• Question: What is a Lego spect scanner

    Asked by anon-201466 to Sophia on 6 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Sophia Pells

      Sophia Pells answered on 6 Mar 2019:

      A SPECT scanner is used for nuclear imaging in hospitals. It is made up of gamma cameras that rotate around a patient lying on a bed. A gamma camera works in the same sort of way as a normal camera, but instead of taking photos of visible light, it takes photos of high-energy gamma rays. Hospitals use them to see where the radiation has gone in someone’s body after they’ve had a radiation therapy, so they can check the radiation is going to the cancer and not healthy bits of the body.

      I think it would be cool if we could try and build one out of moving lego! We wouldn’t be able to use it to photograph gamma rays, but maybe we could use a non-harmful source of radiation and take pictures of it with our lego scanner.

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