A tunnel beneath the Yellow River, China’s second longest, and related water gates and ditches have been completed for the eastern route of the country’s giant south-north water diversion project. China is on target to begin transferring water from the Yangtze River Basin to Hebei, Shandong, and Tianjin by 2013. Water diverted from the Yangtze, …
Ny Daily – Stephen Colbert, a South Carolina native, pulled in 5% in a recent Public Policy Polling survey of the Palmetto State. While that was well behind Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich — who were at 27% and 23%, respectively — he placed a point ahead of Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, who …
A portable and compact photolithography system based on a solid-state light source of UV light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is described. Solid-state photolithography can achieve high-quality patterns over a wide range of length scales at a fraction of the cost of contact mask aligners. 2D nanoscale and 1D microscale patterns can easily be created. A new portable …
Nanoletters – Nanoscale Transport Enables Active Self-Assembly of Millimeter-Scale Wires Active self-assembly processes exploit an energy source to accelerate the movement of building blocks and intermediate structures and modify their interactions. A model system is the assembly of biotinylated microtubules partially coated with streptavidin into linear bundles as they glide on a surface coated with …
The Army’s Advanced Hypersonic Weapon went 2,400 miles from Hawaii to its target by the Kwajalein Atoll in the south Pacific. Darpa recently crashed a hypersonic glider had a radical, wedge-like shape: a Mach 20 slice of deep dish pizza, basically. The Army’s vehicle relies on a decades-old, conventionally conical design. It’s designed to fly …
Nanocomp Technologies, Inc., a developer of performance materials and component products from carbon nanotubes (CNTs), today announced it has been selected by the United States Government to supply CNT yarn and sheet material for the program needs of the Department of Defense, as well as to create a path toward commercialization for civilian industrial use. …
Digital journal reports interviews Michael Rae, research assistant and coauthor of his book, Ending Aging. One exciting recent development is that, with an increase in our research budget this year (based on performance last year and a more optimistic financial outlook from many of our donors), we’ve recently approved funding for several quite important and …
China’s GDP expanded 9.1 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of the year, the slowest pace since the third quarter of 2009. China’s strong retail sales growth suggests that there is a shift to greater domestic demand. The slow moderation in GDP is indicating a softening of growth instead of a collapse. The growth rate …
Hitachi has demonstrated a 3D projector that can project images onto real-world objects. For the demo, a 3D image of a bird hatching was displayed on an artificial egg that was cradled in an artificial nest. But that’s not all. Viewers looking at the demo see the bird as a hologram, in that as the …
Vintage space has the Carnival of Space 211 up last week Discovery Ian O’Neill covered the 14th International Mars Society Convention in Dallas, Texas The message was clear: it is imperative that we send a manned mission to Mars. Nextbigfuture contributed two items. The early universe could have had intense magnetic fields that could have …
Aviation Week – California-based SpaceX is ramping up plans to become the world’s largest producer of rocket engines in less than five years, manufacturing more units per year than any other single country. Outlining SpaceX’s ambitious growth strategy, President Gwynne Shotwell says a production increase is aimed at supporting the assembly of engines for the …