Of Interest archive
2013
2 Sep 2013
How Much is the Moon Worth?
Helium-3 is part of the solar wind that has buffeted the solar system for billions of years. Since the moon has no magnetic field or…
1 Sep 2013
A magic lamp for the thermonuclear genie
The terrible and awe-inspiring power of thermonuclear reactions in mankind's Cold War past may translate into a much-needed supply of…
31 Aug 2013
ORNL debuts Titan supercomputer
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory launched a new era of scientific supercomputing today with Titan, a…
30 Aug 2013
Tracking the future
Very rarely is a research area as dependent on 3D-measurement technology in the set-up of its major experiments as fusion plasma physics…
29 Aug 2013
Oscillating electrons revealed
Researchers from KVI (Groningen, The Netherlands), Missouri University of Science and Technology (Rolla MO, USA) and CONICET-Universidad…
28 Aug 2013
The kid who has ideas on how to make fusion work
When he was 14, Wilson built a nuclear-fusion reactor. Then, a bomb-sniffing device that impressed even the president. Now 18, the prodigy…
27 Aug 2013
What happens when the Sun runs out of fusion fuel?
Researchers who specialize in stellar evolution have long known that the inner planets are in danger. The trouble starts in the…
26 Aug 2013
On a mission towards ignition
Is ignition the Holy Grail of fusion research? The answer depends on the exact type of fusion research you are conducting—and for…
25 Aug 2013
Too hot to handle
Researchers around the world are working on an efficient, reliable way to contain the plasma used in fusion reactors, potentially bringing…
24 Aug 2013
With tight research budgets, is there room for the eternal promise of fusion?
Moving beyond the country's, and the world's, existing energy menu, which is still by far dominated by abundant and relatively cheap fossil…
23 Aug 2013
New version of "InterFaces" (French) is out
New version of "InterFaces" (French) is out. Find it at: http://www.itercad.org/Interfaces/Interfaces40.pdf
22 Aug 2013
The art of fusion science
Keen photographer Julian Siret from Special Techniques Group at JET was surprised to find a sculpture inspired by his workplace at a hotel…
21 Aug 2013
Nuclear trash to nuclear treasure
The fission reactions that drive commercial nuclear reactors around the world and create around 20 percent of power in the United States…
20 Aug 2013
Confronting climate change: 9 clean replacement technologies
July 2012 was the hottest month ever recorded, and 2012 is becoming the hottest year since record-keeping began in the nineteenth century…
19 Aug 2013
Safer, more efficient, fusion-generated electricity is on the horizon
"There's always been this sense that fusion is fifty years away," Saskia Mordijck says, but she adds that the horizon for safer…
18 Aug 2013
Fusion energy: one step closer to breaking even
In the high-stakes race to realize fusion energy, a smaller lab may be putting the squeeze on the big boys. Worldwide efforts to harness…
17 Aug 2013
Poland set to invest EUR 12.5 billion in shale gas (in French)
Alors que le débat sur l'exploitation du gaz de schiste fait rage en France, la Pologne, fortement dépendante du gaz russe, a annoncé,…
16 Aug 2013
Mystery of ball lightning solved?
A team of Australian scientists believe they have uncovered the cause of one of nature's most bizarre phenomenon—ball lightning. Ball…
15 Aug 2013
Towards an understanding of the Sun's butterfly diagram
The Sun spins about a fixed axis, but since it's not solid its rotation frequency is not uniform: At the visible surface, the equator…
14 Aug 2013
NIF responds to fusion "deadline" expiry
Staff at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) say that work to generate inertial confinement fusion with energy gain will continue as…