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Looking for Quark-Gluon Plasma?
uctbruce writes "Following the June press release from Brookhaven National Lab, nuclear physicists from around the world are discussing the results of the 4 RHIC experiments (PHOBOS, STAR, PHENIX and BRAHMS), the New York Times ran an article on the Quark Matter conference in Oakland. Have we re-created the first microseconds of the big bang in the lab? (Have a look at the Google cluster of stories)"
Actually, of those three, the only one to pose a large-scale danger is fission.
Fusion needs a lot of heat and pressure to occur. If a fusion chamber were to fail, the fusion would stop almost instantly, and a plume of hot hydrogen/helium would come out and rise upwards very quickly, where it would cool rapidly. The people near the reactor would be in serious danger, and an airplane directly over the plant may be in danger (Which is why it's a good idea to have no-fly zones over power plants in general), but people living a couple miles away would be safe as long as the fire department was running on time.
This experiment is another simmilar thing. It's just a bunch of plasma in a chamber. If it gets out, it cools rapidly and dissipates. Dangerous if you're sitting on it, but nothing to worry about otherwise.
Fission, on the other hand, can start cold, and even if it stops, the material you're left with is still radioactive. If fission stops, you just have a bunch of helium floating around, and it's not all that dangerous.