Centauri Dreams has a new interview with Friedwardt Winterberg on Starship Design. Note FYI: A reader told me that when they tried to reach this article via a Google news alert they were redirected to a spyware site. Going directly to this article was not a problem. Nextbigfuture has covered the micro-fusion for space propulsion …
This is a brief overview of the current trends toward larger scale genetic engineering of agricultural crops and animals and geoengineering and mega-engineering adaptation to offset or adapt to environmental changes. Primarily these are observations at which solutions are getting significant increases in research and development resources and are getting or are close to being …
NASA is working on smart shape changing helicopter rotors. Twenty years from now, large rotorcraft could be making short hops between cities such as New York and Washington, carrying as many as 100 passengers at a time in comfort and safety. Routine transportation by rotorcraft could help ease air traffic congestion around the nation’s airports. …
Science Fiction had the Armored Personnel Units of the Matrix. Reality has the Auto Assault-12 (AA-12) shotgun (originally designed and known as the Atchisson Assault Shotgun). The AA-12 can fire in semi-automatic or fully automatic mode at 300 rounds per minute (5 every second) and has a magazine of 32 rounds. The AA-12 can fire …
From New Scientist: Intelligence is strongly genetic, that doesn’t mean it cannot be improved. “It’s just the opposite,” says Richard Haier, of the University of California, Irvine, who works with Thompson. “If it’s genetic, it’s biochemical, and we have all kinds of ways of influencing biochemistry.” Myelin integrity is an especially promising target for manipulation, …
If radically improved technologies start arriving and being deployed over the next few years and then continue to be introduced at a faster pace, then almost everyone will not be ready. This site has profiled various technologies that have a possibility of having very disruptive capabilities. If those technologies interact for more rapid dissemination then …
Carnival of Space week 66 is up at a Mars Odyssey This site contributed The article on radiation and nuclear bomb defenses Radiation defense is important for space because there is a lot of radiation in space and a lot of uses for nuclear power. A Babe in the universe talks about Mars water and …
Electric planes do not have to be private (although things will start out that way.)Electric planes (with jumpjet type takeoff and landing) could form a virtual callable personal pod transportation (which have been proposed for cities) but without building the rails. One of the Personal pod transportation proposals is shown here. Current electric planes hold …
Researchers at the University of Sydney have developed technology that could boost the throughput of existing networks by sixty to 100-fold without costing the consumer any more, and its all thanks to a scratch on a piece of glass. After four years of development, University of Sydney scientists say the Internet is set to become …