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Oct 21, 2019
Magneto-inertial fusion experiment nears completion
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: nuclear energy, particle physics
Assembly of the Plasma Liner Experiment (PLX) at Los Alamos National Laboratory is well underway with the installation of 18 of 36 plasma guns in an ambitious approach to achieving controlled nuclear fusion (Figure 1). The plasma guns are mounted on a spherical chamber, and fire supersonic jets of ionized gas inward to compress and heat a central gas target that serves as fusion fuel. In the meantime, experiments performed with the currently installed plasma guns are providing fundamental data to create simulations of colliding plasma jets, which are crucial for understanding and developing other controlled fusion schemes.
Most fusion experiments employ either magnetic confinement, which relies on powerful magnetic fields to contain a fusion plasma, or inertial confinement, which uses heat and compression to create the conditions for fusion.
The PLX machine combines aspects of both magnetic confinement fusion schemes (e.g. tokamaks) and inertial confinement machines like the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The hybrid approach, although less technologically mature than pure magnetic or inertial confinement concepts, may offer a cheaper and less complex fusion reactor development path. Like tokamaks, the fuel plasma is magnetized to help mitigate losses of particles and thermal energy. Like inertial confinement machines, a heavy imploding shell (the plasma liner) rapidly compresses and heats the fuel to achieve fusion conditions. Instead of NIF’s array of high-power lasers driving a solid capsule, PLX relies on supersonic plasma jets fired from plasma guns.
Oct 21, 2019
Rocket Lab—yep, Rocket Lab—has a plan to deliver satellites to the Moon
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: energy, satellites
A Rocket Lab spokesperson told Ars that the new service, launching on an Electron rocket, would be capable of sending up to 30kg into lunar orbit and be available as soon as the fourth quarter of 2020. As for pricing, it was not disclosed. “Pricing is tailored to mission requirements, but we’ll be bringing previously impossible missions within reach at attainable prices,” the spokesperson said.
The “Photon” spacecraft is essentially a small third stage for the Electron rocket that provides in-space maneuvering capability for payloads. It combines propulsion, power, attitude determination and control, and radiation-tolerant avionics. These combined capabilities will allow Rocket Lab to deliver small spacecraft on lunar flyby missions, into a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (where NASA intends to build a small space station called the Lunar Gateway), L1/L2 points, or lunar orbit. It will take up to 14 days for the Photon vehicle to deliver a payload to lunar orbit.
Oct 21, 2019
Gravity crystals: A new method for exploring the physics of white dwarf stars
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: food, particle physics, space
Grab a mixing bowl from your kitchen, throw in a handful of aluminum balls, apply some high voltage, and watch an elegant dance unfold where particles re-arrange themselves into a distinct “crystal” pattern. This curious behavior belongs to the phenomenon known as Wigner crystallization, where particles with the same electrical charge repel one another to form an ordered structure.
Wigner crystallization has been observed in variety of systems, ranging from particulates the size of sand grains suspended in small clouds of electrons and ions (called a dusty plasma) to the dense interiors of planet-sized stars, known as white dwarfs. Professor Alex Bataller of North Carolina State University has recently discovered that Wigner crystallization inside white dwarfs can be studied in the lab using a new class of classical systems, called gravity crystals.
For the curious behavior of Wigner crystallization to occur, there must be a system composed of charged particles that are both free to move about (plasma), that strongly interact with each other (strongly coupled particles), and has the presence of a confining force to keep the plasma particles from repulsively exploding away from each other.
Oct 21, 2019
AI Can Help You—And Your Boss—Maximize Your Potential. Will You Trust It?
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: robotics/AI
AI is ready to become your new HR partner—Entrepreneur David Yang shows how Yva’s neural network helps companies retain and develop talent.
Oct 21, 2019
These Startups Are Building Tools to Keep an Eye on AI
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: robotics/AI
The software can help developers constrain their creations so they don’t make bad decisions.
Oct 21, 2019
New Shape-Morphing, Self-Healing, Intelligent Material Developed for Soft Robotics
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: engineering, robotics/AI, wearables
Advances in the fields of soft robotics, wearable technologies, and human/machine interfaces require a new class of stretchable materials that can change shape adaptively while relying only on portable electronics for power. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed such a material that exhibits a unique combination of high electrical and thermal conductivity with actuation capabilities that are unlike any other soft composite.
In findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, the researchers report on this intelligent new material that can adapt its shape in response to its environment. The paper is titled “A multifunctional shape-morphing elastomer with liquid metal inclusions.”
“It is not only thermally and electrically conductive, it is also intelligent,” said Carmel Majidi, an associate professor of mechanical engineering who directs the Soft Machines Lab at Carnegie Mellon. “Just like a human recoils when touching something hot or sharp, the material senses, processes, and responds to its environment without any external hardware. Because it has neural-like electrical pathways, it is one step closer to artificial nervous tissue.”
A new Pew Research report unsparingly explains, the decline of Christianity in the United States “continues at a rapid pace.” A bare 65 percent of Americans now say they’re Christians, down from 78 percent as recently as 2007. The deconverted are mostly moving away from religion altogether, and the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated — the “nones” — have swelled from 16 to 26 percent over the same period. If this rate of change continues, the U.S. will be majority non-Christian by about 2035, with the nones representing well over one third of the population.
What the decline of Christianity will mean for politics in America.
Oct 21, 2019
China Is Striving for the World’s Best, Cheapest Healthcare
Posted by Derick Lee in categories: biotech/medical, futurism
At stake is not just the well-being of millions of Chinese people, but the future of the global healthcare industry. China has set its sights on creating a holy grail healthcare system that satisfies patients’ needs and control costs while still encouraging cutting-edge research—and the world is watching.
Whether it succeeds will affect the future of the global industry.
Oct 21, 2019
Rogue drones to be targeted by new hi-tech ‘detect and destroy’ unit set up by Home Office
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: drones, law enforcement, military
Rogue drones will be brought down by “detect and destroy” technology under plans for a new national counter-drone force to prevent Gatwick-style disruption, ministers have announced.
The new mobile special unit, to be set up by the Home Office, will be available to any police force or law enforcement agency in the UK to counter potential drone threats at major events or malicious attacks such as the chaos at Gatwick airport last Christmas.
The unit is expected to have military-grade cameras, radar and radio frequency scanners to detect rogue drones, similar to those deployed by the Army at Gatwick.