D-shaped magnets form part of a tokamak that is being built for a nuclear-fusion pilot project. Credit: Commonwealth Fusion Systems About a dozen technicians, in hard hats and protective clothing, move around a large, double-height room. Some are checking pipes coming up through the floor into a raised, circular platform. Others work on instruments installed
Most spacecraft use solar panels to power their equipment — but missions to places such as the shadowed craters of the Moon or the deep Solar System can’t rely on energy from the Sun. Could nuclear fuel, with its high energy density, be a promising alternative? In this film, Nature explores the work of a
Inside a nondescript warehouse in an industrial park in Oakville, Canada, sits a squat forklift truck that requires no driver. When activated by its remote operator, the vehicle trundles to a stack of huge clay blocks, each weighing 8,000 kilograms, and carries them into a narrow rock tunnel. Another custom-built machine then fills the spaces
Light emitted by a microplasma could be used to monitor a molten-salt nuclear reactor.Credit: ORNL New insight into an old material Because it can tolerate high temperatures and neutron damage, the carbon material graphite is used in several ways in nuclear reactors. It has a role in structural components and in fuel coatings, and it
It’s been an eventful summer for skygazers, with a full solar eclipse, the Perseids meteor shower and a nearly full lunar eclipse taking center stage. The fall season is coming soon, but there are a few things for skygazers to see this coming month before we’re officially in apple cider and hoodie weather. September starts
Devane, W. A., Dysarz, F. A., Johnson, M. R., Melvin, L. S. & Howlett, A. C. Determination and characterization of a cannabinoid receptor in rat brain. Mol. Pharmacol. 34, 605–613 (1988). Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar Herkenham, M. et al. Cannabinoid receptor localization in brain. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 87, 1932–1936 (1990). Article ADS