Fusion energy requires confining high energy particles, both those produced from fusion reactions and others injected by megawatt beams used to heat the plasma to fusion temperatures.
Experiments at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, California, are shedding light on one of the major mechanisms by which these "fast ions" can be ejected from the plasma. Furthermore, these experiments provide extremely detailed tests of models designed to predict these effects in future reactors.
Sea level rise caused by global warming can prove extremely destructive to island habitats, which hold about 20% of the world's biodiversity. Research by C. Bellard, C. Leclerc and F. Courchamp of the University of Paris Sud look at 3 possible scenarios, from optimistic to very pessimistic, to bring attention to the dangers in store for some of the richest biodiversity hotspots worldwide.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers say they have found 'missing heat' in the climate system, casting doubt on suggestions that global warming has slowed or stopped over the past decade.
Observational data on which climate records are based cover only 84 per cent of the planet – with Polar regions and parts of Africa largely excluded.
New research reveals exactly how the body measures carbon dioxide and suggests that far from being a metabolic waste product, it could play a key role as a biological signalling molecule.
Were you one of the many people who got stuck in an airport when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010? It wasn't a major eruption, and it happened a long way from the heart of Europe. But it cost society an absolute fortune by paralysing air traffic across northern Europe.
The first step in developing a cost-effective micro sensor for long-term monitoring of ocean acidification has been achieved by a team of scientists and engineers.
The new technology, that will measure pH levels in seawater, was developed by engineers from the National Oceanography Centre, in close collaboration with oceanographers from University of Southampton Ocean and Earth Science, which is based at the centre.
Millimeter-wave imaging technology is widely used in airborne radar, automotive sensors and full-body scanners for passenger screening at airports. A new, quasi-optical radar technique images millimeter-wave radiation reflected from fusion plasmas in 2D, time-resolved images. This novel application lets researchers image waves in fusion plasmas in startling detail, and provides vital information to devise strategies to avoid instabilities which can reduce fusion power output.
Researchers at the University of East Anglia have found out why birds are migrating earlier and earlier each year.
Experts have long suspected climate change is somehow driving this advancing migration pattern. But new research published today reveals that individual birds migrate like clockwork – arriving at the same time each year.
However, climate warming is resulting in earlier nesting and hatching earlier each year, and this appears to be linked to the advancing migration.
With the rise of online open course platforms such as Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseWare and iTunes U, it has never been easier to teach yourself everything from American history to semiconductor manufacturing. These courses enable students to advance at their own pace while accessing the limitless resources available on the internet for supplemental material.
An interdisciplinary team of University of Pennsylvania researchers has already developed a technique for controlling liquid crystals by means of physical templates and elastic energy, rather than the electromagnetic fields that manipulate them in televisions and computer monitors. They envision using this technique to direct the assembly of other materials, such as nanoparticles.
Now, the Penn team has added another tool to its directed assembly toolkit, developing a new kind of template for rearranging particles and a new set of patterns that can be formed with them.
WASHINGTON, D.C. Nov. 12, 2013 -- Researchers across the globe are racing to find ways to improve the cooling of hot surfaces -- for technologies ranging from small handheld electronics all the way to industrial-sized applications such as nuclear power plants.
Despite their almost incomprehensibly small size – a diameter about one ten-thousandth the thickness of a human hair – single-walled carbon nanotubes come in a plethora of different "species," each with its own structure and unique combination of electronic and optical properties. Characterizing the structure and properties of an individual carbon nanotube has involved a lot of guesswork – until now.
WASHINGTON, D.C. Nov. 12, 2013 -- Researchers have identified some of the underlying physics that may explain how insects can so quickly recover from a stall in midflight -- unlike conventional fixed wing aircraft, where a stalled state often leads to a crash landing.
A promising technology may enable doctors to diagnose and possibly treat in utero a common cause of stillbirth and sudden death in infants, according to research published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
The study is the first to document the electrophysiological characteristics of fetal long QT syndrome and to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the magnetic EKG, or magnetocardiogram, in a sizable population of at-risk fetuses.
A computational method to quantify the adsorption of gas by porous zeolites should help labs know what to expect before they embark upon slow, costly experiments, according to researchers at Rice University.
The new method created by engineers in Rice's Multiscale Materials Modeling Lab accurately calculated the ability of two zeolites, small cage-like molecules with enormous surface area, to trap and store gas molecules.