On the Apollo missions, only 1/601 of the mass sent into space returned. An Orion mission to Mars would return 1/2.5 of its mass and a mission to Saturn would return 1/6 of its mass. In 1958 dollars, an Orion mission would have cost 11 cents per kilogram sent into space, while in 2005 dollars, …
Viruses can be now detected in fluids and their detection is of major importance in medical diagnostics. However, despite these recent advances, current assays are time consuming and labour intensive. Professor Hegner’s research shows a more efficient and practical system in detecting the viruses by using micro-sized cantilevers to directly detect viruses binding to membrane …
In the case of lonsdaleite [hexagonla diamond], compression mechanism also caused bond-flipping, yielding an indentation strength of 152 GPa, which is 58 percent higher than the corresponding value of diamond. viaPhysorg.com Under large compressive pressures, w-BN [wurtzite boron nitride] increases its strength by 78 percent compared with its strength before bond-flipping. The scientists calculated that …
Dwave System reports that three Rainier (128 qubit) 1st silicon chips are on their way to 10mK. On two of them we are doing device-level testing, the third has a full 8-qubit unit cell with all the programmable control circuitry bells and whistles. From the last coverage on Dwave D-Wave plans to have a 1,000-qubit …
The judge is tossing the positive drug tests and the calendars of drug test supposedly related to Barry Bonds. The prosecution just will have a tape recording of Anderson talking about injecting someone with performance enhancers. Here is the link to the transcript of that conversation. Lawyers for Bonds, who goes on trial next month …
The Talk Polywell has been analyzing the latest Navy project for the Inertial Electrostatic (Bussard/IEC) fusion effort. * The contractor will modify/upgrade the existing wiffleball #7 (WB-7) device by installing compact, high temperature coil joints to investigate the electron parallel heat loss. This modified device shall hereafter be identified as Wiffleball #7.1 (WB-7.1). * The …
The carnival of space #87 is up at Martian chronicles. This site contributed one of the article on Cambridge Universities new carbon nanotube ribbons that are 4 to 5 times stronger than Kevlar Martian Chronicles discussed the methane discovered in three locations on Mars which is likely from some kind of microbial life. Discovery had …
Carbon nanotube fiber on spindle from Alan Windle group. 2007 picture the Times UK claims Alan Windle’s team at Cambridge University has created the world’s strongest ribbon: a cylindrical strand of carbon that combines lightweight flexibility with incredible strength and has the potential to stretch vast distances. The Cambridge team is making about 1 gram …
1. The Department of Energy’s (DoE) Office of the Inspector General (IG) has concluded that the DoE has not followed through adequately on various promising potential applications for depleted Uranium. The DoE should do more to avoid having to treat the entire inventory as waste, according to the department’s own internal watchdog. The DoE has …
Zombie PCs are getting smarter and harder to track down, according to security software vendor Commtouch. This is a early hint of a world with more advanced artificial intelligence (AI). The AI could be used for good or bad and could themselves be good or bad. Hackers and malware are targeting new cloud computing and …
The Edge 2009 Annual question was asked and answered by 150 noted people. The question was: What will change everything ? What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see? There are various interpretations of the question and the answers contained various interpretations. Variations on “change everything” and “game-changing”. 1. What …