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Dennis Whyte's fusion quest

MIT Technology Review

When the US Department of Energy announced that it would stop funding the tokamak at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Dennis Whyte considered giving up on fusion research. But then he had a brainstorm--and challenged his students to bring the idea to life. This full-scale high-temperature superconducting magnet designed and built by Commonwealth Fusion Systems and MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) has demonstrated a recordbreaking 20 tesla magnetic field. It is the strongest fusion magnet in the world. Ever since nuclear fusion was discovered in the 1930s, scientists have wondered if we could somehow replicate and harness the phenomenon behind starlight--the smashing together of hydrogen atoms to form helium and a stupendous amount of clean energy. Fusing hydrogen would yield times more energy than simply burning it. Unlike nuclear fission, which powers the world's 440 atomic reactors, hydrogen fusion produces no harmful radiation, only neutrons that are captured and added back to the reaction.


AI recognition drones to help find the missing

#artificialintelligence

Police Scotland has unveiled a new aerial drone system to help in searches for missing and vulnerable people. The remotely-piloted aircraft system (RPAS) can see things we can't to try to work out where people are. It uses advanced cameras and neural computer networks to spot someone it is looking for - from "a speck" up to 150 metres away. Its recognition software is compact enough to be run on a phone, with the technology learning as it goes. "The drone itself has very special sensors on it," said Insp Nicholas Whyte, of Police Scotland's air support unit.


'Fortnite' and the collapse of parenting

FOX News

'Fortnite' has become a cultural phenomenon and mega-hit for video game developer Epic Games, boasting 125 million players around the world. What is it that makes this game so immensely popular, and how did it come to be? There is nothing more irresponsible than a boy on a videogame binge. The call came in shortly after 6 a.m. Jason was refusing to get out of bed.


Your city is watching you

#artificialintelligence

In 1969, William H. "Holly" Whyte decided to analyze, and eventually decode, New York City's rambunctious street life. A famed author, Whyte, along with a handful of collaborators, was recruited by the city's planning commission to set up cameras and surreptitiously track human activity. Whyte and his team spent countless afternoons filming parks, plazas, and crosswalks, and even more time counting, crossing out, analyzing, and quantifying footage. Notations were made for how people met and shook hands. Pedestrian movement was mapped on pads of graph paper. To get accurate assessments of activity at a street corner, Whyte's researchers manually screened people caught waiting for lights to change. Imagine how much time it took to figure out that at the garden of St. Bartholomew's Church, the average density at lunch time is 12 to 14 people per 1,000 square feet.


The cougar effect: Women get far less picky about a partner's intelligence the older they get

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Most online daters prefer to contact people with the same level of education as them, but a new study suggests that as people grow older they become less picky about it. Researchers based at Queensland's University of Technology, Australia, analyzed the online dating behaviors of 41,000 Australians aged between 18 and 80. The researchers said that humans usually look for similar characteristics and traits in a partner in areas such as age, attractiveness and culture, however, the internet has changed this process. Researchers based at Queensland's University of Technology, Australia, analyzed the online dating behaviors of 41,000 Australians aged between 18 and 80 The researchers analyzed the behaviors of people using the online dating website'RSVP' during a four month period in 2016. Mr Stephen Whyte, a behavioural economist and co-author of the study, said: 'Selecting a mate can be one of the largest psychological and economic decisions a person can make and has long been the subject of social science research across a range of disciplines.