Higher density superconducting memory has been designed. The concept stores data by coupling tiny ferromagnetic “dots” to electronic components called Josephson junctions – current-conducting “sandwiches” formed by a thin layer of an insulating material between two superconducting layers. This memory concept gets around the size issue because the dimensions of the ferromagnetic dots and their …
Newly available online pdf, for Eric Drexlers 1995 perspective on the Ultimate limits of fabrication A 2006 article for a primer on productive nanosystems Eric Drexler’s site has some more links. One of the links to a pdf on fundamental issues in design and modeling of Integrated nanosystems is having errors. It may get fixed …
Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science today announced they have developed a new reverse osmosis (RO) membrane that promises to reduce the cost of seawater desalination and wastewater reclamation. Initial tests suggest new nanoscale membranes with embedded nanoparticles have up to twice the productivity — or consume 50 percent …
US nuclear power company Westinghouse Electric has been developing a clever new way to spot nuclear contraband. Many US ports already X-ray ship containers to see if they contain hidden nuclear material. But X-ray machines may fail to spot hidden uranium or plutonium if it is hidden behind lead shielding. So Westinghouse Electric proposes generating …
From the UK Times Online, what people have long suspected appears to be pretty much official. We have a race to nuclear arms in the middle east. Yesterday’s disclosure that Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and smaller states such as Tunisia and the UAE want to acquire nuclear technology. Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist …
Many of the desired applications of carbon nanotubes require the ability to attach them to electrically conductive surfaces, but we have only been successful in creating high-resistance interfaces between nanotubes and substrates. Now a team from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute reports two new techniques, each following a different approach, for placing carbon nanotube patterns on metal …
From the BBC, the future of communication is happening in South Korea first High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) piggybacks on the 3G cellular networks, but HDSPA gives speeds which are about three to four times faster than regular 3G. Seoul is just starting to roll out Wibro, which stands for wireless broadband. Koreans cannot …
The prior article on a sunshade discussed the Sandia’s electromagnetic launcher as being vital to bringing the cost down. In 1994, there was an announcement that aHYPERVELOCITY LAUNCHER (gas gun) has accelerated a quarter-inch disk of metal to a velocity of 15.8 km/sec, or about 36,000 miles per hour, a record for a macroscopic object. …
Roger Angel’s plan would be to launch a constellation of trillions of small free-flying spacecraft a million miles above Earth into an orbit aligned with the sun, called the L-1 orbit. Picture of some of the small flyers. The spacecraft would form a long, cylindrical cloud with a diameter about half that of Earth, and …
Mice that were genetically engineered to have body temperature 0.6 degrees lower than normal lived 12-20% longer. In the future people might be able to take a drug that specifically targets the preoptic “thermostat” area in their brains to trick the body into cooling down slightly. Coming up with such a drug “will be very …
This is just reviewing what is currently available for mundane spying. The point is that nanotechnology is not needed for perfectly adequate spying on the average person. More useful surveillance information can come from: your phone records, online activity, credit cards and financial info. All of which can be easily tracked. Plus there are a …