Stellarators and AI: The Future of Fusion Energy Research

How long will it still take to generate energy from nuclear fusion? Maybe this time!

"... The PPPL team invented this nuclear-fusion reactor, completed last year, using mainly off-the-shelf components. Its core is a glass vacuum chamber surrounded by a 3D-printed nylon shell that anchors 9,920 meticulously placed permanent rare-earth magnets. Sixteen copper-coil electromagnets resembling giant slices of pineapple wrap around the shell crosswise. ...

PPPL’s new reactor is the first stellarator built at this government lab in 50 years. It’s also the world’s first stellarator to employ permanent magnets, rather than just electromagnets, to coax plasma into an optimal three-dimensional shape. Costing only US $640,000 and built in less than a year, the device stands in contrast to prominent stellarators like Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X, a massive, tentacled machine that took $1.1 billion and more than 20 years to construct. ...

“Stellarators are one of the most active research areas now, with new papers coming out just about every week,” says Scott Hsu, the U.S. Department of Energy’s lead fusion coordinator. “We’re seeing new optimized designs that we weren’t capable of coming up with even 10 years ago. The other half of the story that’s just as exciting is that new superconductor technology and advanced manufacturing capabilities are making it more possible to actually realize these exquisite designs.” ..."

Stellarators and AI: The Future of Fusion Energy Research - IEEE Spectrum "Fast prototyping revives a 70-year-old reactor design"

A new and unique fusion reactor comes together with PPPL’s contributions "First plasma is coming soon to the University of Seville’s compact spherical tokamak called SMART"

... at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory run nuclear-fusion reactions in a stellarator built with mostly off-the-shelf parts.

The First Automatic Rice Cooker’s Unlikely Inventor dating back to 1955

Did you know it was that long ago!

"... Toshiba’s automatic rice cooker went on sale on 10 December 1955, but initially, sales were slow. It didn’t help that the rice cooker was priced at 3,200 yen, about a third of the average Japanese monthly salary. It took some salesmanship to convince women they needed the new appliance. ..."

The First Automatic Rice Cooker’s Unlikely Inventor - IEEE Spectrum A Japanese housewife’s experiments cracked the code of perfectly cooked rice

Toshiba’s ER-4, introduced in 1955, was the world’s first automatic rice cooker. Toshiba Science Museum

Cats can associate sounds and images, a basic precursor of language

Amazing stuff!

"In the age-old debate of cats versus dogs, cats just scored a point. Housecats, it turns out, can quickly learn to associate words and pictures, similar to the way human babies and other animals, including dogs, can. The findings appear in a recent study published in Scientific Reports. What this means for cats' grasp of language remains a matter of some debate, however. ..."

From the abstract:

"It is well known that dogs are capable of following human verbal instructions. However, very little is known about the equivalent ability in cats. In this study, we used a switched stimuli task to examine whether cats rapidly form picture-word association, which is a fundamental ability for word learning. We presented cats with two meaningless picture-word combinations, in the habituation phase. Then, on half of the trials we switched the combination (switched condition), but the other half of the trials remained as before (non-switched condition). If cats rapidly form picture-word association, they were expected to look at the monitor for longer in the switched condition, reflecting detection of the change. We used human speech as stimuli in Exp.1, and mechanical sounds (electronic sounds) in Exp.2. Cats expressed detection of the switched combination in Exp.1, where human speech and objects were paired. However, in Exp.2 where non-social sounds and objects were paired, there was no statistical difference between switched and non-switched conditions, although there was a main effect of condition when the data from the two experiments were pooled. These results demonstrate that cats can rapidly form picture-word association. Further research should investigate whether domestication has played a role in this ability."

Cats can associate sounds and images, a basic precursor of language | Journal Club | PNAS

Rapid formation of picture-word association in cats (open access)

A cat intently watches a monitor during a switch trial in which researchers presented a combination of auditory and visual stimuli that differs from its training.

Jounalist Paola Ramos leads discussion at UCLA about the rise of the Latino far right

Of course, if Latinos do not vote for the Dimocratic Party, they are called right wing!

Like black Americans are supposed to remain on the plantation!

"The Latino vote, traditionally a reliable base for Democrats, is showing signs of change, with more Latinos drifting to the far right of the political spectrum. It’s a phenomenon Emmy award-winning journalist and author Paola Ramos recently came to UCLA to discuss. ..."

Jounalist Paola Ramos leads discussion at UCLA about the rise of the Latino far right | UCLA