Mapping the Mind’s Command Centre for the Body

Studying the behaviour of plasma – a state of matter beyond the familiar three: solid, liquid, and gas – is crucial for our understanding of planets, stars, and the possibility of generating unlimited energy on Earth through the process of nuclear fusion. Specialist equipment is needed to produce extreme kinds of plasma in the laboratory but, once created, they last for less than a billionth of a second. How do you study something so fleeting? To address this problem, a team of researchers from Spain have proposed a design for a simple new device so that proton beams may be used to study faster and faster processes.