Noteworthy News

[arewethereyet]

Smoke up, Fritz!

That made me laugh.  My dad's nickname was Fritz (till it later became Doc) and I had an image of dad getting stoned.

[Silver]

A record number of Americans can't afford their rent. Lawmakers are scrambling to help

ABC

[Fake Messiah]

Don’t worry, King Charles has the UK’s top homeopaths on the case.

"The King will not be one for chemotherapy, he has always argued against it. He's a great believer in natural herbs, potions and things like that."

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Don’t worry, King Charles has the UK’s top homeopaths on the case.

"The King will not be one for chemotherapy, he has always argued against it. He's a great believer in natural herbs, potions and things like that."

Translation: 'His Majesty is going to die, sooner rather than later.'

Boru

[The Valkyrie]

"The King will not be one for chemotherapy, he has always argued against it. He's a great believer in natural herbs, potions and things like that."

Translation: 'His Majesty is going to die, sooner rather than later.'

Boru

Fingers crossed.

[zebo-the-fat]

Oh no... that means another coronation!!

[pocaracas]

https://euro-fusion.org/eurofusion-news/dte3record/
Breaking New Ground: JET Tokamak’s Latest Fusion Energy Record Shows Mastery of Fusion Processes

In a major scientific achievement, European researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility have set a new world energy record of 69 megajoules released in sustained and controlled fusion energy.

The result came as part of an experimental campaign to verify operating scenarios for future fusion machines, under conditions as close as possible to those in ITER and future fusion power plants. The result was made possible through the dedication of the international team of scientists and engineers at JET and reflects the central role that JET has played in accelerating the development of fusion energy.

Deuterium-Tritium campaign
In September 2023, the EUROfusion consortium of fusion laboratories around Europe started an ambitious experimental campaign at the JET facility of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) in Culham, UK. Their goal: to test out operating scenarios extrapolated from small and medium size European devices to pave the way for the international ITER project and the fusion power plants to follow. JET is unique amongst present-day tokamak machines—which trap a donut-shaped cloud of hot, ionised fuel or plasma in a cage of magnetic fields—for its capability to work with the deuterium-tritium fuel that will form the basis of future fusion machines like ITER and the demonstration power plant DEMO.

Reproducible energy record
Using advanced scenarios to structure and control their plasma, the researchers set a new fusion energy record of 69.26 megajoules of heat released during a single pulse in JET. Released over six seconds from only 0.21 milligrams of fuel, the energy record equals the energy released from burning 2 kilograms of coal. The JET record is 20 times the amount of energy released in a recent shot at the U.S. National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in October 2023, which used a different approach to fusion to produce more energy than was absorbed by the fuel pellet. The new achievement by the EUROfusion team breaks their previous world records of 59 megajoules (2022) and 22.7 megajoules (1997), which were also set at JET. The scientists at JET were able to reliably reproduce the necessary fusion conditions for the new record in multiple experimental pulses, demonstrating the understanding and control they have achieved over the complex fusion processes.

As someone who focused, aligned, cleaned, power-cycled and kept the camera that filmed that plasma... I have to say, it's been a great trip!

This camera is in the visible range, so we can only see the relatively cold parts of the plasma, where it emits radiation in that visible range. Everywhere that we see the machine (iluminated by this visible light) there is actually hot plasma emitting in the UV and X-ray range.

---

That high powered plasma looks very similar to much lower powered plasmas, so that video is representative of so many other pulses at JET.

The sparkly bits on the top are bits of titanium from a crumbling old coil - as it turns out, mixing titanium and hydrogen isn't a very good idea for longevity.
The bang at the end is a plasma disruption and is usually undesireable as it puts a lot of strain on the whole machine, but they did it on purpose here.
Just before that bang, you can see a whiteish whisp curving along the middle - that's impurities accumulating in the plasma; mainly Tungsten from the the material on the bottom of the vessel.

---

[Angrboda]

Participation also appears to be flagging for a key Moms for Liberty chapter in Florida. The Brevard County chapter was the national organization’s first chapter. A local group was already in action against Covid-19 regulations in schools when Tina Descovich, Tiffany Justice, and Bridget Ziegler founded Moms for Liberty in Florida. Descovich approached the Brevard County group about merging with Moms for Liberty, and the local group agreed.

But on Wednesday, the Brevard County school board held a meeting, in part to discuss a challenge to the books The Kite Runner and Slaughterhouse-Five. Only one Moms for Liberty member showed up.

All the other attendees spoke in favor of keeping the books on the shelves—and heavily criticized the parental rights organization. One attendee compared “the growth of the Taliban and its repressive autocracy in the name of religious nationalism” in The Kite Runner to “the rise of parental rights groups that want to limit what students learn.”

The Moms for Liberty member did not speak and eventually snuck out of the room. The books were not banned.

Moms for Liberty Completely Collapses in Former Strongholds

[Angrboda]

Texans would vote to remain part of the United States if an independence referendum were held in the Lone Star State, according to a new poll carried out exclusively for Newsweek.

The survey, conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, asked 814 eligible voters in Texas whether they would support the state leaving the American Union to become an independent country and how they would vote in a hypothetical secessionist referendum on this question. Overall, 39 percent were against secession, 33 percent supported it, while the rest neither supported nor opposed it or were unsure. However, in a hypothetical referendum, 67 percent would vote for Texas to remain a state within the United States.

https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-how-t...ay-1867488

[Fake Messiah]

On that note

Russia Is Boosting Calls for ‘Civil War’ Over Texas Border Crisis

A RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION campaign is deploying everything from high-ranking lawmakers and government officials to lifestyle influencers, bloggers, and powerful state-run media outlets to stoke divisions in the United States around the Texas border crisis.

WIRED has also obtained exclusive access to data from two separate disinformation research groups that demonstrate a coordinated Russian effort on Telegram and X (formerly Twitter) to sow discord by pushing the narrative that the US is heading for civil war.

Former Russian president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, who is currently deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, claimed that the Texas border dispute is “another vivid example of the US hegemony getting weaker.”

“Establishing a People’s Republic of Texas is getting more and more real,” Medvedev added on X, claiming the situation could lead to “a bloody civil war which cost thousands upon thousands of lives.”

Others chimed in: “It’s high time the American president, following in his predecessor Obama’s footsteps, declares ‘Texas must go’ and assembles an international coalition to liberate its residents in the name of democracy,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram. Russian lawmaker Sergey Mironov even offered Texas help: “If necessary, we are ready to help with the independence referendum. And of course, we will recognize the People’s Republic of Texas if there is one,” Mironov wrote on X.

https://www.wired.com/story/russia-disin...as-border/