Next Generation Heat Pumps Are Ready to Scale and Save Over $500/Year Household Heating

Commercial heat pump makers have developed next generation cold climate heat pumps. Next-generation cold-climate heat pumps—a key clean energy technology that can potentially save households $500 a year or more on their utility bills while also slashing harmful carbon emissions. The DOE Challenge specifies that prototypes deliver 100% heating capacity without the use of auxiliary …

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Cost effective proposal for rail in California and from Boston to Washington

Significant improvements to the trip times of the San Diego to Los Angeles rail connection could be affordably made. Alon Levy is a public transportation expert and writer at Pedestrian Observations. He described what could be done for California and on the east coast. The Los Angeles-San Diego corridor is 128 miles long and mosty …

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CRISPR gene editing is undergoing rapid development and improvement

Applications of the genome editing system CRISPR are appearing at a furious pace, and gathering momentum toward therapeutic use in human cells. Indeed, Chinese scientists recently began a human clinical trial using CRISPR-edited cells to fight lung cancer, and U.S. clinical trials are slated to begin in 2017. But leading up to this exciting milestone, …

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China will have pre-exaFLOP prototype supercomputer in 2017 which is preparation for an exaFLOP supercomputer in 2020

China is planning to develop a prototype of an exascale computer, considered the next frontier of supercomputers, by the end of 2017, according to a developer Tuesday. EArly in 2016, China had announced plans to build three different pre-exascale systems with three very different architectures, according to some Tweets put out by James Lin, vice …

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What does being on track for the predicted Technological Singularity mean and are we on track ?

Ray Kurzweil is famous for his vision and prediction of a Technological Singularity by 2049 Although whenever Ray predicts a date like 2049, based on Kurzweil’s own past reviews of his predictions, he gives his predictions ten years late or early to develop. So by Ray’s personal standard his prediction timing of being correct on …

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China installed anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems on all seven major artificial south china sea islands

China appears to have built significant point-defense capabilities, in the form of large anti-aircraft guns and probable close-in weapons systems (CIWS), at each of its outposts in the Spratly Islands. AMTI began tracking the construction of identical, hexagon-shaped structures at Fiery Cross, Mischief, and Subi Reefs in June and July. It now seems that these …

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US Navy has Autonomous Swarmboats

Autonomous unmanned swarming boats were put through their paces in a recent demonstration in the lower Chesapeake Bay—with results that show dramatic new possibilities for autonomy in future naval missions. Using a unique combination of software, radar and other sensors, officials from the Office of Naval Research (ONR)—together with partners from industry, academia and other …

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German Nuclear Fusion Stellerator operating with error rate of less than one in 100,000

A team of researchers from the US and Germany have now confirmed that the Wendelstein 7-X (W 7-X) stellerator is producing the super-strong, twisty, 3D magnetic fields that its design predicted, with “unprecedented accuracy”. The researchers found an error rate less than one in 100,000. “To our knowledge, this is an unprecedented accuracy, both in …

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New material could lead to erasable and rewriteable optical chip

A military drone flying on a reconnaissance mission is captured behind enemy lines, setting into motion a team of engineers who need to remotely delete sensitive information carried on the drone’s chips. Because the chips are optical and not electronic, the engineers can now simply flash a beam of UV light onto the chip to …

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