[PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY] Next week sees the close of a major chapter in fusion research, when for the very last time plasma races around the United States' largest experimental tokamak, at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PP-PL). Deuterium and tritium ions at up to 500 million degrees Celsius—the hottest matter in the Solar System — will then decline in temperature to the ambience of a spring day in New Jersey, leaving the surrounding laboratory facing an uncertain future. But the 500 staff of PPPL will have little time for philosophical reflection in the coming weeks. In June, John Schmidt, the laboratory's interim director, will implement a necessarily brutal reorganization that could see as many as 200 of them lose their jobs.
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