The World's Largest X-Ray Generator, the Z Machine, Inspires Art

 Used to study the physical properties of dense stars like white dwarfs, Sandia National Laboratory's Z Machine looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. The technology became the muse of an artist, Leah Flippen, when she took an astronomy class with Don Winget, a professor working with the machine. This short documentary by Daniel Oppenheimer and Alex Wang explores the intersection of art and science in Flippen's painting and Winget's research.For a few nanoseconds, the power and density of the current is so great — more than six times the total amount of energy released by all the power plants in the world — that it vaporizes the wires, generating a gas-like substance known as hydrogen plasma. It simultaneously produces a magnetic field powerful enough to cause the plasma to implode. For that brief nanomoment, as the magnetism "pinches" the plasma, generating a massive burst of X-radiation, Winget has a chunk of white dwarf star of his very own.
Microsoft's new blog post also repeated some facts about the upcoming Windows RT operating system that Microsoft previously divulged, but which are worth repeating.Is Cash America International's Cash Machine Shutting Down?Windows RT includes a "siginificant amount" of shared code with Windows 8, but is not identical to it. There is one Windows RT binary that supports Windows RT SoC platforms from NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments. Windows RT software will not be sold or distributed independent of a new Windows RT PC; it will be preloaded only.Windows RT machines will run Metro/modern/Windows 8 style apps only. The only Desktop/legacy/Win32 apps that will run on these kinds of systems are the four Office 2013 apps from Microsoft (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote), Internet Explorer 10, File Explorer and possibly some other Microsoft-developed Windows components.It just goes to show you that powerful music can be a universal language, no matter what message you take away from it or how much you agree or disagree with the verbal Molotov cocktails being thrown your way.
A spokesperson for Morello said the guitarist, also known by his folk-singing alter ego, the Nightwatchman, was not available for comment at press time. It didn't look like any of the band's members had reacted to the revelation (and subsequent viral explosion) about their rock brother from a different mother, either, but we suspect that silence won't last for long.