Only three articles this month including one that could be a pretty big deal but will more likely than not be debunked in due course.

• The big news is of course the announcement of a viable fusion reactor design by Lockheed Martin. There are many articles about it but here is the original one from Aviation Week. It’s a big deal because fusion energy have for many decades been heralded as bringing about the end of the fossil fuel age if and when it ever becomes viable but successive designs have never been able to get the technology to generate much, if any, excess energy beyond that needed to maintain the self sustaining fusion reaction. This news of a new design that is supposedly more efficient than the best current alternatives by a factor of 10 gains credibility because it was developed by the highly regarded Skunk Works of Lockheed Marton. But it is all too likely that it is just another plea for more research funds for negligible benefit.
• No summarizing article for this next one, just a link to the paper itself. It examines correlations between how long a marriage lasts and various data points. The headliner is that the more money is spent on the wedding ceremony and the ring, the shorter the marriage lasts. On the other hand, positive correlations are the number of guests invited to the wedding and whether or not there was a honeymoon.
• Finally, this one is an article from Modern Farmer which talks about how plants are actually aware that they are being eaten and actively takes steps against it. The experiment involved the thale cress and recording the vibrations of a caterpillar eating a plant. They found that when that specific recording is played back, the plant would produce extra mustard oil to help deter predators and doesn’t react in the same way to other, non-threatening vibrations.