Vesti iz sveta nauke

For the first time ever, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have achieved a nuclear fusion reaction that resulted in a net energy gain, sources said https://t.co/GvFnOcLu9x pic.twitter.com/CYxWw9x1FQ

— Reuters (@Reuters) December 13, 2022

US officials say at press conference that the world is "decades" away from commercial fusion energy.

They also confirm that while the lasers delivered ~2 megajoules of energy (and the reaction delivered ~3 megajoules), it took ~300 megajoules to charge the lasers https://t.co/7TYHoxufu9

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) December 13, 2022

The fuel itself could also stand to burn more efficiently. “The NIF [National Ignition Facility] shot only burned a small fraction of the fuel in the capsule,” Carter said in an email. “If you can find a way to burn up more fuel, the gain goes up substantially.”
That will involve tweaking the tiny fuel pellet to get more of the laser energy directed toward compressing atoms.
As for the laser, NIF is using dated technology that has a lot of room for improvement. The lasers are only about 1 percent efficient in terms of turning electricity to laser light, while more modern designs can be 20 percent efficient. “The NIF is built on 1980s laser technology,” said Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, during a press conference.
Still, achieving ignition is a critical milestone and an important signal that scientists are on the right track. Carter said it “provides more justification for an aggressive push to develop and deploy fusion energy as quickly as we can, with the hope of impacting climate change!”

Today might have seen the biggest physics discovery of my lifetime. I don't think people fully grasp the implications of an ambient temperature / pressure superconductor. Here's how it could totally change our lives.

— Alex Kaplan (@alexkaplan0) July 26, 2023

I asked several top UK materials physicists about the new "room-temperature superconductor" studies that have gone massively viral on Twitter.

None of them were convinced.https://t.co/WB6tbVaeIp

— Stuart Ritchie (@StuartJRitchie) July 26, 2023

You can tell the authors of the new room temperature superconductor paper believe in their results because they published two papers about it concurrently: one with six authors, and one with only three.

The Nobel prize can be shared by at most three people. pic.twitter.com/ZDGnL3HzWM

— Russell Kaplan (@russelljkaplan) July 26, 2023

Vrlo tamne puti, gotovo potpuno ćelav i sa izuzetno visokim udjelom genoma bliskoistočnih predaka, prvih ratara koji su prije više hiljada godina prešli u Evropu, slika je koju je naučnicima otkrila najnovija analiza genoma najpoznatije evropske munije, takozvanog čovjeka iz glečera, poznatog i kao Eci, objavljeno je danas u stručnom časopisu Sel dženomiks (Cell Genomics).

Sekvenciranje genoma pokazalo je da genetski materijal najbolje očuvane evropske glečerske mumije sadrži gotovo 91 odsto genoma naroda iz Anadolije, koji su između 8.000 i 9.000 godina prije naše ere prvi donijeli i poljoprivredu u Evropu.

Odlično očuvanu mumiju u glečeru našli su 1991. godine planinari na visini od 3.200 metara na južnoj padini Ectalskih Alpa, planinskog masiva koji je prirodna granica između Italije i Švajcarske. Otkriće je odjeknulo kao senzacija.

But can this propaganda really convince ordinary people? 

Our study focuses on the socio-emotional skills of individuals at age 10 and how they relate
to their economic outcomes later in life using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study. We measure skills using information provided by teachers, who assess aspects such as attention,
behaviour, and emotional regulation. By analyzing these data, we identify four key skill
dimensions: attention, conduct, emotional, and relationship with peers.

We find that these socio-emotional skills are strongly linked to various adult outcomes,
including earnings, work hours, and the types of jobs people end up in. Surprisingly, we
discover that certain behaviours considered problematic in childhood, like conduct issues, are associated with higher earnings in adulthood. On the other hand, problems with attention,
emotions, and peer relationships tend to lead to poorer labour market outcomes.

We also explore how these early skills might influence later outcomes through different
pathways, such as career interests, socialization, and mental health. Although early skills are
related to these mediating outcomes, we find that none of these pathways fully explain the
relationship between childhood skills and adult economic success.