He Told Me So / music by J. W. Schoff; words by Emily T. Charles

Cover: text reads Dedicated to Miss Katie N. Scott; Publisher: John F. Ellis and Co. (Washington D.C.)https://egrove.olemiss.edu/sharris_a/1016/thumbnail.jp

Performance and Mix Measurements of Indirect Drive Cu-Doped Be Implosions

The ablator couples energy between the driver and fusion fuel in inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Because of its low opacity, high solid density, and material properties, beryllium has long been considered an ideal ablator for ICF ignition experiments at the National Ignition Facility. We report here the first indirect drive Be implosions driven with shaped laser pulses and diagnosed with fusion yield at the OMEGA laser. The results show good performance with an average DD neutron yield of ~2 × 10[superscript 9] at a convergence ratio of R[subscript 0]/R ~ 10 and little impact due to the growth of hydrodynamic instabilities and mix. In addition, the effect of adding an inner liner of W between the Be and DD is demonstrated.United States. Dept. of Energy (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344

Lawson criterion for ignition exceeded in an inertial fusion experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion

Changing the prehistory of Sindh and Las Bela coast: twenty-five years of Italian contribution

The paper discusses the prehistory of Lowr Sindh and Las Bela Coast, and the role played by the Italian archaeologists since the 1980's. New date are presented regarding mainly the radiocarbon chronology the Indus Delta settlement on rocky outcrops and the shell middens of Las Bela

Proximate Causes of Rensch’s Rule: Does Sexual Size Dimorphism in Arthropods Result from Sex Differences in Development Time?

A prominent interspecific pattern of sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is Rensch’s rule, according to which male body size is more variable or evolutionarily divergent than female body size. Assuming equal growth rates of males and females, SSD would be entirely mediated, and Rensch’s rule proximately caused, by sexual differences in development times, or sexual bimaturism (SBM), with the larger sex developing for a proportionately longer time. Only a subset of the seven arthropod groups investigated in this study exhibits Rensch’s rule. Furthermore, we found only a weak positive relationship between SSD and SBM overall, suggesting that growth rate differences between the sexes are more important than development time differences in proximately mediating SSD in a wide but by no means comprehensive range of arthropod taxa. Except when protandry is of selective advantage (as in many butterflies, Hymenoptera, and spiders), male development time was equal to (in water striders and beetles) or even longer than (in drosophilid and sepsid flies) that of females. Because all taxa show female-biased SSD, this implies faster growth of females in general, a pattern markedly different from that of primates and birds (analyzed here for comparison). We discuss three potential explanations for this pattern based on life-history trade-offs and sexual selection