Origins Podcast Holiday Edition Part 2, Science Matters: How the Universe Made your Holiday Gifts

I describe how a recent piece of science news, with wishful thinking about the future, is nevertheless also related to the origins of the material that makes up our lives

In December it was announced that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory National Ignition facility has achieved its first goal of “Ignition”, in which 192 powerful lasers focused on a small pellet of fuel led to a sustained fusion reaction for a fraction of a second that released more energy than it received from the incident laser light. Followin…