The first prototype of a new, ultra-compact motor that will allow small satellites to journey beyond Earth’s orbit is just making its way out of the EPFL laboratories where it was built. The goal of the micro motor: to drastically reduce the cost of space exploration. Imagine reaching the Moon using just a tenth of …
MIT’s David Hardt is working to move microfluidics from the lab to the factory. Hardt heads the Center for Polymer Microfabrication — a multidisciplinary research group funded by the Singapore-MIT Alliance — which is designing manufacturing processes for microfluidics from the ground up. The group is analyzing the behavior of polymers under factory conditions, building …
Using NASA and ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope, EPFL scientists have identified several rare cases of galaxies that contain supermassive black holes acting as gravitational lenses. Two years ago, scientists in EPFL’s Laboratory of Astrophysics (LASTRO) discovered a quasar, a galaxy with a black hole at its center, that functioned as a gravitational lens, a kind …
Haaretz – According to a war simulation conducted by the U.S. Central Command, the Iranians could kill 200 Americans with a single missile response to an Israeli attack. The meaning of this U.S. scenario is that the blood of these 200 would be on Israel’s hands. Pentagon spokesman George Little announced that the Defense Department …
Here is an infographic of the Mariana Trench. James Cameron recently made a solo dive to the bottom of the Mariana trench in a sub that he had funded for $8 million. The bottom looked like a lunar landscape except for some one inch long shrimp like creatures. The expedition has headed away to land …
Technology Review – Called FreedomPop, the service will give users roughly a gigabyte of free high-speed mobile Internet access per month on Clearwire’s WiMAX network and forthcoming LTE network. It will offer other low-cost prepaid plans that provide access to more data. Pre-register for Freedompop access at their site. Clearwire coverage is listed at the …
Michael Pettis describes the issue of misallocation of resources. This is a charge that has been made frequently that China is misallocating resources. The example is then brought up about ghost cities as overbuilding in real estate. Michael describes what matters as far as economic misallocation is concerned is 1) Whether the total economic costs …
Arxiv – New Superhard Carbon Phases Between Graphite and Diamond Technology Review – This work, like the other structural predictions, is entirely theoretical, relying on computer simulations based on first principle calculations. And until somebody actually measures the structure of this new form of carbon, we won’t know which proposal is correct. The process of …
Cash Flow Radio has an interview with Brillouin Energy‘s CEO Robert George and President/CTO Robert E. Godes. Brillouin Energy has been able to develop a control system that allows a reaction to start and stop, and run in a steady state mode. In April, they will be working with Mike McKubre of SRI International to …
1. How to build a space telescope for 1% of the cost: Fabrication of large space optics that are accurately shaped to better than a 1000th of the width of a human hair is an enormous challenge. Traditional space telescope fabrication methods require rigid and therefore heavy mirrors, expensive spacecraft and massive rocket launch vehicles. …
Patrick Lin discusses the ethical impact of new biological and exoskeleton enhancements to soldiers. Soldiers will soon be able to crawl up and down walls like a real life Gecko or the fictional Spiderhttp://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=17555522#editor/target=post;postID=9032631527705685216man. They will have the technology to stick and unstick with hands and feet to walls. This was also shown in the …