The World Future Society makes forecasts which show that the forecasters do not seem to really understand some of the technology that they are forecasting. Forecast #2: The era of the Cyborg is at hand. Researchers in Israel have fashioned a “bio-computer” using the DNA of living cells instead of silicon chips. This development may …
Walmart targets selling 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs each year by 2008 If it succeeds in selling 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs a year by 2008, total sales of the bulbs in the United States would increase by 50 percent, saving Americans $3 billion in electricity costs and 3 million tons of greenhouse gas per …
Lifeboat has published an interesting view of what the world energy situation could look like in 2020 It was written by Jose Luis Cordeiro, M.Sc., MBA Some main things envisions being developed: Cars with electrical engines with nanobatteries for hybrid cars with flexi-fuel engines. (EFH electric-flex-hybrid” cars) Synthetic bacteria that efficiently produced hydrocarbons from carbon …
Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have used advanced brain imaging techniques to show that remembering the past and envisioning the future may go hand-in-hand, with each process sparking strikingly similar patterns of activity within precisely the same broad network of brain regions. First, the study clearly demonstrates that the neural network underlying future …
DNA computers are likely more than a decade away so they will not be used and minimally useful. The performance will probably not be more than traditional computers of that time and for massively parallel comparison searches it will be faster to use quantum computers. Analog Quantum computers should start to see introduction in 2007 …
Stem cells used to grow teeth in animal models Utilizing stem cells harvested from the extracted wisdom teeth of 18- to 20-year olds, Shi and colleagues have created sufficient root and ligament structure to support a crown restoration in their animal model. The resulting tooth restoration closely resembled the original tooth in function and strength. …
Researchers in Switzerland have developed a new technique for joining nanotubes. One technique, called “nanorobotic” spot welding, uses molten copper to join up objects in the same way that a human electrician might use solder. They position 50-nanometre-wide carbon nanotube filled with copper inside a nanorobotic manipulator, and run a small voltage through it to …
The nano-cables developed by Takanori Fukushita of Tokyo Japan are 16 nanometres in diameter and several micrometres long. They resemble the light-harvesting antennae used by some bacteria and transform light into electricity in a similar way to the semiconductors in solar panels, albeit on a much smaller scale. “This is the first example of a …
If all the cars and light trucks in the nation switched from oil to electrons, idle capacity in the existing electric power system could generate most of the electricity consumed by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. A new study for the Department of Energy finds that “off-peak” electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent …
Centauri dreams has a couple of interesting articles about near term solar sails. Gregory Benford (University of California at Irvine) and his brother James (Microwave Sciences) have solar sail with a painted polymer layer that desorp from the sail as extra propulsion The solar sail could be deployed in low Earth orbit by conventional rocket. …
New light physics with plasmons that could bridge light, matter and electronics. Plasmon computers could operate at 100 Terahertz – 1000 terahertz or 20,000 to 200,000 times faster than mainstream computer chips. Part of what I think is the growing trend of greater control of all information, light, energy, matter and magnetism. (ILEMM) Two-dimensional light, …