Army engineers, who are seeking to adapt ongoing research to counter aerial systems that could threaten Soldiers, successfully shot down two aircraft as part of their final technology demonstration. Although the research project began with the objective to counter rockets, artillery and mortars, the project scope was expanded to include threats from unmanned aerial threats, …
Brown University researchers describe a relatively accessible method for making a working – though not thinking – sphere of central nervous system tissue. The advance could provide an inexpensive and easy-to-make 3-D testbed for biomedical research. If you need a working miniature brain — say for drug testing, to test neural tissue transplants, or to …
Kyushu Electric Power Co. will restart one of its nuclear reactors on Oct. 15, making it the second to return to operation after the government introduced stricter safety regulations following the 2011 meltdowns in Fukushima Prefecture, a source familiar with the restart plan said. Kyushu Electric reported its plan to reactivate the No. 2 reactor …
Moscow is modernising or repairing 12 nuclear-powered submarines The modernised nuclear submarines are intended to serve 20 more years. This will maintain operational force levels as the new Project 885M Yasen-class boats enter service. The modernisation program leaves current force levels as low as nine boats across the fleet. Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has …
1. Forbes – James Conca – Is Radiation Necessary For Life? Recent studies on the biological effects of radiation at essentially zero levels of radiation demonstrated that the absence of radiation is not good for organisms. Removing almost all traces of radioactivity from their environment inhibited bacterial growth and caused stress-related genes to turn on. …
Researchers have developed the first non-volatile all-optical chip memory based on phase change material. The technology needed to commercialize this solution already exists and pairing their solution with photonic logic chips will lead to computers that are 100 times faster than currently available machines. Scientists of KIT, the University of Münster, Oxford University, and Exeter …
On Monday, Royal Dutch Shell ended its nine-year effort to explore for oil in the Alaskan Arctic — a $7 billion investment — in another sign that the entire industry is trimming its ambitions in the wake of collapsing oil prices. An oil forecast by Kirk Spano (Bluemound Asset Management) is that oil prices will …
China’s first AP1000 reactor, Sanmen 1, is expected to begin commercial operation in September 2016, while governmental permission is expected for work to start on the first Chinese-designed CAP1400 by the end of this year Sanmen 1, in Zhejiang province, is one of four Westinghouse-designed AP1000s currently under construction in China. Work officially began on …
The UK Ministry of Defence is looking to have a land-based cannon by 2017 and a ship-mounted one by 2020. There were early experiments using lasers to try to blind enemy pilots or to disrupt the electronic systems of planes. But the new types of lasers being developed are intended to destroy, in particular enemy …
Researchers have developed innovative flat, optical lenses as part of a collaboration between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, both in Pasadena, California. These optical components are capable of manipulating light in ways that are difficult or impossible to achieve with conventional optical devices. The new lenses are not made of …
A team including theoretical physicists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has taken another step toward building objects out of photons, and the findings* hint that weightless particles of light can be joined into a sort of “molecule” with its own peculiar force. The findings build on previous research that several team …