Slashdot Mirror

Omomyid was among several readers writing in about the production of microscopic amounts of ultra-dense deuterium by scientists at the University of Gothenberg, in Sweden. A cubic centimeter of the stuff would weigh 287 lbs. (130 kg). UDD is 100,000 times more dense than water, and a million times more dense than deuterium ice, which is a common fuel in laser-ignited fusion projects. The researchers say that, if (big if) the material can be produced in large quantities, it would vastly improve the chances of starting a fusion reaction, as the atoms are much closer together. Such a D-D fusion reaction would be cleaner than one involving highly radioactive tritium. Many outlets have picked up the same press release that Science Daily printed pretty much verbatim (as is their wont); there doesn't seem to be much else about this on the Web. Here's the home page of one of the researchers. The press release gives no hint as to how the UDD was produced. Reader wisebabo asks: "I can easily imagine a material being compressed by some heavy duty diamond anvil to reach this density, the question is: what happens when you let the pressure off? Will it expand (explosively one would presume) back to its original volume?"

nafmo writes "In this day and age of quadruple-dvd games with amazingly big 3D worlds, one might think that the science of compact coding has been lost forever. Well, not so, ast the 2002 MiniGame competition proves. There are 62 games for 14 different vintage computer platforms, of which none take up more than 1024 bytes. The vote for this year's best minigame ends on 7th of October, so you'd better grab the votepack and start playing!"

fm6 writes: "Worried that too much computer gaming stunts your social skills? Try Pirates! You simulate a voyage of discovery, trade, and plunder by walking around a physical gaming area carrying a PDA equipped with a proximity sensor. Encounters with other players (including naval battles) happen when the two players actually approach each other. Here's an article on Business 2.0."

Niklas Paulsson was the first to tell us that Red Hat now has a press release on their website Announcing v6.1 of their distribution. It was on the FTP servers last week, but now its official.