To achieve nuclear fusion for practical energy production, scientists often use magnetic fields to confine plasma. This creates a magnetic (or more precisely "magneto-hydrodynamic") fluid in which plasma is tied to magnetic field lines, and where regions of plasma can be isolated and heated to very high temperatures—typically 10 times hotter than the core of the sun! At these temperatures the plasma is nearly superconducting, and the magnetic field becomes tightly linked to the plasma, able to provide the strong force needed to hold in the hot fusion core.
Earth
Irvine, Calif. – Tiny temperature changes on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans provide an excellent way to forecast wildfires in South American rainforests, according to UC Irvine and other researchers funded by NASA.
"It enables us three to five months in advance to predict the severity of the fire season," said UCI assistant project scientist Yang Chen, lead author of a paper that will be published Friday, Nov. 11, in the journal Science.
WASHINGTON — The magnitude and depth of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will require an unprecedented effort to determine the extent and severity of ecological damage and to develop restoration plans for affected areas in the Gulf of Mexico, says an interim report by the National Research Council. A broad approach that focuses on repairing ecosystem processes -- such as fisheries production -- in addition to replacing natural resources damaged by the spill could offer more options for restoring the Gulf region, says the congressionally mandated report.
Evergreen trees at the edge of Alaska's tundra are growing faster, suggesting that at least some forests may be adapting to a rapidly warming climate, says a new study.
In a prospective, observational study of approximately 150,000 Norwegians, the investigators found that alcohol consumption was associated with a large decrease in the risk of death from coronary artery disease. For men, the fully adjusted hazard ratio for cardiac death was 0.52 (95% CI 0.39 - 0.69) when comparing subjects reporting more than one drink/week in comparison with those reporting never or rarely drinking; for women, it was 0.62 (0.3-.23).
Research collaboration between India and Germany has intensified. This was highlighted by Professor Matthias Kleiner, President of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), during a visit to India taking him to several universities and research institutes in New Delhi on Nov. 3 and 4, 2011.
The world's first prototype of a hand-held fingerprint drug testing device has been created by UK technology company Intelligent Fingerprinting.
The unique device detects drugs and other substances from the sweat contained in fingerprints and will enable mobile testing with instant results.
A spin-out of the University of East Anglia (UEA), Intelligent Fingerprinting Ltd is based in the NRP Innovation Centre at the Norwich Research Park. The company developed the prototype with eg technology – a product design, development and engineering consultancy based in Cambridge.
Kawasaki Disease (KD) is a severe childhood disease that many parents, even some doctors, mistake for an inconsequential viral infection. In fact, if not diagnosed or treated in time, it can lead to irreversible heart damage. After 50 years of research, including genetic studies, scientists have been unable to pinpoint the cause of the disease.
SALT LAKE CITY -- A truck-mounted radar dish often used to chase Midwest tornadoes is getting a workout in Utah this month as University of Utah meteorologists use it to get an unprecedented look inside snow and rain storms over the Salt Lake Valley and the surrounding Wasatch and Oquirrh mountains.
"For students who love snow, it's every bit as thrilling as chasing tornadoes," says avid skier and atmospheric sciences Professor Jim Steenburgh. "That's why we call it storm chasing, Utah style."
Providence, RI--- In the 19th century, Lord Kelvin made the inspiredguess that elements are knots in the "ether". Hydrogen would be onekind of knot, oxygen a different kind of knot---and so forththroughout the periodic table of elements.
Not to pick up electrons, but tweezers made of electrons. A recent paper* by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Virginia (UVA) demonstrates that the beams produced by modern electron microscopes can be used not just to look at nanoscale objects, but to move them around, position them and perhaps even assemble them.
November 8, 2011 - Health costs exceeding $14 billion dollars, 21,000 emergency room visits, nearly 1,700 deaths, and 9,000 hospitalizations are among the staggering impacts of six climate change-related events in the United States during the last decade, according to a first-of-its-kind study published in November 2011 edition of the journal Health Affairs.
Why there is stuff in the universe—more properly, why there is an imbalance between matter and antimatter—is one of the long-standing mysteries of cosmology. A team of researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has just concluded a 10-year-long study of the fate of neutrons in an attempt to resolve the question, the most sensitive such measurement ever made. The universe, they concede, has managed to keep its secret for the time being, but they've succeeded in significantly narrowing the number of possible answers.
NOAA's updated Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI), which measures the direct climate influence of many greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, shows a continued steady upward trend that began with the Industrial Revolution of the 1880s.
The release of massive amounts of carbon from methane hydrate frozen under the seafloor 56 million years ago has been linked to the greatest change in global climate since a dinosaur-killing asteroid presumably hit Earth 9 million years earlier. New calculations by researchers at Rice University show that this long-controversial scenario is quite possible.