Search

​The aurora is more than just a breathtaking display of light. It may also hold the secret of a magnetic phenomenon related to the nuclear fusion powering the sun. This secret could even help create nuclear fusion in the lab, says a team of researchers.

[...] Now a team of researchers from the University of Michigan and Princeton University hopes that the performance of fusion experiments can be improved by investigating of the dynamics of magnetic fields observed during the aurora.

Read more on LiveScience website.

​The newly commissioned ELISE test facility has begun operation at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Science (IPP) in Garching, Germany. Funded by the European Domestic Agency as a voluntary European contribution to the neutral beam program, ELISE (Extraction from a Large Ion Source Experiment) is the first large radio-frequency-driven negative ion source in the world, approximately half the size of the source that will be installed at ITER for the neutral beam injectors.

In this latest video from the European Domestic Agency, the scientists and engineers responsible for operating ELISE talk about plans for the test bed, the challenges of achieving ITER performance parameters, and the importance of research carried out within the frame of the experiment for the ITER neutral beam development program. Visit the European Domestic Agency website to watch the video.

​On 20 May, the world will witness a welcome staging post in the quest to develop nuclear fusion, when Germany's Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics switches on the Wendelstein 7-X, an earth-bound machine built to mimic the way in which stars generate energy.

The project is part of the German national fusion research program but has received significant support at nearly 30 percent of the total cost from the EU's Euratom program.   Despite its schedule slipping eight years, from 2006 to 2014, and the cost doubling from an original EUR 500 million to more than EUR 1 billion, the anticipation among fusion scientists is palpable.   Eventually, it is hoped, the Wendelstein 7-X will provide a baseline for a future commercial power plant that like the sun and the stars derives energy from the fusion of atomic nuclei.   Read more on the Science-Business website.

​The European Commission has appointed Maria de Aires Soares as the Head of its Representation in Portugal. She will take up office on 16 May 2014.

Mrs Soares brings to her new role proven leadership and management skills, an extensive knowledge and experience of the European institutions, a track-record of working with a variety of stakeholders and a strong background in political analysis and communicating policy.

Since November 2011 Mrs Soares has (as a Commission official seconded in the interest of the service) been the Head of the Finance and Budget Division at the ITER Organization in Saint Paul-lez-Durance, France.

Prior to this appointment she served as Minister-Counselor, Head of the Research, Technology, Innovation and Education Section at the Delegation of the European Union to the United States in Washington DC.

Mrs Soares joined the European Commission in 1989 in the Directorate General for Research and Innovation, holding different management positions in areas ranging from administration and finance to researchers' mobility and energy.

In particular she promoted and developed an energy cooperation strategy between the European Union and Brazil, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US.

She was admitted to the Lisbon Bar in 1980 and started her professional career at a law firm in Lisbon. Immediately before joining the European Commission she held a senior position in the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva.

She is a Law graduate from the University of Lisbon and holds a Ph. D. in Law from the University of Montpellier.

​THE sun has thrown us a fractal surprise. An unexpected pattern has been glimpsed in the solar wind, the turbulent plasma of charged particles that streams from the sun. It offers clues for handling plasmas that roil inside nuclear fusion reactors on Earth.

Composed of charged particles such as protons and electrons, the solar wind streams from the sun and pervades the solar system. Its flow is turbulent, containing eddies and moving at different speeds in different directions. It was thought that this turbulence was similar to that in a fluid, behaving like mixing ocean currents or the air flows that make aeroplane flights bumpy.

Read the whole article on the New Scientist website.

​As climate change becomes a serious national security threat, we must look to the future for a clean, safe and sustainable source of energy for our future. The ITER experiment will be the largest ITERexperimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor, located at Cadarache, France. Through ITER, we can find solutions to control fusion energy, so that it can be commercialized to provide the world with a sustainable energy source. This project was born in 1985 in hopes of peace through energy cooperation between the superpowers of the Soviet Union and the U.S.

Today, its members include China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United States of America. With recent controversy over the mismanagement of the ITER structure, the U.S. has reevaluated its position in funding the ITER project. If the U.S. withdraws from the project, we will fall behind in energy research and will not be able to reap theITER numerous benefits that ITER offers. Below I state the top ten reasons why ITER is beneficial for the United States.

- By Kathy Duong, Research Assistant at the American Security Project

Read more on the Peak Oil website.

Spaghetti-thin shoelaces, sturdy hawsers, silk cravats — all are routinely tied in knots. So too, physicists believe, are water, air and the liquid iron churning in Earth's outer core. Knots twist and turn in the particle pathways of turbulent fluids, as stable in some cases as a sailor's handiwork. For decades, scientists have suspected the rules governing these knots could offer clues for untangling turbulence — one of the last great unknowns of classical physics — but any order exhibited by the knots was lost in the surrounding chaos.   Now, with deft new tools at their fingertips, physicists are beginning to master the art of tying knots in fluids and other flowable entities, such as electromagnetic fields, enabling controlled study of their behavior. "Now that we have these knots, we can measure the shape of them in 3-D; we can look at the flow field around them," said William Irvine, a physicist at the University of Chicago. "We can really figure out what the rules of the game are."

 

Read more on Quanta Magazine website.