A Physicist Journey: nuclear fusion

At the end of every year people look for the most meaningful things that has happened to decide whether it can be considered a good year or not. After almost three years of battling isolation and Covid-19 we have finally returned to a more normal environment, and science has thrived because of it. 2022 marked a great milestone in many fields of science, so let’s take a look at some of the most iconic breakthroughs of the past year.

Nuclear Fusion Advancement

Image from the deparment of Energy of the United States.

Our current nuclear power is based on fission, a reaction where a big atom is taken and broken apart and the energy released is used to heat up water that in turn powers some dynamo to make electricity. Nuclear fusion on the other hand aims to recreate the reaction that happens in the sun where small atoms are fused together to form a new bigger one releasing energy in the process. Physicists started researching techniques and technology to recreate this process in the 1950s.

Nuclear fusion is considered the “holy grail” of carbon-free energy, and with non-radioactive waste produced makes it the source of the future. For decades they have not been able to create the net energy gain required to make it viable. That is until now.

The federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California reported that they had achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using a tiny pellet of hydrogen plasma with the world's biggest laser. “ While the achievement is significant, there are still monumental engineering and scientific challenges ahead”, but it is a giant step in the right direction to feasible fusion reaction, although the public are more interested in the energy aspect of what this could mean considering the current fuel problem and energy consumption we are facing, this is an incredible achievement for science as fusion could help in the research of neutrinos detection and some other fields.

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

Image taken from the Nasa JWST website.

On December 25th, 2021 the Ariane 5 rocket was launched from the French Guiana with the load of the JWST. A project that started in the 1990s as a substitute for the Hubble telescope but a numerous number of issues made the project delay over and over until it became an idea that never thought to become a reality. As soon as the launch took place, astronomers were excited to see what this telescope had to bring to the conversation so for the next few months the waiting was to fulfill expectations that were paid off on July 12, 2022.

The first full-color images and spectroscopy were released to the public and the results were astounding. A comparison of the galaxy cluster SMACS J0723.3-7327 taken by the Hubble in 2017 and JWST in 2022 proved how the new telescope was indeed an upgrade over the Hubble telescope. Details never seen before appeared right away and people noticed that what they thought to be stars before turns out to be galaxies.

Over the course of the year the JWST continues to explore deep space and the results and details are astounding. Some of the most notable images are the Carina Nebula, Southern Ring Nebula, Stephan’s Quintet, The Cartwheel Galaxy, Jupiter, Messier 74, the Tarantula Nebula, and so many more.

Life After Death

The heart, kidneys and liver are among the most needed transplant organs.

Researchers from Yale University presented their results in what is considered a groundbreaking achievement for the future of organ donations. As of now the list of people that require organ donations is incredibly high across the globe and every year fewer and fewer people opt for becoming transplant donors. One of the reasons this is the case is because the transplant of organs has to be done while the person is alive, because cells become inactive once the person dies and the organs cannot be brought back anymore… or can they?

In an experiment involving cells of dead pigs the researchers at Yale were able to see signs of functioning again in places such as the heart, liver, kidneys, and brains. The researchers hope the finding is a step in the effort to be able to make more human organs available for transplant long after death. Although it is still too early to say anything as the application is still very far away from use in humans, the results tell us that it will be a reality.

Universal Flu Vaccine

Representation of a universal vaccine.

Every year the biggest enemy to health is the flu. We all at some point experience a strain of the flu even in adulthood. Flu shots are offered every year, but even those have proven ineffective most of the time as the flu virus is one of the fastest evolving viruses we have, and the number of different strains that exist around the planet is huge. With all this darkness and not seemingly solution nearby, a ray of light shined on us with the Covid-19 vaccine.

