A twisted, racetrack-shaped torus to generate and confine a plasma: the stellarator

A stellarator is a nuclear-fusion device invented in the early 1950s by American astrophysicist and plasma physicist Lyman Spitzer (1914-1997) [1,2]. The name of this complex device signifies a star machine, referring to the goal of harnessing the energy like a stellar object such as the sun. Therefore, this device is also called by the composed term stellarator-heliotron and the concept behind its design is named the stellarator-heliotron concept [3]—heliotron literally meaning sun automat.

In the plasma physics community a stellarator is also known as the black horse of reactors, since it is very difficult to build. It took 1.1 million construction hours (spent over 19 years, including times of construction setbacks) to built the world's largest experimental stellarator, the W7-X, which currently is ready to be fired up [4].

W7-X is short for Wendelstein 7-X, referring to the Wendelstein mountain in the Bavarian Alps south of Garching, where its predecessor Wendelstein 7-AS was built and tested [5]. The successor W7-X was assembled by researchers and engineers at the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik (IPP) in Greifswald, northeast Germany. Now being completed, W7-X—with large modular superconducting coils enabling steady-state plasma operations—is the world's largest fusion device of the stellarator type [5]:

Its objective is to investigate the suitability of this type for a power plant. It will also test an optimised magnetic field for confining the plasma, which will be produced by a system of 50 non-planar and superconducting magnetic coils, this being the technical core piece of the device.

W7-X is expected to generate its first plasma at the end of this year.

References and more to explore
[1]  National Aeronautic and Space Administration: Lyman Spitzer, Jr. [asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/hubble/overview/spitzer_bio.html].
[2] Encyclopaedia Britannica: Lyman Spitzer, Jr. [http://www.britannica.com/biography/Lyman-Spitzer-Jr].
[3] Energy technology Network: Stellarator-Heliotron Concept [www.iea.org/techinitiatives/fusionpower/stellarator-heliotron].
[4] Yahoo!: Germany is about to start up a monster machine that could revolutionize the way we use energy [finance.yahoo.com/news/germany-start-monster-machine-could-152111129.html].
[5] IPP: Wendelstein 7-AS (1988-2002) [www.ipp.mpg.de/2665443/w7as].
[6] IPP: Wendelstein 7-X [http://www.ipp.mpg.de/16900/w7x].

Frank's introduction to stock market terms

Stock market trading goes back over about two centuries. When telegraphy revolutionized long-distance communication in the 1840s and facilitated stock-market quotations, a new era began for traders, banks and brokerage firms as well as any business relying on their services. As always with novel, growing human activities, an insider language evolved. Today's stock market terminology is super-rich in trading-specific words and phrases [1-3].

Basic trading terms were used then as they are today. Frank Algernon Cowperwood in Theodore Dreiser's financial-world thriller The Financier, published in its first version in 1912,  learned the key terms of trading early along his career path leading to his life as a fiercely ambitious businessman. Even before the telegraph and telephone became commonplace, bears and bulls were fighting and struggling as they do in current markets.

Frank started out under the direction of Mr. Arthur Rivers, the regular floor man of Tighe & Company in Philadelphia. He soon learned that it is useless to try to figure out exactly why stocks rose and fell. Anything can make or break a market. To thrive in the exciting or traumatizing world of uncertainty and constant struggle required knowledge of how to word the flow of virtual money. Frank mastered the stock market lingo with ease [4]:  

Frank soon picked up all the technicalities of the situation. A “bull,” he learned, was one who bought in anticipation of a higher price to come; and if he was “loaded up” with a “line” of stocks he was said to be “long.” He sold to “realize” his profit, or if his margins were exhausted he was “wiped out.” A “bear” was one who sold stocks most frequently he did not have, in anticipation of a lower price, at which he could buy and satisfy his previous sales. He was “short” when he had sold what he did not own, and he “covered” when he bought to satisfy his sales and to realize his profits or to protect himself against further loss in case prices advance instead of declining. He was in a “corner” when he found that he could not buy in order to make good the stock he had borrowed for delivery and the return of which had been demanded. He was then obliged to settle practically at a price fixed by those to whom he and other “shorts” had sold.

The terms within quotes have been text-colored by the author of this post. These terms are mostly elementary words out of the basic English vocabulary that take on a different, context-specific meaning within the financial market domain. 

Keywords: literature, economy, financial world, investment terms, stock market vocabulary.

