engineers and physicists from Stanford and the University of California at Santa Barbara demonstrate a potential progenitor of an essential component of quantum computers, “a logic gate” that enables interaction between just two particles of light. “We have demonstrated a system composed of a single quantum dot in a cavity that can be used to …
Carnival of Space week 53 is up at spacecynic Nextbigfuture supplied its article about new lasers that are 100 times faster and able to improve the sensitivity of earthlike planet detection by one hundred times Colony Worlds talks about whether Mercury is better than Mars for colonization Centauri Dreams talks about life propogating through the …
Berkeley Lab has signed a collaboration agreement with Tensilica®, Inc. to explore the use of Tensilica’s Xtensa processor cores as the basic building blocks in a massively parallel system design. Tensilica’s Xtensa processor is about 400 times more efficient in floating point operations per watt than the conventional server processor chip shown here and is …
Previously nextbigfuture has discussed the new family of superconducting materials based on iron and arsenic compounds The Christian Science Monitor indicates some experts say they’ve seen hints suggesting that these new materials should post impressive magnetic-field numbers soon. The iron in these new superconductors could allow some applications such as wires and electronics and more …
Segmented “nanoworms” composed of magnetic iron oxide and coated with a polymer are able to find and attach to tumors. Scientists at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and MIT have developed nanometer-sized “nanoworms” that can cruise through the bloodstream without significant interference from the body’s immune defense system and—like tiny anti-cancer missiles—home in on …
Scientists at the University of Konstanz in Germany and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated an ultrafast laser that offers a record combination of high speed, short pulses and high average power. [about 100 times faster and more powerful] The same NIST group also has shown that this type of laser, …
Russia and the United States have signed a civilian nuclear agreement which still has to pass the US House, Senate and the Russian parliament. In other nuclear news, there is progress on unblocking supply chain bottlenecks for building more nuclear reactors. The U.S. is especially interested in developments in areas including fast-neutron reactors and recycling …
At the end of this lengthy MSNBC article is some information about the Bussard fusion process where researchers are building a new demonstration system WB7 One interesting point is that the University of Wisconsin has 100 people and about 10 million in budget per year that is devoted inertial confinement fusion. They are obviously aware …
China (including Hong Kong and Macau) has a larger GDP than Germany based on current exchange rates. The Euro has traded down to 10.77 to the Chinese Yuan The Euro/Yuan exchange rate will likely continue to fluctuate. The European countries (France, Spain, Italy) have been saying that the Euro has been too strong. The US …
The Toyota Production System was applied to a semiconductor fab and they reduced the manufacturing cost per wafer by 12 percent and the cycle time—the time it takes to turn a blank silicon wafer into a finished wafer, full of logic chips—by 67 percent. In addition, the number of products produced increased by 50 percent, …
The southern play is related to the map trends that are seen in Montana and carrying them over into North Dakota. This activity is currently concentrated around McKenzie County. The northern play is related to the interval that has been producing from the middle member for a number of years. The few wells, primarily along …