New X-ray imaging capability at Sandia's Z accelerator may help remove an obstacle in efforts to harness nuclear fusion to generate electrical power from sea water.  More accurate simulations could lead to 'break-even' fusion in the future.

Magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT) instabilities are spoilers that arise wherever electromagnetic forces are used to contract - 'pinch' - a plasma, which is essentially a cloud of ions. The pinch method is the basis of the operation of Z, a dark-horse contender in the fusion race.   A pinch contracts plasma so suddenly and tightly that hydrogen isotopes available from sea water, placed in a capsule within the plasma, should fuse.

Many robot designs are understandably human-looking - they infrequently have legs, since a realistic gait that passes for human is difficult (though see RunBot - Mountaineering Robot and The Science Of A Bionic Woman for the latest) but a torso, a head and arms are common.  Hands, though, are delicate instruments and tough to emulate.

But a group of researchers have bypassed traditional notions of robot hand design and created a gripper using coffee and a balloon. 

You're on this website so you obviously know how to read.  And some regard the digital revolution as a monumental one but there was one even greater; the invention of writing itself.

If you are in the Chicago area this weekend and keen to learn about how and where writing originated - in not just one place but at four distinct times and places - a panel of  scholars will explore how writing developed in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and Mesoamerica.  

The seminar is Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 1:00 pm at the Oriental Institute, Breasted Hall
1155 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL.   A reception will follow the symposium at 5 PM.

Several media outlets reported last week that Omega-3 fish oil supplements fail to show positive results for Alzheimer's patients, based on the study Docosahexaenoic Acid Supplementation and Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer Disease: A Randomized Trial in JAMA.

The researchers reported that supplementation with DHA compared with placebo did not slow cognitive and functional decline in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer disease. 

Saturn emitted less energy each year from 2005 to 2009, according to observations by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, but Saturn's southern hemisphere consistently emitted more energy than its northern one and those energy levels changed with the seasons.

That Saturn actually emits more than twice the energy it absorbs from the sun has been a science puzzle for decades but long-term data from the composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS), when combined with information about the energy coming to Saturn from the sun, could help scientists understand the nature of Saturn's internal heat source. 

Because society demanded to know, researchers have discovered which species has the largest testicles in relation to body weight on the planet – and it's Tuberous Bush Cricket (Platycleis affinis) which has testes which are 14% of the male body mass.

Don't feel bad, Drosophila bifurca, your testes equal to 10.6% is still mighty.  Just in second place now.

What's the reason for that?  More sperm, it would seem, but the researchers say that isn't the case, which proves once again that Nature is a bitch (and also a fine magazine, though this study was in Biology Letters.)