[Business Week] Defying the U.S. and Europe is forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to aid his biggest rival to the east. To avert a recession, Russia is turning to China for investment, granting it once restricted access to raw materials and advanced weapons. Russia is likely to sign contracts for the delivery of S-400 missile …
Superconductors.ORG herein reports the discovery of a new material that exhibits record superconductivity above 95 Celsius (203F, 368K). Its chemical formula is Sn5Sb5Ba2MnCu11O22+. This copper-oxide ceramic stands out among the 20 room-temperature superconductors discovered so far. Being non-toxic and non-brittle, it is RoHS compliant as well as more durable than previous formulations. A Meissner transition …
Dana Andrews looks at a minimum transit speed of 2 percent of the speed of light (fifty years per light year) for an interstellar generation ship. This makes for transit times in the neighborhood of hundreds of years, depending on destination. A key requirement is the ability to decelerate and rendezvous with the destination planet …
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong has a net worth of about $12 billion. Soon-Shiong’s grand new project promises the closest thing that Earth has ever had to Star Trek’s fabled tricorder. In theory it will work like this: A cancer patient will arrive at the hospital for diagnosis. Everything from her DNA to the proteins in her …
Fujitsu and the Riken research center have been chosen to develop an exascale supercomputer, which at 1,000 petaflops would be about 30 times faster than the leading supercomputer today. The Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science did not specify a performance speed or other characteristics of the machine, which it is calling the FLAGSHIP 2020 …
Tesla boss Elon Musk told CNN Money that the self-driving car — or “autopilot,” is just months away from retail. Autonomous cars will definitely be a reality. A Tesla car next year will probably be 90 percent capable of autopilot. Like, so 90 percent of your miles can be on auto. For sure highway travel. …
The Carnival of Space 370 is up at the Venus Transit. Plate tectonics may increase chances for life on Europa The icy surface may be connected to the ocean below; plate tectonics can provide a way for nutrients to be carried from the surface down into the waters below, just as they do on Earth. …
Poet Technologies (market value $220 million) is claiming that gallium arsenide computer chips will finally be ready to drive computer performance as silicon is hitting the wall. The gallium arsenide integrated circuit market is forecasted to grow to $8 billion in 2017, according to a new report ‘The GaAs IC Market’ by The Information Network. …
Paul March is one of the NASA researchers who did the work on the EMdrive, Q drive and Woodward Mach effect propulsion. Paul has some comments about how they did not make a simple thermal error in discussion at Talk Polywell. Most of the observed forces in the Eagleworks Lab frustum devices were prompt with …
Scotia Bank of Canada has a 14 page currency forecast which looks at most major and minor currencies into 2015 by quarter. Here is a copy of the Scotiabank 2012 currency forecast The US Dollar (USD) is in high demand, outperforming most major peer currencies around the world. Convergence of solid macroeconomic developments and bullish …
Google’s health and antiaging startup, Calico, is teaming up with biotechnology drugmaker AbbVie in a $500 million joint venture that will try to develop new ways to treat cancer and other diseases such as Alzheimer’s. AbbVie and Calico announced a novel R and D collaboration intended to help the two companies discover, develop and bring …