References and more to explore
[1] Nasdaq: Glossary of Stock Market Terms [www.nasdaq.com/investing/glossary].
[2] Value Stock Guide: Stock Market Terminology for Beginners [valuestockguide.com/stock-market-terminology-for-beginners].
[3] Wise Stock Buyer: Stock Market Terminology [www.wisestockbuyer.com/stock-market-terminology].
[4] Theodore Dreiser: The Financier. Penguin Books Ltd, London, England; Penguin Classics edition with an introduction by Larzer Ziff, 2008.

Connecting with Alfred Russel Wallace

For many, the name Charles Darwin (1809-1882) is synonymous with all observations and thoughts that originated into the theory of evolution by natural selection. Lately, the name of the fourteen-years-younger cofounder of evolution theory is increasingly recognized: Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913). The British naturalist  and geographer Wallace is also known as the founder of the science of biogeography; highlighted by the term Wallace Line or Wallace's Line that refers to the boundary line separating Asia-associated and New-Guinea/Australia-associated ecozones.

The September 2015 issue of Natural History—a special commemorative issue as part of the Alfred Russel Wallace Centenary Celebration—honors the outstanding 19th century explorer and biologist. The ARW Online article in the nature.net section provides various links to discover Wallace and his world:

• people.wku.edu/charles.smith/index1.htm, dubbed the grandaddy of all Wallace websites;
• wallace-online.org, John van Wyhe's Wallace online site with a comprehensive compilation of of specimens;
• www.nhm.ac.uk/wallacelettersonline, George Beccaloni's collection of letters to and from Wallace (see also The Alfred Russel Wallace Corresponence Project at wallaceletters.info and articles written by Wallace scholar Beccaloni at wallacefund.info);
• darwinlive.com/wallace/amnh.html, Richard Milner's nontechnical introduction to and selection of events celebrating Wallace;
• www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/24837130, Sir David Attenborough's “The forgotton story of Alfred Russel Wallace”;
• www.eeb.ucla.edu/arwallace, Feelie Lee's associated Wallace Centennial Celebration at UCLA on Nov. 15, 2014;
• media.hhmi.org/biointeractive/films/OriginSpecies-Theory.html, the movie “The Origin of Species: The Making of a theory”;
• www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcCP4_R8QBw), a YouTube movie about seeking birds of paradise in Wallace's footsteps.

Reference:
ARW Online. Natural History September 2015, 123 (7), page 5.

An acronym marking the intersection of music and information technology: CCRMA for Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics

Computers are frequently employed these days to generate music. Computers are also used to analyze music. Further, they are used to analyze soundscapes of both urban and natural environments. To close the cycle, composers weave environmental sounds, such as animal sounds, into their musical creations.  A composition that incorporates an imitations of a bird song such as a nightingale melody is a case in point.

A natural soundscape is not just a great stimulation for musical compositions, but constitutes a complex acoustical web, which is not fully understood by humans and remains a rich resource for human enjoyment, recreation and (re)connection to the natural world. At the Stanford Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, CCRMA—pronounced “karma” (the first “c” is silent), musicians and researchers are teaming up and exploring computer-assisted technology as an artistic medium and as a research tool [1].

Bernie Krause includes the CCRMA innovators into his review of biophonically inspired composers in Chapter Six “Different Croaks for Different Folks” of his book "The Great Animal Orchestra"[2]. Mentioning the British composer Benjamin Britten, some of whose orchestrations are strongly influenced by the urban and natural soundscapes that Britten experienced at his home in East Anglia and during his travels, Krause continues:

And there are others, including works by a few students at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford—where composers and innovators such as John Chowning study the intersection of music and information technology using advanced synthesizers as creative media tools through which they express what they discovered. Some of the students have begun to reexamine the potential of natural soundscapes and early instruments as important sources of compositional stimulus.

The oldest musical instrument known today is a Stone Age flute, carved from bone and ivory at least 35,000 years ago [3]. Neither do we know the ancient natural soundscape of southwestern Germany, where the flute was found, nor do we know what tunes were played on it by the early European humans.  But certainly, listining to the soundscape and making sounds (often too many and too loud) is part of human nature and activities.

Keywords: soundscapes, eco-acoustics, biophony, musical science, anthroplolgy.

References and more to explore
[1] Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics: https://ccrma.stanford.edu.
[2] Bernie Krause: The Great Animal Orchestra. Back Bay Books, New York, March 2013; page 150 in first Back Bay paperback edition.
[3] Archaeologists unearth oldest musical instruments ever found: http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/06/24/archaeologists_unearth_oldest_musical_intstruments_ever_found.

