sci/tech sensation news magazine

Link of the day: Need to make an extra $5000 per month? Google PayDay software makes it so easy! Free download!

What do you do with the world’s biggest, highest-intensity laser system? Well, for starters, you could blast the nuclei of hydrogen atoms and transform their mass into energy in a reaction that rivals the force and temperature of an exploding nuclear warhead. The lasers are at the heart of the National Ignition Facility, a government project in Livermore, Calif., that you may have seen some hot shots of on the Web this week.

But these brilliant beams are currently undergoing live-fire testing before beginning operations next year, and Popular Mechanics got its hands on these exclusive images of the NIF chamber actually in use. The stadium-size building houses 192 lasers, each producing a 16-in.-wide beam. In less than 1 second, the beams are amplified 3 quadrillion times and then simultaneously focused on a hydrogen-filled ball the size of a BB. NIF’s main mission will be to verify computer models used to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons. Astronomers and fusion-energy researchers are also planning experiments. —Joe Pappalardo

Here's how NIF's target chamber works:

• Sharpshooter: Tiny targets are placed at the tip of the holder (at right) and blasted by 192 lasers shooting through the round ports in the wall.
• Energy Burst: The blasted target generates 500 trillion watts—1000 times the electrical generating capacity of the United States.
• Shutter Speed: The conversion of matter to energy is recorded by multispectrum sensors, including an X-ray camera that takes pictures at 1 billion frames per second.

The Natural Artificial Foot

Japanese researchers develop tiny toxic smog sensor