Rand Paul proposed legislation creating what he calls Economic Freedom Zones which would see federal income and corporate taxes cut to 5%, and federal payroll taxes reduced to 2% for employers and employees. This would be for areas like Detroit. He proposes reducing federal taxes and regulations in zip codes with unemployment greater than 1 …
The Carnival of Space 345 is up at Dear Astronomer Meridiani Journal – Europa or bust: possible mission to icy moon in fy 2015 budget proposal Universe Today – Astronomers have announced Nobel Prize-worthy evidence of primordial gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of spacetime — providing the first direct evidence the universe underwent …
The deadline to develop a new design for thorium nuclear power plants has been brought forward by 15 years as the central government tries to reduce the nation’s reliance on smog-producing coal-fired power stations. A team of scientists in Shanghai had originally been given 25 years to try to develop the world’s first nuclear plant …
Apple is currently the most valuable publicly traded company at about $474 billion. Exxon and Google follow at about $405 billion. Apple had reached a peak of about $625 billion two years ago. Apple would have been a trillion dollar company if Google had not released Android and Samsung and others had not enabled Android …
DARPA has picked four companies to design new aircraft to revolutionize vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) flight capabilities. For generations, new designs for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft have remained unable to increase top speed without sacrificing range, efficiency or the ability to do useful work. DARPA’s VTOL Experimental Plane (VTOL X-Plane) program seeks to …
China pledged on Sunday that it will make sure that 60 percent of its cities meet national pollution standards by 2020, with pressure growing to make cities liveable as hundreds of millions of migrants are expected to relocate from the countryside. Smog may kill 2.1 million people a year, many of them in China, and …
Craig Venter’s new company wants to improve human longevity by creating the world’s largest, most comprehensive database of genetic and physiological information. Human Longevity Inc. (HLI) is a genomics and cell therapy-based diagnostic and therapeutic company. HLI will use advances in genomic sequencing, understanding the human microbiome, proteomics, informatics, computing, and cell therapy technologies to …
There is more research into the Dwave Systems quantum annealing adiabatic system (503 qubit version). Researchers from UCL (University College of London) and USC (University of Southern California) researchers have ruled out several classical models for the D-Wave Two, including the SSSV model and giving indirect evidence for up to 40 qubit entanglement in a …
I think computers will still get a lot better, but the next few years could go off the rails temporarily if what the industry was counting on doing does not happen. The other options may not be ready or what is ready costs too much. Moore’s law requires execution on a tight schedule. The industry’s …
Wired has a simple explanation for flight MH370 There has been a lot of speculation about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Terrorism, hijacking, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN; it’s almost disturbing. I tend to look for a simpler explanation, and I find it with the 13,000-foot runway at Pulau Langkawi. The pilot was …
The first room-temperature light detector that can sense the full infrared spectrum has the potential to put heat vision technology into a contact lens. Unlike comparable mid- and far-infrared detectors currently on the market, the detector developed by University of Michigan engineering researchers doesn’t need bulky cooling equipment to work. “We can make the entire …