GE (General Electric) Hitachi is proposing the Advanced Recycling Center (ARC) which would be the fourth generation PRISM sodium-cooled fast reactors and an electrometallurgical separation process that would make a new form of fuel from spent fuel rods without separating plutonium. The first of kind system they are proposing would cost about $3.2 billion and …
Prof. Leonid Shvartsman and Prof. Boris Laikhtman of the university’s Racah Institute of Physics have invented a novel design of TeraHertz-ray (T-ray) lasers. They said the novel device will have 400 times higher “gain” (a measure of power) than that of the only coherent T-ray sources existing today, called THzQuantum cascade lasers. “The novel method …
Carnegie Mellon University is developing microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) technique he believes will pack three terabits of data in a square inch of a spinning disk. The next big shift in hard disk technology expected to emerge in the next year or two. Seagate Technology has been championing an approach called heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) …
In the Grist article by Amory Lovins: “stewart brands nuclear enthusiasm falls short on facts and logic” In its first half-century, nuclear power fell short of its forecast capacity by about 12-fold in the U.S. and 30-fold worldwide, mainly because building it cost several-fold more than expected, straining or bankrupting its owners This is referring …
1. Graphene enhances titanium dioxide-based batteries. Researchers would like to develop lithium-ion batteries using titanium dioxide, an inexpensive material (instead of rare earth metals which China controls most of the current rare earth metal reserves.). Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Gary Yang and colleagues added graphene, sheets made up of single carbon atoms, …
Two 5-10 nanometer dimers are put together. Single dots of that size put together to form pairs of dots Using DNA to assemble nanoclusters: (a) (1) DNA linker strands (squiggly lines) are used to attach DNA-coated nanoparticles to a surface. (2) Linker strands are attached to the top side of the nanoparticle. (b) (3a) A …
The Economist reviews how China is handling the current crisis. China is taking advantage of some opportunities to gain some more influence at an affordable cost by trading investment and money for more influence. China is being a bit more forward in various international dealings, but is avoiding the generation of unnecessary conflict and tensions. …
Here is a 12 page pdf with supplemental information to the research paper on “Lesion Mapping of Cognitive Abilities Linked to Intelligence”. They identified the parts of the brain that are used for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory and processing speed. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) assesses a wide range of cognitive abilities …
China ended 2008 with a GDP of 30.1 trillion yuan, which is $4.4 trillion at current exchange rates 6.84 to 1 USD. Japan’s GDP for 2008 was 510.2 trillion yen [@98 yen to 1 USD this is $5.2 trillion.] Japan’s GDP dropped at an annual pace of 12.7 percent in the October-December, 2008 period. Japan …
In the picture, cells infected with the new virus have been stained using antibodies. After several other identification techniques failed, the new sequencing approach was used to discover a never-before-seen virus that was likely responsible for the deaths of three transplant patients who received organs from the same donor. As many as 40 percent of …
MORE NEWS There is a separate North Dakota study of the Bakken and a link to where the state publishes online reports of completed wells and wells with reported production. A bunch of wells were reported on April 28, 2008. BREAKING NEWS Well my guess was far to optimistic. The USGS 2008 figure was 3.65 …