Lifeboat Foundation

In the nine decades since humans first produced fusion reactions, only a few fusion technologies have demonstrated the ability to make a thermal fusion plasma with electron temperatures hotter than 10 million degrees Celsius, roughly the temperature of the core of the sun. Zap Energy’s unique approach, known as a sheared-flow-stabilized Z pinch, has now joined those rarefied ranks, far exceeding this plasma temperature milestone in a device that is a fraction of the scale of other fusion systems.

A new research paper, published this month in Physical Review Letters, details measurements made on Zap Energy’s Fusion Z-pinch Experiment (FuZE) of 1–3 keV plasma electron temperatures — roughly the equivalent of 11 to 37 million degrees Celsius (20 to 66 million degrees Fahrenheit). Due to the electrons’ ability to rapidly cool a plasma, this feat is a key hurdle for fusion systems and FuZE is the simplest, smallest, and lowest cost device to have achieved it. Zap’s technology offers the potential for a much shorter and more practical path to a commercial product capable of producing abundant, on-demand, carbon-free energy to the globe.

“These are meticulous, unequivocal measurements, yet made on a device of incredibly modest scale by traditional fusion standards,” describes Ben Levitt, VP of R&D at Zap. “We’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us, but our performance to date has advanced to a point that we can now stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the world’s pre-eminent fusion devices, but with great efficiency, and at a fraction of the complexity and cost.”

A study in Nature identifies molecular responses to endurance exercise training in rats, including sex-specific responses. The findings may offer new insights into the impact of exercise on health and disease. Read the paper:

Temporal multi-omic analysis of tissues from rats undergoing up to eight weeks of endurance exercise training reveals widespread shared, tissue-specific and sex-specific changes, including immune, metabolic, stress response and mitochondrial pathways.

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Better technology and falling launch costs revive interest in a science-fiction technology.

Book by Nick Bostrom: Chapter Summary, Free PDF Download, Audiobook, Review. Charting the Future of AI: Risks and Imperatives.

Microsoft’s Copilot is gradually revolutionizing the working lives of software engineers—the first professional cohort to use generative AI en masse. Microsoft says Copilot has attracted 1.3 million customers so far, including 50,000 businesses.

A team of four volunteers are embarking on a 45-day mission as part of NASA’s Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) program, simulating life on Mars.

More Space Coast rocket launches mean a crowded fleet of support ships are already pushing Port Canaveral’s limits. So the state commissioned a study that suggests a $2.1 billion solution to give companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin dedicated places to dock.

Space Florida, the state’s aerospace finance and development authority, released Thursday the Florida Spaceport System Maritime Intermodal Transportation Study that’s been in the works for more than a year.

“It was really important for us to make sure we had every stakeholder input throughout the process,” said Space Florida president and CEO Rob Long.

Daniel Dennett, who died in April at the age of 82, was a towering figure in the philosophy of mind. Known for his staunch physicalist stance, he argued that minds, like bodies, are the product of evolution. He believed that we are, in a sense, machines—but astoundingly complex ones, the result of millions of years of natural selection.

Dennett wrote more than a dozen books, some of them aimed at a scholarly audience but many of them directed squarely at the inquisitive non-specialist—including bestsellers like Consciousness Explained, Breaking the Spell, and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Reading his works, one gets the impression of a mind jammed to the rafters with ideas. As Richard Dawkins put it in a blurb for Dennett’s last book, a memoir titled I’ve Been Thinking: “How unfair for one man to be blessed with such a torrent of stimulating thoughts.”

Some of the AI-designed gene editors could be more versatile than those found in nature.