At the beginning of this year, China’s first self-dumping truck equipped with a carriage that is made of carbon fiber composite material was completed. The truck is 8.6 meters long, with a load capacity of 50 tons and a curb weight of 4.8 tons, 29 percent lighter than a truck with a metal carriage. This …
A working prototype of a low-cost electroencephalography device funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made its debut in New York this weekend, the first step in the agency’s effort to jumpstart a do-it-yourself revolution in neuroscience. Dr. Lindsay Allen was sitting in a booth at Maker Faire, the annual gathering where …
Charlie Rose: “Define what libertarianism means to you” – Ron Paul: “The word I best describe it is something not a lot of people use. I call it non-intervention.” Charlie Rose: “Non-intervention in personal life, non-intervention in foreign policy, non-intervention in…” Ron Paul: “There it is. Because it’s sort of tells you what a conservative, …
Centauri Dreams covered the 2013 100 year Starship Symposium At the first track session for “Factors in Time and Distance Solutions,” Terry Kammash (University of Michigan) ran through the basics of the rocket equation to show why chemical rockets were inadequate for deep space travel. Kammash is interested in a fusion hybrid reactor whose neutron …
Joseph Gordon Levitt is best known for his roles in the Dark Knight Rises, Inception and the TV show Third Rock. Here he shows off his dancing talent. Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake have a Twitter hashtag skit. If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks Brian …
In an advance that could dramatically shrink particle accelerators for science and medicine, researchers used a laser to accelerate electrons at a rate 10 times higher than conventional technology in a nanostructured glass chip smaller than a grain of rice. “We still have a number of challenges before this technology becomes practical for real-world use, …
Researchers took a naturally occurring mitochondrial transcription factor called TFAM, which initiates protein synthesis, and engineered it to cross into cells from the bloodstream and target the mitochondria. Aged mice given modified TFAM showed improvements in memory and exercise performance compared with untreated mice. “It was like an 80-year-old recovering the function of a 30-year-old,” …
As a pilotless F-16 roared into the sky last week at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., members of Boeing’s QF-16 team and the U.S. Air Force celebrated. Two U.S. Air Force test pilots in a ground control station at Tydall remotely flew the QF-16, which is a retired F-16 jet modified to be an aerial …
The original contract between TVO and Areva-Siemens signed in 2003 envisioned the 1700 EPR nuclear plant would cost € 3.2 billion, with a completion date of 2009. This would have been about $4.3 billion which is a bit more than the $3.8 billion cost of each of the two EPR reactors in China. The chinese …
According to the Institute for Energy Research, this year German electricity rates will increase by over 10% due to a surcharge for using more renewable energy and a further 30 to 50% price increase is expected in the next ten years. German electricity is already about triple the price of electricity in the USA and …
Several large nuclear power plants were completed in the early 1970s at a typical cost of $170 million, whereas plants of the same size completed in 1983 cost an average of $1.7 billion, a 10-fold increase. Some plants completed in the late 1980s have cost as much as $5 billion, 30 times what they cost …