Wired Danger Room – Last year Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the J-20 wouldn’t be ready until at least 2020. Now, the Pentagon’s top China official has now revised that estimate. The J-20, China’s first stealth jet, will be operationally ready “no sooner than 2018,” David Helvey, deputy secretary of defense for East Asia and …
Technologies that I expect to see having a lot of progress in the 2012-2016 timeframe should see each of the technologies enabling more improvement in the other technologies in the 2014-2019 timeframes. The exact timeframes would depend upon how fast leaders in one technological area are able to incorporate advances from other areas. The whole …
Sources: Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China, IMF; as of 03/05/2012. IMF estimated growth rates are based on constant 1990 prices in Chinese yuan Fisher Investments writing at theStreet. Historically, China’s official growth target has been the lower bound of a range — an easily attainable threshold they can boast of beating …
Global water scarcity presents a grave challenge to continued human development and sustainability. The answer, however, is to use more water, not less. In order to do this, a dramatic technological breakthrough in desalination is necessary. This presentation describes the beginning of that effort. Rob McGinnis is Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer of Oasys Water …
With guidance from the Navy (SF) and Army (Picatinnay Arsenal ARDEC) Howe and Howe Technologies have developed an amphibious version of the highly acclaimed UGV Ripsaw platform apply name ‘Riptide’. Possessing 90% of Ripsaw’s terrestrial capability coupled with the newly added high speed marine capability, Riptide will become a valuable tool in any arsenal and …
Arxiv – Researchers demonstrate a proof-of-concept experiment that microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) can be actuated using photoelectrowetting. In order to demonstrate this, a 30 micron thick aluminum cantilever is actuated using an ordinary white light source. A deflection of 56 microns is observed using a light irradiance equal to approx 1000 W m-2 at a bias …
Nanoletters – Individual GaN Nanowires Exhibit Strong Piezoelectricity in 3D Semiconductor GaN NWs are promising components in next generation nano- and optoelectronic systems. In addition to their direct band gap, they exhibit piezoelectricity, which renders them particularly attractive in energy harvesting applications for self-powered devices. Nanowires are often considered as one-dimensional nanostructures; however, the electromechanical …
Economist- China raised its rural poverty line to 2,300 yuan a year. The World Bank’s poverty line is not set at market exchange rates. It’s $1.25 in 2005 Purchasing-Power-Parity (PPP) dollars. According to the World Bank, 5.46 yuan in China in 2005 stretched about as far as $1.33 in America in the same year. (That’s …
FightAging – a cancer immune therapy pioneered by Zheng Cui that involves transplanting granulocytes from suitable donors – performed very well indeed in mice, superbly in fact, but only the one anemic human trial is underway in the US. Now the treatment is available in Mexico and has reportedly cured at least one patient. This …
Interesting polling indicates that while Ron Paul only has 8% of the Republican nomination vote, he would get 18% in a three way race between Obama, Romney and him. NBC/WSJ polled multiple hypothetical matchups between the candidates in the 2012 presidential general election. The head-to-head matchup between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney shows Obama …
1. Businessweek – China may cut its 2020 nuclear power capacity goal by about 10 percent under a revised development plan to be announced this year. Li Yongjiang, vice president of the China Nuclear Energy Association, said “Capacity will fall somewhere between 60 and 70 gigawatts, as some planned projects have to be scaled back …