High-performance plasmas may make reliable, efficient fusion power a reality
In the quest to produce nuclear fusion energy, researchers from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility have recently confirmed long-standing theoretical predictions that performance, efficiency and...
View ArticleWorld's largest fusion device goes back to work
September is commonly the month where things begin to gather pace again, and in the world of fusion energy research, things are no different. European scientists working on the Joint European Torus...
View ArticleCanadian firm bids to commercialize fusion reactor
In the race against world governments and the wealthiest companies to commercialize a nuclear fusion reactor, a small, innovative Canadian firm is hoping to bottle and sell the sun's energy.
View ArticleWork with a unique isotope of hydrogen generates attention in the scientific...
By delving into the interactions between a hydrogen molecule and muonic hydrogen, the heaviest hydrogen isotope to date, a team of researchers from academia and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory...
View ArticleVolcanoes deliver two flavors of water
Seawater circulation pumps hydrogen and boron into the oceanic plates that make up the seafloor, and some of this seawater remains trapped as the plates descend into the mantle at areas called...
View ArticleChemical fingerprinting tracks the travels of little brown bats
They're tiny creatures with glossy, chocolate-brown hair, out-sized ears and wings. They gobble mosquitoes and other insect pests during the summer and hibernate in caves and mines when the weather...
View ArticleA new clean nuclear fusion reactor has been designed
A researcher at the Universidad politécnica de Madrid (UPM, Spain) has patented a nuclear fusion reactor by inertial confinement that, apart from be used to generate electric power in plants, can be...
View ArticleFusion, anyone? Not quite yet, but researchers show just how close we've come
The dream of igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth, is getting closer to becoming reality, according the authors of...
View ArticleLow-Budget Fusion Reactor Could Generate Energy within a Decade
(PhysOrg.com) -- Currently, most nuclear fusion power plants are large, expensive projects that will take decades to benefit from. But a startup company in Vancouver, Canada, called General Fusion is...
View ArticleEthiopia's climate 27 million years ago had higher rainfall, warmer soil
Thirty million years ago, before Ethiopia's mountainous highlands split and the Great Rift Valley formed, the tropical zone had warmer soil temperatures, higher rainfall and different atmospheric...
View ArticleFossil Leaves Depict Warm, High Sierra Nevada Mountains in Ancient Past
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team led by Yale University geologists has reconstructed the climate and elevation of California’s northern Sierra Nevada mountains using organic materials derived from ancient...
View ArticleStrange Antihyperparticle Created
(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists, including nine from UC Davis, working at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory recently created some strange matter not seen since just after the...
View ArticleFruit flies can detect heavy hydrogen: study
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study by researchers in Greece and the US has found that fruit flies can discriminate between normal and heavy hydrogen (deuterium) isotopes, which adds weight to a new theory of...
View ArticleMethane levels 17 times higher in water wells near hydrofracking sites
A study by Duke University researchers has found high levels of leaked methane in well water collected near shale-gas drilling and hydrofracking sites. The scientists collected and analyzed water...
View ArticleResearchers at NIF moving closer to fusion ignition point
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the U.S. National Ignition Facility (NIF) report that they are growing ever closer to reaching the ignition point with their laser generated nuclear fusion project. The...
View ArticleSmall is beautiful: Viewing hydrogen atoms with neutron protein crystallography
(Phys.org)—Creating 3D visualizations of hydrogen atoms in proteins is especially challenging, often requiring their locations to be inferred from those of nearby carbon, nitrogen, oxygen or sulfur...
View ArticleSearching for the solar system's chemical recipe
(Phys.org)—By studying the origins of different isotope ratios among the elements that make up today's smorgasbord of planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and interplanetary ice and dust, Mark Thiemens...
View ArticleTeam shows first nuclear material detection by single...
Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have successfully demonstrated for the first time that laser-generated neutrons can be enlisted as a useful tool in the War on Terror.
View ArticleNew imaging technique captures ever-changing world of metabolites
(Phys.org) —What would you do with a camera that can take a picture of something and tell you how new it is? If you're Berkeley Lab scientists Katherine Louie, Ben Bowen, Jian-Hua Mao and Trent...
View ArticleResearchers quantify toxic ocean conditions during major extinction 93.9...
Oxygen in the atmosphere and ocean rose dramatically about 600 million years ago, coinciding with the first proliferation of animal life. Since then, numerous short lived biotic events—typically marked...
View ArticleFundamental change in the nature of chemical bonding upon isotopic substitution
Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons. Because of the resulting differences in mass ratios, isotope effects can significantly...
View ArticleResearchers successfully transform liquid deuterium into a metal
(Phys.org)—A team of researchers working at Sandia National Labs working with another team from the University of Rostock in Germany, has succeeded in squeezing liquid deuterium into becoming what...
View ArticleSeasonal monarch butterfly migrations may help lower infection levels
Seasonal migrations may help lower infection levels in wild North American monarch butterfly populations, according to a study published November 25, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sonia...
View ArticleCombining techniques provides new insight into bird migration
Two complementary methods work together in a study forthcoming in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, producing more refined estimates of where individual Barn Swallows spend the winter. Using the...
View ArticleTiny filters, big news: Novel process uses graphene and boron nitride...
(Phys.org)—Conventional membranes used for sieving atomic and molecular species cannot scale to the subatomic level, making them unable to separate hydrogen isotope ions (protons, deuterons and...
View ArticleScientists 'teach' hydrogen to penetrate in metal surfaces through oxidate...
Oxidate layers on metal surfaces are a barrier for hydrogen penetration in and out of metal. In experiments conducted at the Plasma Physics Department at MEPhI , it has been shown that hydrogen...
View ArticleGraphene membranes can make nuclear industry greener
Graphene could help reduce the energy cost of producing heavy water and decontamination in nuclear power plants by over one hundred times compared with current technologies, University of Manchester...
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