China will spend half a trillion dollars on rail and high speed rail by 2020

China plans to spend 3.5 trillion yuan ($503 billion) to expand its railway system by 2020 as it turns to investments in infrastructure to bolster growth and improve connectivity across the country. The high-speed rail network will span more than 30,000 kilometers (18,650 miles) under the proposal, according to details released at a State Council …

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National Interest analysis is that Advanced Super Hornet could perform 80% of F-35 missions

Dave Majumdar, the defense editor for The National Interest, assessment is that an Advanced Super Hornet could perform could offer a less costly 80 percent solution for the U.S. Navy’s requirements. Once developed to its full potential, the Advanced Super Hornet could perform most of the missions envisioned for the F-35C except penetrating strike—it would …

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CBS Star Trek Discovery likely set in Four Year Klingon War in Prime Timeline and Cast is revealed

Star Trek: Discovery is an upcoming American television series created by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman for CBS All Access. It is the first series developed specifically for that service, and the first Star Trek series since Star Trek: Enterprise concluded in 2005. Set roughly a decade before the events of the original Star Trek …

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Researchers Use World’s Smallest Diamonds to Make Wires Three Atoms Wide for early example of diamondoid assembly

Scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered a way to use diamondoids – the smallest possible bits of diamond – to assemble atoms into the thinnest possible electrical wires, just three atoms wide. By grabbing various types of atoms and putting them together LEGO-style, the new technique …

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Cooling by radiating heat into space

Physicists have achieved record levels of temperature reduction using the process of radiative cooling, by which heat is beamed from Earth’s surface into outer space. Zhen Chen and his colleagues at Stanford University lowered the temperature of a thermal emitter – a device designed to give out more heat than it takes in – to …

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China plans space missions to dark side of the moon and Mars and beyond

China’s ambitious and fast-growing space program is targeting a landing on the dark side of the moon by 2018, and reaching Mars before the end of the decade. China’s space agency held a press conference on Tuesday to mark the release of a policy paper, and outlined the government’s goals for exploring deep space. Wu …

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China launched spacecraft to use and develop millisecond pulsar navigation

In November, China launched the world’s first spacecraft with a deep space x-ray navigation system. The X-ray Pulsar Navigation 1 (XPNAV 1) satellite, which the country launched on Nov. 10 aboard a solid-fueled Long March 11 rocket from the Jiuquan Space Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, is the world’s first x-ray navigation system to …

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Taiwan Semiconductor says 10 nanometer chips are on schedule for first quarter of 2017, 7 nm also in 2017, 5nm in 2019 and 3nm around 2022

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) says that 10nm is on schedule, countering news media reports that the yields of TSMC and Samsung at the industry’s most advanced technology node are lagging expectations. TSMC’s 10nm process is “totally on track” and will contribute to sales revenue for the first time in the first quarter of 2017, …

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South Korea makes 13 foot tall humanoid manned mech

A 13-foot tall 1.5-ton “Method-2,” mech is the brainchild of South Korean robotics company Hankook Mirae Technology “Our robot is the world’s first manned bipedal robot and is built to work in extreme hazardous areas where humans cannot go (unprotected),” said company chairman Yang Jin-Ho. While its enormous size has grabbed media attention, the creators …

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DARPA has drop-in removable autopilot kit for existing aircraft

DARPA’s Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program envisions flight operations with reduced onboard aircrew while improving mission performance and flight safety—all through a tailorable, drop-in, removable kit that would provide advanced automation to existing aircraft. In two important steps toward that goal, DARPA has recently completed Phase 2 of this development effort and has …

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