The American physical society sees no technical reasons not to extend nuclear reactors to 80 years of operation and recommends doing so in a 28 page report. Renewing Licenses for the Nation’s Nuclear Power Plants Extending operating licenses for reactors in a safe and reliable way is a smart move, as they are a “near …
The Pentagon this week edged closer to mounting missile-destroying lasers on unmanned and manned aircraft, awarding $26 million to defense contractors to develop the technology. Northrop Gumman and Lockheed will develop technology for pod-mounted laser weapons to protect manned aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR)-guided surface-to-air missiles. Under the name …
Nature – Proteins are an enormous molecular achievement: chains of amino acids that fold spontaneously into a precise conformation, time after time, optimized by evolution for their particular function. Yet given the exponential number of contortions possible for any chain of amino acids, dictating a sequence that will fold into a predictable structure has been …
Brad Templeton discusses how robot cars will change the design of cars. Big changes that will come about from robocars will come from how they free car designers from the constraints of human-driven cars which are the owner’s sole, or almost-sole vehicle. If one can hire a cheap specialized “robotaxi” (or whistlecar) on demand when …
Technology Review – Professor Dirk Helbing of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich wants to build a “living earth simulator” to probe the kind of dangerous cascading effects that he believes threaten financial markets, power grids and other complex systems that modern life relies upon. He has a good chance at getting €1bn ($1.2bn) …
Economic Freedom and average citizenry IQ — plus slight tweaks from trading block membership and oil predicted GDP per capita for every country with a high .97 correlation (r) with actual GDP per capita. This is not scientific but uses a few factors that can be adjusted to correlate to per capita GDP both historically …
Harvard has a project to develop robotic bees The aim is to push advances in miniature robotics and the design of compact high-energy power sources; spur innovations in ultra-low-power computing and electronic “smart” sensors; and refine coordination algorithms to manage multiple, independent machines. They want to make them robust and agile enough that they might …
Ad Support : Nano Technology Netbook Technology News Computer Software The Princeton University scientists and others in the Borexino Collaboration have detected geoneutrinos at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics. The discovery could explain how reactions taking place in the planet’s deep interior affect events on the surface. This stainless …
Ad Support : Nano Technology Netbook Technology News Computer Software On June 13, China and Taiwan successfully wrapped up a fourth round of negotiations in Beijing on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, aimed at lifting tariffs on either side of the Taiwan Strait. The deal, which Taiwanese President Ma’s administration has said may be signed this …
Flight Global reports that european researchers developing a magnetic heat shield that could augment or replace the traditional ablative materials hope to make a test flight in the next decade. Under development by EADS Astrium, with support from German aerospace centre DLR and the European Space Agency, the magnetic field-protected vehicle will be launched from …