New Shepard flew again on April 2, 2016 reaching an apogee of 339,178 feet or 103 kilometers. It was the third flight with the same hardware. We pushed the envelope on this flight, restarting the engine for the propulsive landing only 3,600 feet above the ground, requiring the BE-3 engine to start fast and ramp …
Today, on the A52 autobahn near Düsseldorf, Daimler Trucks presented an impressive example of the possibilities opened up by the digital connection of trucks: Three WiFi-connected, autonomously driving trucks operated on the autobahn with authorisation for public traffic as a so-called platoon. Such a combination can reduce fuel consumption by up to seven percent and …
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., or GA-ASI, the San Diego-based company that makes the Predator and Reaper drones, is undertaking a privately funded study to integrate a 150-kilowatt solid-state laser onto its Avenger drone. If the company succeeds, a drone with a high-energy laser will be a reality at some point in 2017. Patrick Tucker, …
Researchers combine constraints on galaxy formation histories with planet formation models, yielding the Earth-like and giant planet formation histories of the Milky Way and the Universe as a whole. In the Hubble Volume (10^13 Mpc3 ), we expect there to be ∼ 10^20 Earth-like and ∼ 10^20 giant planets; our own galaxy is expected to …
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 …
Melanoma is the fifth most common cancer type in the United States, and it’s also the deadliest form of skin cancer, causing more than 75 percent of skin-cancer deaths. If caught early enough though, it is almost always curable. Now a camera, capable of taking snapshots of the entire human body and rendering high-resolution images …
A little change in temperature makes a big difference for growing a new generation of hybrid atomic-layer structures, according to scientists at Rice University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University and Pennsylvania State University. Rice scientists led the first single-step growth of self-assembled hybrid layers made of two elements that can either be side by …
The Congressional Research Service has a 42 page report China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States China’s economic rise has significant implications for the United States and hence is of major interest to Congress. On the one hand, China is a large (and potentially huge) export market for the United …
Brian Wang is participating in another season of the Good Judgement Project. The Good Judgment Project is a four-year research study organized as part of a government-sponsored forecasting tournament. Thousands of people around the world predict global events. Their collective forecasts are surprisingly accurate. The latest season started August 20th. I was provided with $50,000 …
Brad Templeton discusses how low speed self driving cars like the recent Google self driving pods could bring ten minute access to downtown areas by an additional 1 to 2 miles. When you have skyscraper density, as in downtowns and most of Manhattan, there is much greater density of retail streets, and everybody is close …
The Washington Post reports that Dwave has a 1000 qubit quantum computer in their lab. The Washington Post interviewed Jeremy Hilton, D-Wave’s vice president of processor development. Jeremy has been at the company since 2000. Right now, we [Dwave Systems] have a 1000 qubit processor in our lab. Dwave has a plan to release it …