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Extremely short pulses of laser light with a peak power of 6 terawatts (6 trillion watts)—roughly equivalent to the power produced by 6,000 nuclear power plants—have been realized by two RIKEN physicists. This achievement will help further develop attosecond lasers, for which three researchers were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2023. The work is published in the journal Nature Photonics.

Stars like the sun are remarkably constant. They vary in brightness by only 0.1% over years and decades, thanks to the fusion of hydrogen into helium that powers them. This process will keep the sun shining steadily for about 5 billion more years, but when stars exhaust their nuclear fuel, their deaths can lead to pyrotechnics.

The sun will eventually die by growing large and then condensing into a type of star called a white dwarf. But stars more than eight times more massive than the sun die violently in an explosion called a supernova.

Supernovae happen across the Milky Way only a few times a century, and these violent explosions are usually remote enough that people here on Earth don’t notice. For a dying star to have any effect on life on our planet, it would have to go supernova within 100 light years from Earth.

I found this on NewsBreak: The big idea: are we about to discover a new force of nature?

Intriguingly, both disciplines are grappling with unexplained results that could be pointing to the existence of a new force of nature. If such a new force were to be confirmed, the implications for our understanding of the universe, its history and makeup would be profound.

There are four forces that we already know about. Gravity governs the grandest scales, marshalling the planets in their orbits and shaping the evolution of the universe as a whole. Electromagnetic force gives rise to a vast range of phenomena, from the magnetic field of the Earth to radio waves, visible light and X-rays, while also holding atoms, molecules and, by extension, the physical world together. Deep within the atomic nucleus, two further forces emerge: the vice-like “strong force”, which binds atomic nuclei, and the “weak force”, which among other things causes radioactive decay and enables the nuclear reactions that power the sun and the stars.

Continue reading “The big idea: are we about to discover a new force of nature?” »

The experimental fusion reactor sustained temperatures of 212 million degrees Fahrenheit for a record-breaking 48 seconds.

Do you know what they’ve discovered? This is the proton engine that Einstein predicted decades ago and that, for the first time, they’ve managed to materialize. The best part? It challenges even the laws of physics and the universe, and it’s going to decarbonize transportation.

Nuclear fusion has long been a sought-after but elusive goal for science. It involves joining atomic nuclei to release energy, the same process that occurs in the Sun and other stars. In fact, it’s a process similar to what we saw two weeks ago with the plasma engine.

Unlike nuclear fission used in current nuclear power plants—which, remember, we are highly critical of due to its lack of being an eco-friendly or renewable option—fusion offers the promise of a virtually inexhaustible and clean energy source.

Near 99 percent accuracy of bug patching in python programming language.

“The experiment deepens First Light’s ongoing partnership with Sandia National Laboratories, and helps the UK fusion leader to continue developing its unique amplifier approach to inertial fusion,” First Light Fusion explains.

Continue reading “UK startup breaks pressure record with its novel gun-type nuclear tech” »

South Korean researchers have maintained plasma temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius for 48 seconds inside a tokamak fusion reactor.

Fusion energy has long been hailed as the holy grail because of its potential for limitless amounts of clean energy. But that promise has trailed reality for decades, with billions of dollars in research leading to few breakthroughs. Now there’s optimism that is about to change, partly because of new startups funded by the likes of Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates.

Yahoo Finance went inside the country’s largest magnetic fusion facility for an exclusive look, to explore the challenges of bringing this technology to commercial use for the latest episode of NEXT.

“The race is on to actually see who can develop this and who can get it to the masses the fastest,” said David Callaway, former editor-in-chief of USA Today and founder of Callaway Climate Insights, a news and information service focused on the business of climate change.

A National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) research team has developed the world’s first n-channel diamond MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor). The developed n-channel diamond MOSFET provides a key step toward CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor: one of the most popular technologies in the computer chip) integrated circuits for harsh environment applications, as well as the development of diamond power electronics. The research is published in Advanced Science.

Semiconductor diamond has outstanding physical properties such as ultra wide-bandgap energy of 5.5 eV, high carriers mobilities, and high thermal conductivity, which is promising for the applications under extreme environmental conditions with high performance and high reliability, such as the environments with high temperatures and high levels of radiation (e.g., in proximity to nuclear reactor cores).

By using diamond electronics, not only can the thermal management demand for conventional semiconductors be alleviated but these devices are also more energy efficient and can endure much higher breakdown voltages and harsh environments.