Falcon HTV-3X The Blackswift Hypersonic program may not get fully funded for the $750 million that it needs, but the program has a lot of interesting technology and innovations for greater efficiency. This technology and innovations are discussed below. Making a scramjet rocket would be a better program to fund for space access. A scramjet …
A fluorescent image of the cell taken four hours into the same experiment. At this time the quantum dot-siRNA complex is distributed throughout the cellular fluid. The dark region in the middle of the cell is the nucleus. Credit: University of Washington New work helps to overcome a long standing barrier in the siRNA (silence/turn …
The Defense Science Board will examine how the Defense Department could benefit from scientific breakthroughs in the field of synthetic biology. John Young, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, wants DSB members to “survey” developments in biotechnology and “attempt to project transition paths from research into current and future defense applications,” …
From Yahoo Sports: The surgery on meniscus in Tiger Wood’s left knee in April didn’t work as well as hope. One knee expert, while obviously not privy to the medical records, watched Woods this weekend and saw trouble. This is not a story related to a “big future”, but it is science and medicine related …
Hitachi Maxell Ltd (6810.T) gained 6.5 percent. A spokesman there confirmed a Nikkei evening edition report that it is aiming to commercialise a longer-lasting [perhaps 20 times longer], cheaper lithium-ion battery in the next three to four years that substitutes expensive cobalt with manganese. Hybrid Technologies has new superlattice li-ion batteries that can power an …
To make a 2.4-metre mirror like Hubble’s, Chen estimates the recipe would call for about 600 kilograms (1300 pounds) of Moon dust, 60 kg (130 pounds) of epoxy, 6 kg (13 pounds) of carbon nanotubes and less than a gram of aluminium. So bring 66kg of material to make something about ten times as heavy. …
SUNRGI’s “concentrated photovoltaic” system relies on lenses to magnify sunlight 2,000 times, letting it produce as much electricity as standard panels with a far smaller system. They say they’ll start producing solar panels by mid-2009 that will generate electricity for about 7 cents a kilowatt hour, including installation. Update: Very cool: Dilbert blog [Scott Adams] …
Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen is focusing on municipal solar power plants of 2 – 10 megawatts in size. Companies have come to realize that they can avoid most of the bureaucratic snags involved in building plants that produce over 50 megawatts. Furthermore, by grouping their panels into small lots, they’ve been able to grab small …
The largest road safety research project ever launched in Europe will usher in a series of powerful road-safety systems for European cars. But, in the long term, its basic, experimental research could lead to a car that is virtually uncrashable. The technology would be pushed to make crashes increasingly unlikely and mitigate crashes when they …
Xiang Zhang (on of the makers of the UV light hyperlens: Theoretically, the biggest obstacle [to progress on visible light hyperlens] is the inevitable loss in the metamaterials. This means that — to obtain reasonable transmission — the hyperlens can’t be very bulky; this will limit the magnification and imaging area …. Low loss metals …
The Carnival of Space 34 is up at Rainer Gerhards space launch blog. I provided my updated look at the status of scramjets Colony Worlds considers gravity suits for offworld children A Babe in the Universe reports on the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission to study the moon There is a lot of speculation …