MultiAir turbocharged and downsized engines can achieve up to 25 per cent fuel economy improvement over conventional naturally aspirated engines with the same level of performance. Maximum power is increased by up to 10 per cent thanks to the adoption ofa power-orientated mechanical camshaft profile. Low RPM torque is improved by up to 15 per …
New Scientist reports on a 3D bone printer. Exact replicas of a man’s thumb bones have been made for the first time using a 3D printer. The breakthrough paves the way for surgeons to replace damaged or diseased bones with identical copies built from the patients’ own cells. “In theory, you could do any bone,” …
Carnival of Space 94 is up at the Planetary Society blog This site contributed one of the articles in the series on using an underground nuclear blast to launch large unmanned and cheap payloads into space. A Mars sample return mission is examined at robot explorers Discovery helps peole understand the size and scale of …
There has been a fair bit of activity for a grass roots anti-tax movement. On February 27th, 2009 an estimated 30,000 Americans took to the street in 40+ cities accross the country in the first nationwide “Tea Party” protest. The Tax Day Tea Party is a national collaborative grassroots effort organized by Smart Girl Politics, …
The Kepler Planet Hunting mission launches today. H/T Sander Olson. The Kepler spacecraft will stare at a patch of sky – the same 100,000 stars near the northern constellation Cygnus, all at once – for at least 3-1/2 years. The goal is to detect Earth-like planets orbiting their host stars at distances thought to be …
The diode-pumped Mercury laser will deliver 100 J pulses at 10 Hz under automatic control, advancing the development of high-repetition-rate inertial laser fusion. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is on target to demonstrate “breakeven”–creating as much fusion-energy output as laser-energy input. The NIF laser will compress a tiny sphere of …
The Texas Petawatt laser was completed March 31, 2008, allowing an immediate demonstration of its 1.1 petawatt power by producing, 200 J, 167 fs pulses. The US National Ignition Facility is to start firing in 2010 Zettawatt-Exawatt Lasers and Their Applications in Ultrastrong-Field Physics From 1992-2001, however, we have seen a surge in our ability …
The Near Earth Asteroid 433 Eros is about 6.7 trillion tons. It is the second-largest near-Earth asteroid (NEA) after 1036 Ganymed. Eros is an S-type asteroid and 17% are of this type. C-type asteroids are carbonaceous asteroids. They are the most common variety forming around 75% of known asteroids. Eros has a lot of gold …
The UK rolled out plans for a lot more robots in their future military. This is for air and ground forces. The MOD’s research needs the plan also introduces five Capability Visions designed to stimulate new technologies and new uses of existing ones. They are: • Reducing the burden on the dismounted soldier – challenging …
Michael Anissimov wrote up his reasoning for why Charles Stross is wrong about what will happen in the 21st century. Some key points: * no one is waiting for greater than human intelligence AGI * Disruptive technological impacts can already be clearly seen to be developing * Many other useful insights into the Singularity and …
Millimetre (mm)-wave’ or microwave photonics could deliver 12.5 Gigabit per second wireless communication as a follow up to 4G mobile communication. It has commercial applications not just in telecommunications (access and in-house networks) but also in instrumentation, radar, security, radio astronomy and other fields. High Gain antennas can boost the range to 1000 meters with …