This paper reviews fission safety design principles and approaches for coupling inertial confinement fusion (ICF) to a subcritical fission blanket, in Laser ICF Fission Energy (LIFE) power plants. LIFE power plants use fuel derived from either spent fuel from fission reactors, or from natural uranium or thorium. By using fusion neutrons, LIFE plants can fission a large fraction of the heavy met...

A new spectrometer has been built at the EC-JRC IRMM to investigate isomer decay in the millisecond range and activation cross sections of isotopes, where isomeric states exist and are populated. The spectrometer is equipped with high-resolution gamma-ray detectors and an ionisation chamber for the measurement of charged particles, e.g., fission fragments. NEPTUNE provides pulsed quasi mono-ene...

As a droplet moves, due to evaporation at the surface, the droplet size is gradually reduced. Due to decreasing the size of the droplets moving in the spray core, the surface charges become closer and the repulsive force between the charges increases. When the Coulombic force overcomes the surface tension force (Rayleigh instability) the droplet breaks into smaller droplets (Coulomb fission). T...

Nuclear transmutation has been reported by lots of experiments. The features of this phenomenon are the production of elements which shows fission-like distribution and their anomalous isotopic ratios or the selective Z and mass changes [1]. To analyze this phenomenon, the selective channel scission (SCS) model has been proposed and improved [2]. The SCS model is powerful and can predict the fi...

Actin polymerization is important for vesicle fission during clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME), and it has been proposed that actin polymerization may promote vesicle fission during CME by providing direct mechanical forces. However, there is no direct evidence in support of this hypothesis. In the present study, the role of actin polymerization in vesicle fission was tested by analyzing the ...

Studies of nuclear fission have been ongoing since the discovery of the process in 1938 by Hahn and Strassmann [1]. The actinide nuclide Pu has long been a case of interest, as spontaneous fission presents itself as a decay mechanism with significant probability, relative to other isotopes in the actinide region. This allows for quantitative comparisons between spontaneous and induced fission [...

Membrane fission, which facilitates compartmentalization of biological processes into discrete, membrane-bound volumes, is essential for cellular life. Proteins with specific structural features including constricting rings, helical scaffolds, and hydrophobic membrane insertions are thought to be the primary drivers of fission. In contrast, here we report a mechanism of fission that is independ...

Tracks of nuclear fission fragments in minerals of the Earth's crust and upper mantle are generally used for dating these materials. These samples are mostly gathered from depths where high pressure is predominant. The influence of pressure on track formation is therefore of great interest. We realized such pressures by means of diamond anvil cells (DAC). A zirconia (ZrO2) sample was placed in ...

Rutherford backscattering and particle induced x-ray emission have been utilized to precisely characterize targets used in nuclear fission experiments. The method allows for a fast and non destructive determination of target thickness, homogeneity and element composition.

Recent in vivo as well as in vitro experiments have indicated that microtubule pushing alone is sufficient to position a microtubule-organizing center within a cell. Here, we investigate the effect of catastrophes on the dynamics of microtubule asters within microfabricated chambers that mimic the confining geometry of living cells. The use of a glass bead as the microtubule-organizing center a...