“IT HAS long been the ambition of scientists to emulate the sun.” This is how, half a century ago, John Cockroft, one of the great nuclear pioneers, began an article in this magazine on the prospects for generating useful energy from nuclear fusion. Today sceptics joke that fusion is the energy source of the future – and always will be. Commercial fusion, they gleefully point out, is as far away now as it was 50 years ago.

That’s true up to a point, but unfair. Even in the optimistic days of 1958, the founder of the UK’s Atomic Energy Research Establishment was well aware of the challenges. “We will have many problems to face… even if all goes well and we meet no road blocks we would still have the further engineering problem of designing and constructing a prototype of a practical and economic thermonuclear power station,” Cockroft wrote (New Scientist, 30 January 1958, p 14).

Now an international consortium known as ITER (“the way”, in Latin), is ready to start building that prototype in Cadarache, France (see page 40). Critics will carp that there are still important questions to be asked. Why bother to build a fusion reactor when there is a perfectly good one 8 light-minutes away? Why not spend the $10 billion – likely to be an underestimate –

Fusion: a gamble worth taking

EDITORIAL

We understand the science, so the sooner we get down to making it work, the better

What’s hot on NewScientist.com

IT STARTED with Iressa – a cancer drug cast aside because it didn’t seem to work. Later it was resurrected when it was found to be effective in lung-cancer patients who carried a particular gene mutation . On page 8 we report that methotrexate, an ancient chemotherapy drug, might be effective when used in a genetically defined subset of patients with colorectal and endometrial cancers. Another study suggests that drugs now used to combat metastasis in patients with advanced cancer might slow the growth of all tumours, if used early. Clinical trials fail to pick up these effects because the patients recruited into them are usually in the late stages of cancer, and their genetic make-up is unknown. The design of these trials needs to catch up with the science. Otherwise yet more lifesaving drugs may fall by the wayside. ■

Old-style trials will miss lifesaving drugs

Wake up at the back!

ARE you asleep? If the answer seems obvious, think again. We are starting to learn that there is a strange twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness (see page 31). Some of the resulting altered states are rare, which is fortunate when it comes to somnambulant attempts at violence. Others, such as sleep paralysis, are harmless, if sometimes alarming. All could be caused by parts of the brain going “offline”, unbeknown to its owner. So, unexpected as it may seem, valid answers to the above question include yes, no – and maybe. ■

“We need as many clean energy options as we can get, and fusion power is within sight”

10 October 2009 | NewScientist | 5

GALLERY Sustainable living

in a 6-metre-square space

See compact, eco-friendly designs for

prefabricated housing to fill unused

urban spaces – from tree houses to

floating homes

VIDEO Cyborg beetles

steered from afar Fitting

a large beetle with an antenna and

connecting electrodes to its brain

and muscles makes it possible

to pilot the insect like a radio-

controlled plane

TECH European Union law could

limit iPod volume Users of portable

music players are at risk of damaging

their hearing, say EU regulators.

Future gadgets could be forced to

limit the volume to “safe levels” and to

warn users not to try to exceed them

SPACE Rocket company tests

world’s most powerful ion engine

For the first time, a plasma engine

that could be used to boost the space

station’s orbit has been fired at full

power. The development takes us a

step closer to rockets that could use

charged particles to propel superfast

missions to Mars

GAME THEORY Sports stars are

oh-so predictable According to

game theory, professional baseball

pitchers and American football

players do not keep their opponents

guessing as much as they should

BLOG Creationism and cymbals

clash The T-shirt worn by a Missouri

school band is the latest battleground

in the war between proponents of

evolution and creationism. There are

claims that the T-shirt is incompatible

with the US constitutional division

between church and state

VODCAST New Scientist’s

monthly video round-up

Follow us to an insect festival,

meet some ultra-realistic dinosaurs

and see a huge camera obscura

For video, comment and online

debate, visit www.newscientist.com

on wind or solar power instead?They are easily answered. We need as

many clean energy options as we can get, and commercial fusion power is within sight. In Cockroft’s day there were serious gaps in our knowledge of the relevant science. He himself referred to being on “a longish road, and we cannot see the end of the road”. Today we can.

Thanks to studies carried out over the intervening decades, the science that ITER has to rely on is well established. The challenges lie in the technology, such as developing wall materials to withstand the pummelling by subatomic particles and cutting the cost of the

superconducting magnets that will confine plasma that is 10 times the temperature of the sun’s core. The more that we spend now, the sooner we’ll reach our goal.

The last surge in spending on fusion came during the 1970s, when oil-producing countries in the Middle East cut supplies to the west. As delegates prepare for December’s climate change conference in Copenhagen, the case for boosting funding is stronger than ever. Whatever the outcome, the risk of dangerous climate change is a real one, prompting thoughts of draconian measures to tackle it. Compared with the more exotic schemes for large-scale manipulation of the environment now coming under serious consideration – which do look 50 years away – fusion power is a racing certainty. It’s safer too. A technology that messes with our planet’s climate is what got us into trouble in the first place. ■