Nuclear Fusion Reaction using a Laser Beam Tweet

U.S. scientists produce a laser beam shot with the energy level never achieved before this and become a key step toward nuclear fusion reactions, so the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. For the first time in history, scientists are targeting one Megajoule of energy by shooting a laser beam 192 at the same time at a temperature of 111 million Celsius or 200 million Fahrenheit, so that agency in a statement.

"Making Megajoule energy makes us one step closer to burning fusion (combining nuclei reaction)," said the U.S. nuclear agency administrator, Thomas D'Agostino. "This historic milestones is an example of how our nation's national investment to produce benefit in various fields, from technological advances in the field of energy, up to a better understanding of the universe."

Nuclear fusion is a form of energy that moves the sun and the stars and into alternative energy that is potentially a clean and limitless energy to replace fossil reserves are diminished, but the conditions that must be controlled production have led scientists to examine it away. U.S. atomic agency says that in an effort to show a fusion reaction, the scientists focused on this laser into a pencil eraser-sized cylinder containing a small target containing fuel consisting of deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen.

Laser energy is converted into X-rays, which compress the fuel until it reaches the high temperature and pressure of millions of times greater than Earth's atmospheric pressure, according to the statement. This process causes hydrogen core melt and then release the energy into the early stages to the process of nuclear fusion. In contrast, nuclear fission by splitting atomic nuclei, which requires the separation of atomic nuclei to release energy, remained opposed because of safety concerns and hazardous radioactive waste in the long term.

Labels:

Getting touchier spawns further Nokia smartphone success Tweet

ESPOO, Finland – Horn-tooting and number-gazing aren’t activities that we feel sit that comfortably here on Conversations, so we’ve chosen not going to go into detail on Nokia’s fourth quarter financial results that were announced earlier (if you want the full lowdown on all the results from Q4 2009 you can read about it here). However, what does sit comfortably is exploring questions and hosting discussions around current trends, one of which was highlighted in today’s results.

Among the sea of numbers, what stood out for me was the fact that Nokia released double the amount of touchscreen devices in this last quarter than the previous period, resulting in a further surge in its estimated smartphone market share rising from 35% to 40%. Among the top performers were the touchscreen toting N97 mini, 5800 and 5530.

Now, does this suggest that a smartphone needs a touchscreen to even stand a chance of achieving a significant level of popularity and hero status? If you believe that to be true, what do you think it is that makes a touchscreen interface so indispensable when it comes to multi-talented top-end devices? Granted, one of the more obvious answers might be that a touchscreen boasts the ability to play the role of chameleon, adapting its control layout to suit the task at hand – such as how kinetic scrolling suits browsing lists on the N97 mini or double-tapping a web page makes a lot of sense as a zoom-in gesture – but there must be more to it than purely its talent to adapt to suit the task at hand. What else does a touchscreen offer that makes it so appealing – could it be as much about design and aesthetics as functionality, because surely a clean slab of glass is more attractive than a key-filled fascia? Now that may or may not be the case, but what we’re most interested to find out is what you think.

Labels: