General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., or GA-ASI, the San Diego-based company that makes the Predator and Reaper drones, is undertaking a privately funded study to integrate a 150-kilowatt solid-state laser onto its Avenger drone. If the company succeeds, a drone with a high-energy laser will be a reality at some point in 2017. Patrick Tucker, …
India, the second most populous nation in the world, is in the midst of a $100-billion defense upgrade program. India cleared proposals worth nearly $3.5 billion in June. In the last half of 2014, $19 billion in military procurement was approved. India is the world’s largest arms importer with the United States recently overtaking Russia …
The United States Navy’s Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program is to develop an aircraft carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle to provide an unmanned intelligence and strike asset to the fleet. The UCLASS will be “an autonomous aircraft capable of precision strike in a contested environment, and it is expected to grow and expand …
Solid Energy Systems is developing “Anode-less” battery designs with ultra-thin metal anode improves the cell-level energy density by 50% compared to graphite anodes and 30% compared to silicon-composite anodes. It would be a new kind of lithium-ion battery that could let portable electronics such as smartphones and smart watches last twice as long between charges. …
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering have created the first transistors made of silicene, the world’s thinnest silicon material. Their research holds the promise of building dramatically faster, smaller and more efficient computer chips. Made of a one-atom-thick layer of silicon atoms, silicene has outstanding electrical properties but has …
India needs to invest $250 billion over the next five years to tackle chronic energy shortages and provide power for all its 1.2 billion people, Power Minister Piyush Goyal said. Nearly 40 percent of India’s 1.2 billion residents do not have access to reliable electricity, a gap that President Modi has pledged to eliminate in …
Sometime in the next few decades, humans may be able to regrow a finger here, a toe there – and maybe even fresh patches of beating heart tissue. Human hearts are among the most promising targets: “Fifteen years ago we would have said 50 years, but it could be as soon as 10 years from …
Tesla Motors announced that it has paid off the entire loan awarded to the company by the Department of Energy in 2010. In addition to payments made in 2012 and Q1 2013, today’s wire of almost half a billion dollars ($451.8M) repays the full loan facility with interest. Following this payment, Tesla will be the …
Arxiv – the Casimir e ffect may serve as a mechanism to mediate higher dimensional stability, and also as a possible mechanism for creating a small but non-zero vacuum energy density. Chapters of 120 page dissertation on Casimir effect 1. we review the nature of the quantum vacuum and discuss the diff erent contributions to …
Virginia Tech researchers liberates high-purity hydrogen under mild reaction conditions at 122 degree Fahrenheit and normal atmospheric pressure. The biocatalysts used to release the hydrogen are a group of enzymes artificially isolated from different microorganisms that thrive at extreme temperatures, some of which could grow at around the boiling point of water. This discovery is …
The Navy is funding EMC2 an additional $5.3 million over next 2 years to work on the problem of pumping electrons into the Polywell. Big new pulsed power supply to support the electron guns (100+A, 10kV). WB-8 has been operating at 0.8 Tesla (8 times stronger magnetic field than any previous version). There was a …