The Carnival of Space 387 is up at Everyday spacer Paul Scott Anderson | The Meridiani Journal – Kepler finds ‘super-Earth’ exoplanet in first discovery of new mission The Kepler space telescope has found its first new exoplanet, a “super-Earth,” of its secondary mission phase. The discovery adds to a current tally of 996 confirmed …
IEEE Spectrum has more information about Google’s quantum computer hardware plans. The Martinis group had previously built quantum computing systems of up to nine qubits based on superconducting quantum circuits—the same type of general hardware design used by D-Wave’s machines. Under the new Google effort, Martinis hopes his team can roughly double the number of …
Philippe Couillard’s Quebec Liberal party sailed to victory, winning a majority government in the provincial election that, five weeks ago, seemed destined to be won by the soveriegntist Parti Québécois. Quebec’s rejection of the PQ extended to Marois herself, who lost her own seat to her Liberal rival. The party’s decisive win is all the …
A team led by Roman Sordan of the Politecnico di Milano and Eric Pop of the University of Illinois says it has made the first integrated graphene oscillators – with the added bonus that the devices operate at 1.28 GHz. The graphene ring oscillators also appear to be less sensitive to fluctuations in the supply …
Researchers from North Carolina State University have created conductive wires that can be stretched up to eight times their original length while still functioning. The wires can be used for everything from headphones to phone chargers, and hold potential for use in electronic textiles. To make the wires, researchers start with a thin tube made …
1. Barron’s – Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill, the man who will forever be described as the guy who coined the term BRICs, outlines what a Chinese hard landing would look like if nominal economic growth averaged 7% for the remainder of the decade. Many others would not consider economic growth of 7% per year a …
Singularity Hub – Forget the Kinect, Leap Motion is cheaper ($70), more precise (down to 0.01 mm), and much smaller (think “pack of gum” proportions). The incredible demo for the Leap Motion (see below) shows how the desktop device can quickly detect hand motion so that a user needs merely wiggle their fingers in front …
The Carnival of Space 250 is up at Vintage Space The public emergence of the 100 Year Starship organization prompts thoughts from Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams. “Universe Today – With the recent announcement of the asteroid mining company, Planetary Resources, some of the most-asked questions about this enticing but complex endeavor include, what asteroids …
1. U.S. government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) said on Thursday it now sees the new reactor at the Watts Bar 2 nuclear power plant in Tennessee online between September and December 2015 at a higher estimated cost of $4 billion to $4.5 billion. In February, TVA said the 1,180-megawatt Watts Bar 2 project was running …