News – Page 25 – PossibleThreat Articles

World record acceleration: Zero to 7.8 billion electron volts in 8 inches

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Electricity, Energy and Resources, Energy Technology, Medical Technology, Optics, Physics, Quantum Physics, Spintronics

To understand the fundamental nature of our universe, scientists would like to build particle colliders that accelerate electrons and their antimatter counterparts (positrons) to extreme energies (up to tera electron volts, or TeV). With conventional technology, however, this requires a machine that is enormously big and expensive (think 20 miles long). To shrink the size and cost of these machines, the acceleration of the particles — how much energy they gain in a given distance — must be increased.

News Science

Taking new angle to enable more efficient, compact fusion power plants

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Chemistry, Consumer Electronics, Electricity, Energy Technology, Nuclear Energy, Physics, Quantum Physics, Thermodynamics

Researchers have demonstrated a new approach for injecting microwaves into a fusion plasma that doubles the efficiency of a critical technique that could have major implications for future fusion reactors. The results show that launching the microwaves into the plasma via a novel geometry delivers substantial improvements in the plasma current drive.

News Science

Taking a new tangent to control pesky waves in fusion plasmas

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Albert Einstein, Chemistry, Energy Technology, Nuclear Energy, Optics, Physics, Quantum Physics, Thermodynamics

Fusion combines light elements in the form of plasma — the hot, charged state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei — to generate massive amounts of energy. One of the ways that scientists help heat the plasma is by injecting beams of energetic particles into tokamaks to provide enough energy for plasma particles to overcome mutual repulsion and fuse together.

News Science

Fusion: Fuel injection helps reduce magnetic island instabilities

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Chemistry, Electricity, Electronics, Energy and Resources, Energy Technology, Medical Technology, Nuclear Energy, Physics

Fusion is a non-carbon-based process for energy production, where lighter atoms fuse into heavier ones. Fusion reactors operate by confining a 'soup' of charged particles, known as a plasma, within powerful magnetic fields. But these magnetic fields must contain the plasma long enough that it can be heated to extreme temperatures — hotter than the sun — where fusion reactions can occur.

News Science

Remarkable story of shock wave physics in post-World War II America

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Civil Engineering, Engineering, Engineering and Construction, Materials Science, Nuclear Energy, Physics, Quantum Physics, Weapons Technology

Physicists predicted the Hubble Space Telescope would see a rising vapor plume as the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet crashed into the far side of Jupiter in 1994. And sure enough, the plume produced by the impact matched their computational analysis.

News Science

Making connections: Bringing astrophysical processes down to Earth

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Astrophysics, Atmosphere, Cosmology, El Nino and La Nina, Environmental Issues, Geomagnetic Storms, Solar Flare, Sun

Magnetic reconnection, a process in which magnetic field lines tear and come back together, releasing large amounts of kinetic energy, occurs throughout the universe. The process gives rise to auroras, solar flares and geomagnetic storms that can disrupt cell phone service and electric grids on Earth. A major challenge in the study of magnetic reconnection, however, is bridging the gap between these large-scale astrophysical scenarios and small-scale experiments that can be done in a lab.

News Science

Volcanic ash sparks a new discovery

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Air Quality, Atmosphere, Earth Science, Exotic Species, Geology, Natural Disasters, Tsunamis, Volcanoes

Imagine you're getting ready to fly to your favorite vacation destination when suddenly a volcano erupts, sending massive amounts of volcanic ash into the atmosphere, and forcing the cancellation of your flight. That's exactly what happened in April 2010 when Eyjafjallajokull, a volcano in Iceland, erupted and disrupted air travel in Europe for 6 days. Scientists are now using plasma physics to predict the characteristics of these hazardous ash plumes.

News Science

Computer science classes break down cultural barriers, study shows

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Artificial intelligence, Computer Modeling, Computer Science, Computers and Internet, Distributed Computing, Educational Technology, Information Technology, video games

Computational education can break down and expose cultural barriers in unexpected ways, a new study has found.

News Science

Plant physiology will be major contributor to future river flooding

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Botany, Climate, Endangered Plants, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Nature, Soil Types, Water

Researchers describe the emerging role of ecophysiology in riparian flooding. As an adaptation to an overabundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, trees, plants and grasses constrict their stomatal pores to regulate the amount of the gas they consume, a mechanism that limits the release of water from leaves through evaporation. This saturates soils and causes more efficient run off and river flooding.

News Science

A tiny cavity leads to a strong interaction between light and matter

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Computers and Internet, encryption, Graphene, Physics, Quantum Computers, Quantum Computing, Quantum Physics, Spintronics Research

Researchers have succeeded in creating an efficient quantum-mechanical light-matter interface using a microscopic cavity. Within this cavity, a single photon is emitted and absorbed up to 10 times by an artificial atom. This opens up new prospects for quantum technology.