A new kind of nanoscale rectenna (half antenna and half rectifier) can convert solar and infrared into electricity, plus be tuned to nearly any other frequency as a detector. Right now efficiency is only one percent, but professor Baratunde Cola and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech, Atlanta) convincingly argue that they …
The Military Balance is The International Institute for Strategic Studies’ (IISS) annual assessment of the military capabilities and defence economics of 171 countries worldwide. France and Germany have seen a 25% drop in the value of the Euro since 2014 (1.38 down to 1.1). The Euro is expected to drop another 5% or so relative …
China announced an official 2015 military budget of $145 billion, which is a 10.1% increase from 2014. The Pentagon and global arms bodies estimate China’s actual military spending may be anywhere from 40 to 50 percent more because the official budget doesn’t include the costs of high-tech weapons imports, research and development, and other programs. …
Rehabilitation experts at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine hope to one day give people with an arm amputation a prosthetic limb that not only moves like a natural one, but “feels” like it, too. They expect such sensation will improve dexterous control of the device and give users greater intuition about what they …
The cornea transparent ‘window’ on the front of the eye that allows the light to enter. Stem cells from the dental pulp of wisdom teeth can be coaxed to turn into cells of the eye’s cornea and could one day be used to repair corneal scarring due to infection or injury, according to researchers at …
Hyve 3D creates virtual reality environments without needing visors like Oculus Rift The 3D images are the result of an optical illusion created by a widescreen high-resolution projector, a specially designed 5 meter-diameter spherically concave fabric screen and a 16-inch dome mirror projecting the image onto the screen. The system is driven by a MacBook …
Arxiv – Reexamining classical and quantum models for the D-Wave One processor (18 pages) USC Researchers revisit the evidence for quantum annealing in the D-Wave One device (DW1) based on the study of random Ising instances. Using the probability distributions of finding the ground states of such instances, previous work found agreement with both simulated …
On March 9, 1945, B-29 bombers in the U.S. Air Force began dropping incendiary bombs on the city of Tokyo. This raid, known as “Operation Meetinghouse,” caused incredible destruction, killing perhaps 100,000 people aand burning out fifteen square miles of the city. Incendiary bombings continued in the months to come, targeting other Japanese cities and …
University of Michigan researchers have demonstrated a new, practical and potentially more efficient way to make a coherent laser-like beam using polaritons. This is the first room-temperature electrically pumped polariton laser (other electrically pumped polariton lasers typically operate at cryogenic temperatures). This is most real-world ready polariton lasers ever developed. It represents a milestone like …
The Carnival of Nuclear Energy is up at Atomic Power Review ANS Nuclear Cafe – The Fight To Prevent Nuclear Plant Closures Gathers Steam by Jim Hopf There is increasing concern over the ramifications of possible nuclear plant closures in the United States – and the idea of policy intervention to help prevent them is …
There are two existing freight rail links between China and Europe. One is between Chengdu in Sichuan Province and Lodz in Poland. Another is between Chongqing and Duisburg in Germany. Both were established in recent years. The 9,826 km Chengdu – Lodz link was established in April 2013. Each trip takes 14 days, which is …