IARPA seeking improved superconducting qubits and fault diagnostics and annealing test beds

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) hosted a Proposers’ Day Conference for the QEO [Quantum Enhanced Optimization] program on October 26, 2015, in anticipation of the release of a new solicitation. Quantum Enhanced Optimization Program Description and Goals QEO seeks to harness quantum effects required to enhance quantum annealing solutions to hard combinatorial optimization …

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Will World War 3 have a lot of similarities to World War 1 and the Russian-Ottoman wars of the 1700s and 1800s

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is meeting his French opposite number, Francois Hollande, Thursday evening, as France seems keener than ever to bring Russia in from the cold to join its anti-Islamic State (IS) coalition force. The meeting is going ahead as Russia and Turkey are embroiled in tit-for-tat recriminations over the downing of a Russian …

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DARPA to Start Testing an Robot Submarine-Hunting Drone that will be 50 times cheaper than a Destroyer

Early in 2016, DARPA will begin testing a 132-foot unmanned submarine-hunting ocean drone in San Diego. The Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUCV) will be a persistent sub hunter similar to an underwater Predator drone. The 132-foot-long, 140-ton ACTUV is being built by Leidos at the Vigor Shipyard [formerly Oregon Iron Works] in Clackamas, …

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Russia’s big plans to modernize their nuclear powered submarines

Moscow is modernising or repairing 12 nuclear-powered submarines The modernised nuclear submarines are intended to serve 20 more years. This will maintain operational force levels as the new Project 885M Yasen-class boats enter service. The modernisation program leaves current force levels as low as nine boats across the fleet. Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has …

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Pakistan reported to be building 20 nuclear missiles each year, which will likely trigger nuclear arms race with India and China

A new report by two American think tanks asserts that Pakistan may be building 20 nuclear warheads annually and could have the world’s third-largest nuclear stockpile within a decade. Pakistan could have at least 350 nuclear weapons within five to 10 years, the report concludes. Pakistan then would probably possess more nuclear weapons than any …

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Japan’s aging population has already abandoned 8 million houses and could abandon 21 million by 2033

Population decline in Japan is so serious that parts of the country may be ghost towns in less than 20 years. More than 8 million homes are already empty, and that number may reach 21.5 million by 2033, or about one-third of the nation’s housing stock, Nomura Research Institute forecasts. Wooden houses account for more …

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Pluto moon Hydra imaged as a potato-shaped moon measuring 43 by 33 kilometers

Since its discovery in 2005, Pluto’s moon Hydra has been known only as a fuzzy dot of uncertain shape, size, and reflectivity. Imaging obtained during New Horizons’ historic transit of the Pluto-Charon system and transmitted to Earth early this morning has definitively resolved these fundamental properties of Pluto’s outermost moon. Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) …

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It was foolish for the USA to ask Allied Countries to Walk away from tens of billions in infrastructure projects

Close allies of the USA such as Australia and South Korea have refrained from joining the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) under U.S. pressure. They actually have been “disadvantaged” by their loyalty. Most likely, these and other countries in the Asia-Pacific will switch course and join the AIIB in due time. The major European countries …

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Germanium ferroelectric gate could extend Moore’s law past 2028

Universal memory replacing DRAM, SRAM, flash and nearly every transistor in a computer may result from their successful fabrication of a ferroelectric gate over germanium channel material, according to researchers at the University of Texas (Austin). Their successful ferroelectric gate stack holds the hope of extending Moore’s Law beyond the end of the International Technology …

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What would be the most efficient and effective way to apply the Wyatt Earp Strategy to Extreme Islam ?

The Wyatt Earp approach would certainly be the most satisfying approach to the problem of extreme Islam. What would be the most effective and efficient methods for implementation ? The West would seem to have the technology and capability to implement a larger scale version of the Mossad response to the Munich Olympic attack. Operation …

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Terrestrial Energy working with Oak Ridge National Lab on molten salt reactor design

Canadian company Terrestrial Energy is to collaborate with the USA’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to develop its molten salt reactor to the engineering blueprint stage. Molten salt reactors (MSRs) use fuel dissolved in a molten fluoride or chloride salt. As an MSR fuel salt is a liquid, it functions as both the fuel (producing …

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