Fossil-hunting expeditions to Tanzania, Zambia and Antarctica provide new insights
Predecessors to dinosaurs missed the race to fill habitats emptied when nine out of 10 species disappeared during Earth’s largest mass extinction 252 million years ago.
Or did they?
That thinking was based on fossil records from sites in South Africa and southwest Russia.
It turns out, however, that scientists may have been looking in the wrong places. (more…)
Researchers around the world are working on an efficient, reliable way to contain the plasma used in fusion reactors, potentially bringing down the cost of this promising but technically elusive energy source. A new finding from the University of Washington could help contain and stabilize the plasma using as little as 1 percent of the energy required by current methods.
“All of a sudden the current energy goes from being almost too much to almost negligible,” said lead author Thomas Jarboe, a UW professor of aeronautics and astronautics. He presents the findings this week at the International Atomic Energy Association’s 24th annual Fusion Energy Conference in San Diego. (more…)