Acronym in biology: HHO for Havers-Halberg oscillation

Biological rhythms in animals have fascinated observers of nature for a long time. An example is the circadian rhythm, a diurnal rhythm synchronized with the day/night circle. In mammals, metabolic product rhythms with a twenty-four-hour oscillation pattern are known as the mammalian circadian clock [1]. The concentration of molecular components in body fluids rises and falls on a twenty-four hour cycle.

What about metabolites cycling according to a multidien schedule (multi-day schedule)?  Timothy G. Bromage of the Hard Tissue Research Unit of the New York University College of Dentistry describes findings of his research group showing that certain metabolites in the blood of domestic pigs cycled on a five-day rhythm. Those metabolites belong to two distinct groups: metabolites of one group reached their peak three days later than the other [2,3].

Until recently, such synchronized multi-day rhythms have commonly been overlooked in mammalian chronobiology studies. Most strikingly, the five-day rhythm leaves its marks in enamel and bone structures. The Bromage team found that the pig's teeth show the striae-of-Retzius pattern with a repeat period of exactly five. This evidence suggests a multidien rhythm that regulates growth and body size, which is called the Havers-Halberg oscillation (HHO) by Bromage and his colleagues [2]:

We call this rhythm the Havers-Halberg oscillation (HHO), after Clopton Havers who in 1691 described what we now know are lamellae in bone and striae of Retzius in enamel, and Franz Halberg, father of modern chronobiology. 

Periodic layer structures in hard tissue are documented for various mammal species. Rhythm & stria relationships, which will be similar to the reported correlation between biochemical oscillations and linear marks in pig teeth, can be expected to exist in other mammal species. For humans, the better understanding of such repeat patterns may eventually help to design individual health and healing plans in rhythm with metabolic cycles—think rhythmically tuned diet and medication.    

The English physician Clopton Havers was a pioneer in osteogeny. Anatomists are familiar with Haversian canals traversing compact bone tissue. Havers was born in 1657 in Stambourne, Essex. He is best known for his work on the microstructure of bone. In 1686, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Havers died in Essex in 1702 [3,4].

Franz Halberg was born in 1919 in Bistriz in Romania. In the 1940s, Halberg performed medicinal research at the University of Innsbruck and became a citizen of Austria. In 1948, he immigrated to the United States, where he continued his inqueries in biology and medicine.  Halberg  founded the fields of  quantitative chronobiolgy, chronomics and chronobioethics. He died in 2013 [5].

The term “Havers-Halberg oscillation” honors two outstanding scientists living in different epochs and gaining insight within until recently unconnected domains, which now find their synthesis in a more holistic view in the science community, deepening and advancing cross-subdiscipline understanding in life science.

Keywords: quantitative chronobiology, biological cycles, chronomics, osteogeny, stria of Retzius, life history.

References and more to explore
[1] Caroline H. Ko and Joseph S. Takahashi: Molecular components of the mammalian circadian clock. Human Molecular Genetics 2006, R271-R277 [hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/15/suppl_2/R271.full].
[2] Timothy G. Bromage: Long in the Tooth: Striation in teeth reveal the pace of life. Natural History June 2015, 123 (5),16-21.
[3] Timothy G. Bromage and Malvin N. Janai: The Havers-Halberg oscillation regulates primate tissue and organ masses across the life-history continuum. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society August 2014, 112 (4), 649-656 [onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bij.12269/abstract].
[4] Jessie Dobson: Clopton Havers [www.boneandjoint.org.uk/highwire/filestream/9782/field_highwire_article_pdf/0/702.full-text.pdf].
[5] The Blog of Funny Names: Clopton Havers, Bone Master [funnynamesblog.com/2015/02/02/clopton-havers-bone-master].
[6] Germaine Cornelissen, Francine Halberg, Julia Halberg and Othild Schwartzkopff: Obituary. Franz Halberg, MD (5 July 1919-9 June 2013) - In Appreciation. Chronobiology International 2013, 1-3 [ctb.upm.es/pdfs/ISC-ObitFH.pdf].

Topotaxis: geomagnetically driven orientation and navigation above the ocean floor

The composed noun topotaxis is built from the Greek words topos, meaning place, and taxis, meaning order or responsive movement. The word topotaxis refers to the movement of an animal  from place to place (migration) in response to geographical features the animal is able to sense. The term was coined by the marine biologist and sensory physiologist A. Peter Klimley, who wants to find out if sharks and rays can detect changes in local magnetic underwater topography and use these magnetic-field features as their guiding map—instead of the globally-caused, compass-oriented vector of  Earth's magnetic field, as typically hypothesized [1,2].

