Lasers, microwaves and other directed energy weapons will be used more widely by the U.S. military. U.S. military, top armed forces officials described weapons that are in various stages of development and testing by the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Army, but said more work was needed to develop tactics for their use …
A new Chinese-built seaplane could help seal Beijing’s control over its claims in the South China Sea (SCS), say military specialists on China. The Jiaolong (Water Dragon) AG600, under construction by China Aviation Industry General Aircraft (CAIGA), will be China’s largest operational seaplane. The aircraft is powered by four turboprop WJ-6 engines and has a …
Deep learning is a type of artificial intelligence in which computers learn to identify and categorize patterns in huge data sets. A start-up, Deep Genomics, that thinks it can transform medicine by applying the hot field of deep learning to genomics. Brendan Frey and his team would spin out of the University of Toronto and …
For the first time in nearly two decades, the share of U.S. births to unmarried mothers ticked downward in 2014, according to new preliminary data from the National Center for Health Statistics. The report also showed that the total number of births and the U.S. birth rate rose in 2014 for the first time in …
Many countries have low and declining fertility rates. The thing that seems to boost fertility most is subsidized child care. By cutting the cost of combining work and motherhood, this encourages both. Subsidized nurseries were pioneered in France, a country that has worried about national vigor ever since it was thrashed in the Franco-Prussian war …
After decades of worsening diets and sharp increases in obesity, Americans’ eating habits have begun changing for the better. Calories consumed daily by the typical American adult, which peaked around 2003, are in the midst of their first sustained decline since federal statistics began to track the subject, more than 40 years ago. The number …
1. Two further nuclear power reactors are to be constructed and plans for four coal-fired plants have been dropped in the latest 15-year basic energy plan released by the South Korean government today. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) published its 7th basic power supply plan for the period up to 2029, the …
After more than two decades and a generation of technology development, the Russian military is reportedly considering bringing back tanks equipped with lasers. Word of the plan comes after Russian media has spent months teasing the capabilities of the Armata T-14 tank, the Kremlin’s new high-tech war machine. For nearly 20 years, from the mid-1970s …
Flowing ice and a surprising extended haze are among the newest discoveries from NASA’s New Horizons mission, which reveal distant Pluto to be an icy world of wonders. “We knew that a mission to Pluto would bring some surprises, and now — 10 days after closest approach — we can say that our expectation has …
There have been comparisons of current quantum computers to classical computers to the Wright Brothers flyer against lighter than air vehicles. The Wright brothers flyers had inferior performance and capabilities to the Zeppelins but would eventual later versions would prove more useful and more capable. I think it might be better to look for an …
NASA’s New Horizons mission has found evidence of exotic ices flowing across Pluto’s surface, at the left edge of its bright heart-shaped area. New close-up images from the spacecraft’s Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) reveal signs of recent geologic activity, something scientists hoped to find but didn’t expect. “We’ve only seen surfaces like this on active …