Charlie Strossberg wrote an article indicating the difficult and in his view impossible challenges of space colonization It is also pointed to from Centauri dreams There are several problems with it 1. failure of a science fiction author to figure out a technological way forward is a flaw in the science fiction author not in …
Australia has tested a hypersonic scramjet that exceeded mach 10. They went at about 6850 mph. Scramjet principles are described here at wikipedia Scramjet programs are listed and described here The fastest US test was the the third X-43 flight. It set a then speed record of 6,600 mph (10,620 km/h), [about mach 9] on …
A company Wildhorse is going to study extracting Uranium from coal flyash. From the 50 million tons/year of flyash that is generated in Europe, there is 100 to 300 ppm uranium. This would be 5,000 to 15000 tons of Uranium that could be recovered. The US generates over 100 million tons of flyash each year …
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said his company plans to roll out a new cable modem that delivers 150 megabits per second (Mbps) of bandwidth. It seems a 2008 trial and start of rollout is likely It is a DOCSIS 3.0 modem. DOCSIS information is here at wikipedia A recent study predicted that by 2011, DOCSIS …
From the New Scientist, a pocket-sized device that runs on two AA batteries and copies DNA as accurately as expensive lab equipment has been developed by researchers in the US. The DNA-copying device runs off two AA batteries (Image: Victor Ugaz/Angewandte Chemie) The device has no moving parts and costs just $10 to make. It …
Loss of only one of the genes, a gene encoding the protein PHA-4, negated the lifespan-enhancing effect of calorie-restriction in worms. And, when researchers undertook the opposite experiment—by overexpressing pha-4 in worms—the longevity effect was enhanced. “PHA-4 acts completely independent of insulin/IGF-1 signaling and turns out to be essential for CR-mediated longevity,” says Panowski. “We …
The Brookhaven group uses magnetism to manipulate spin in graphene, a material consisting of flat sheets of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern. They’ve proposed ways to make materials consisting of layers of graphene mated to magnetic and nonmagnetic layers. These “graphene-magnet multilayers” (GMMs) are expected to retain their properties at room temperature, an …
Generating electricity from renewable sources will soon become as easy as putting a brush and a tube in a tub of wastewater. A carbon fiber, bottle-brush anode developed by Penn State researchers will provide more than enough surface for bacteria to colonize, for the first time making it possible to use microbial fuel cells for …
It is projected that in 2012-2015 a trillion RFID tags will be made each year. In 2010, 33 billion RFID tags/year up from 1.3 billion in 2005. In February 2007, Hitachi announced new RFID tags are that 0.05 x 0.05 mm, which will be available in 2-3 years. The smallest RFID tags currently available are …
NASA will likely shut down its Institute for Advanced Concepts, which funds research into futuristic ideas in spaceflight and aeronautics in August 2007 unless there is budgetary change. I hope they do not shutdown the NIAC because it is doing fantastic work. Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger …
I want to create a new term, media equivalence, for debates about the problems of civilization, technology and society. We currently have the term moral equivalence From wikipedia, moral equivalence is a term used in political debate, usually to characterize in a negative way the claim that there can be no moral or ethical hierarchy …