From the EEtimes, MIT researchers have solved issues with scanning beam interference lithography and have tested at 25 nanometers and believe they can get to 12 nanometers at least. This is a big deal because it will ensure that Moore’s law to continue to improve computers for another 15 years or more. Current lithography is …
Invented by Alvin Wang (nextbigfuture co-author) This is a plan to enable the safe early deployment of robotic cars, trucks and buses. The robotic car only zones can start off smaller with 10-100 cars covering 10X10 blocks or so and then expanding as the system is proven. Public transportation would be cheaper and better and …
From the International Herald Tribune, eighty-six percent of the Chinese surveyed said they were content with the country’s direction, up from 48 percent in 2002 and a full 25 percentage points higher than the next highest country, Australia. And 82 percent of Chinese were satisfied with their national economy, up from 52 percent. China has …
North Dakata has added 20,000 barrels of oil per day since the end of 2007 and the end of May, 2008 At the end of May, 2008 North Dakota is producing 156,356 barrels of oil per day. Nine other states currently are listed in the count as being “major” oil-producing states: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, …
Investors Daily has an editorial by Monica Showalter which proposes that offshore drilling in the United States could develop oil far faster than ten years if regulations were adjusted. California’s 10 billion barrels in offshore oil could be brought to market in as little as a year “if the moratorium were lifted,” according to a …
A researcher at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has pinpointed stem cells within the spinal cord that, if persuaded to differentiate into more healing cells and fewer scarring cells following an injury, may lead to a new, non-surgical treatment for debilitating spinal-cord injuries. Their results could lead to drugs that might restore some …
George Church’s lab makes the gene sequencer Polonator G.007 — offered at the low price of $150,000. Church maintains that, while the Polonator isn’t up to whole-genome reads, it is clocking in at about one-third the cost of Applied Biosystems’ estimate ($60,000 for Applied Biosystems. So the Polonator is at $20,000 but needs to improve …
Previously this site looked at a technology that is almost in hand for solving excess manmade CO2 (possible global warming) and now a simple nearly in hand technology and plan for addressing peak oil. They both need to be part of an overall energy and technology development plan, but a key point is technology and …
Who are the Batman villains that would be good enough or capable of being adapted into villains suitable for Batman movies with the high quality of Dark Knight ? I agree with the Speculalist review that Dark Knight is a Godfather calibre movie Batman from the comics has a large collection of high quality villains. …
Macroscopic invisible cables. This is not just theoretical because DARPA/MIT has already produced one foot long carbon nanotubes and should have one meter long carbon nanotubes by the end of this year or early in 2009. Spiders suggest to us that producing high strength over density ratio invisible cables could be of great importance. In …
Yuan Kou at Peking University in Beijing, China, and his team have come up with a lignin breakdown reaction that more reliably produces the alkanes and alcohols needed for biofuels. The yield is twice as high as previous work. Under ideal conditions, it is theoretically possible to produce monomers and dimers in yields of 44 …