When the vaccine for the coronavirus was announced it was an achievement that was hard to believe. The timeframe in which they were able to produce an effective vaccine against the virus left many people feeling doubt about the effectiveness of it, but it worked! This was possible due to a new technique using the mRNA of the virus instead of the regular method of inactivated or attenuated vaccine. mRNA vaccines work by introducing a piece of mRNA that corresponds to a viral protein, usually a small piece of a protein found on the virus's outer membrane. This allows the antibodies to immediately recognize it and be prepared for the future. The great advantage of this lies in that modifications of the virus does not greatly affect the effectiveness of the vaccine. This new technology makes the vaccine adequate for all strains of the virus. So, it was only a matter of time until this technology was used to attack the flu virus.

Dr. Scott Hensley from the University of Pennsylvania designed a vaccine that included a virus protein from all 20 distinct influenza types. The vaccine has been tested on mice and proven quite effective in their first trial. Vaccinated mice produced antibodies against both similar and unique regions of all 20 different HAs, and levels of these antibodies remained unchanged for months after vaccination. This means that an universal flu vaccine is not that far away and it will be up to all of us to eradicate this virus.

CERN Back In Business

In 2018 the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (from the French Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), was shut down for maintenance and upgrades, but after almost four years is finally back as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) set up for a run 3 with an even higher energy threshold.

The LHC is set to run 24/7 for the next four years at a record energy of 13.6 trillion electron volts. The upgrades should give the LHC tools greater precision and hopefully more discoveries about particles in quantum field theory. Some of the discoveries made at CERN are the W and Z bosons, creation of the first antihydrogen, discovery of CP violation, quark-gluon plasma state, and the Higgs boson. What can we expect from this new run of the LHC and what can be discovered at this new high energy level? We would have to wait to see.

Changing Asteroid Trajectory

Representation of the DART mission.

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is a NASA space mission aimed at testing methods of planetary defense against devastating collision with a space rock. A probe was launched on 24 November 2021 and on 26 September 2022 intentionally crashed into Dimorphos, a minor-planet moon of the asteroid Didymos shortening its orbital period around didymos by about 32 minutes.

The results of the cosmic collision are significant because it was the first real-life test of humanity's ability to protect the Earth from potentially catastrophic asteroids. The maneuver’s success suggests that with enough warning, asteroid deflection could be a viable way to save Earth from devastating collision and who knows what else.

Malaria Vaccine

A miracle that save lives.

Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite. The humans get infected through the bites of infected mosquitoes. People who have malaria usually feel very sick with a high fever and shaking chills. While the disease is uncommon in temperate climates, malaria is still common in tropical and subtropical countries. Malaria is one of the oldest known diseases on Earth and one of the deadliest killer diseases killing nearly one million people every year and infecting one out of 21 human beings on the planet. Great efforts for the creation of a vaccine have been in the works for years but just recently in 2022 the first approved vaccine came into effect.

RTS, S or Mosquirix as it is named, is the only malaria vaccine approved and in use. It requires at least three doses in infants by age 2 and reduces severe malaria and hospital admission by 30%. This once again seems like a small step but it is quite an achievement as it is the first effective vaccine in one of the oldest diseases we know.

A New Space Era

Artemis 1 mission patch.

After a few months of delay due to fuel leakage, on November 16th, 2022, the Artemis program officially started. The launch was a success in starting the new era for space exploration. After orbiting the moon and deploying ten CubeSat the spacecraft returned to Earth on December 11. This concluded the phase of Artemis 1 as a success and certify Orion and the Space Launch System for crewed flights beginning with Artemis 2 expected to launch in May 2024. The success of this mission will serve as the platform for future Mars human explorations.

Artistic AI

You have probably seen the trend on Tik Tok or reddit, but the doors of AI have open to the public with new possibilities for businesses and households with text-to-image generators to “writing hallmark movie script” giving insights to artist, urban planner, and even reconstructive surgeons a helpful hand to visualize ideas. This is a great time to see how far artificial intelligence has come and what to expect for the future.

More information about black holes, largest single cell bacteria, better batteries that do not depend on lithium, among many others are research that were considered groundbreaking in the past year. It was an incredible year for scientists, and I am thrilled for what may come in the upcoming 2023.

If you want to learn more about the subjects here, feel free to read the following.

A Physicist Journey

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