Number 301 (Story #2), December 31, 1996 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein TURBULENCE MAY BE MORE OF A PROBLEM FOR ITER than was previously thought. New computer studies of magnetically contained plasmas show that instabilities which do not plague smaller tokamaks might represent a threat to long-term confinement of plasmas in machines on the larger scale of the proposed $10-billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Speaking at the APS plasma physics meeting in November, University of Texas physicists William Dorland and Michael Kotschenreuther said that as a result of the heat lost through the plasma instability, the power output of ITER would fall far short of its design goal. (Science, 6 December.)