the charter as
tryside of western Jordan, scientists. the pursuit of science is the moment when one can “state of Palestine,” in line
about 35 kilometers (22 During a visit to SESAME last meant to transcend barri- try and establish a bridge with a 2012 U.N. General
miles) from the capital of week, physicists and en- ers, traditional gender roles of understanding between Assembly upgrade of their
Amman. gineers, among them an creep in, said Kamel, a Israelis and our neighbors, status at the world body.q