Islands, seamounts and subsurface ridges are examples of  geographic formations causing distinct local geomagnetic underwater-landmarks. By diving with the sharks and tagging & tracking them to follow their ocean floor navigation, Klimley explains how is idea of geomagnetic topotaxis has surfaced [3]: 

Our survey of the magnetic field surrounding El Bajo [an volcanic underwater mountain in Mexico's Sea of Cortez rising from the depths of the ocean floor to just 20 meters from the surface] revealed that the outbound and return path of the sharks we were studying coincided with these magnetic ridges and valleys, I hypothesized, therefore, that the magnetic variations in the ocean floor presented the sharks with the equivalent of a route map, and in a 1993 paper in Marine Biology [4], I coined the term topotaxis for an animal's orientation to these magnetic-topographic features.

Understanding navigation and resting behavior of sharks and other marine life—driven by topotactic guidance or other means—will help to design marine sanctuaries, which may protect dwindling shark populations and at the same time provide sites for educational and recreational shark ecotourism.

Keywords: magnetic topography, magnetoreception, travel pattern, migration, Baha California.

References and more to explore
[1] A. Peter Klimley, Director of the Biotelemetry Laboratory, University of California, Davis: biotelemetry.ucdavis.edu/pages/bio_klimley.asp.
[2] A. Peter Klimley: Experimental Study of Geomagnetic Topotaxis With Elasmobranchs. Grantome: grantome.com/grant/NSF/IOS-9729195.
[3] A. Peter Klimley: Shark Trails of the Eastern Pacific. American Scientist July-August 2015, 103 (4), pp. 276-287 [www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/2015/4/shark-trails-of-the-eastern-pacific].
[4] A. P. Klimley: Highly directional swimming by scalloped hammerhead sharks, Sphyrna lewini, and subsurface irradiance, temperature, bathymetry, and geomagnetic field. Marine Biology 1993, 117, pp. 1-22 [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00346421#page-1].

Acronym in experimental physics: MINOS for Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search

Neutrinos are subatomic particles (leptons) with half-integer spin and without electric charge. They come in three types or flavors: electron-neutrino, muon-neutrino and tau-neutrino. The flavor of a neutrino oscillates, while the neutrino is flying through space—for example, after being generated by beta-decay of a radioactive atom. Different neutrino flavors have slightly different masses [1].

Neutrino oscillation has been observed by different experiments.  The oscillation probability of  neutrinos and the exact tiny neutrino masses have not yet been measured with the desired accuracy. The MINOS experiment has the aim to do this: the abbreviation MINOS stands for Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search [1-3] .

MINOS is based on two detectors: the first being stationed at the neutrino source at the Fermilab and the second being located 450 miles (735 km) away at the Soudan Underground Mine, a former iron mining site, in norther Minnesota. Frank Close explains the MINOS design in his acclaimed “neutrino cracker” [3]:

A huge 5000 tonne detector was built in a new, bigger, cavern in the Soudan mine. This utises yet another detection method. Charged particles passing through plastic, which had been loaded with small quantities of special chemicals, emit flashes of light (scintillate). These scintillations can be collected and delivered to phototubes which are similar in principle to those used to detect the Cerenkov light in the water detectors. By forming the plastic into narrow strips, sandwiched between plates of steel, the path of the charged particles through the detector can be followed, and by magnetising the steel plates, the curvature of the paths and thus the energy of the produced particles can be measured. From all this information, the details of the neutrino interaction, and in particular its energy, can be reconstructed. Then both the distance travelled (the 735 km from Fermilab) and the neutrino energy are known. A very similar (but smaller) detector was also built at Fermilab, so that by comparing the energy distribution of the neutrinos measured at Fermilab with that measured at Soudan, they could measure how any deficit depended on the energy of the neutrinos. If, as expected, this showed an oscillatory pattern, it would measure the difference in mass between the produced and oscillated neutrino.

What are the special chemicals loaded into the steel-plate-sandwiched plastic strips?

Neutrino mass is not included in the Standard Model of particle physics: neutrinos are assumed to have zero mass. But the phenomenon of neutrino oscillation suggests non-zero masses. MINOS is expected to clarify the neutrino mass conundrum and, thus, add new insight to particle physics and beyond.

Keywords:  elementary particles, Cerenkov radiation, oscillation pattern, nuclear physics, cosmology.

References and more to explore
[1] Cambridge MINOS Group: www.hep.phy.cam.ac.uk/minos.
[2] Fermilab: The MINOS Experiment and NuMI Beamline: www-numi.fnal.gov.
[3] Frank Close: Neutrino. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K., 2010.