China’s EMDrive research lead confident EMDrive will work in satellites and the race to prove EMDrive and Cannae drives in space and then commercialize

China’s space agency has officially confirmed that it has been funding research into the controversial space propulsion technology EmDrive, and that it plans to add the technology to Chinese satellites imminently. The China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), a subsidiary of the Chinese Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and the manufacturer of the Dong …

Read more

US Navy plans for scaling Free electron lasers to megawatt weapon systems

There is a US Navy paper – Vision for Directed Energy and Electric Weapons In the Current and Future Navy which describes the Navy’s thinking on laser weapons Laser weapons enable delivery of scalable levels of energy at both tactically and strategically relevant distances enabling the accomplishment of new missions and generating entirely new classes …

Read more

Flexible organic solar cells with record 10.8% efficiency

Researchers from North Carolina State University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have found that temperature-controlled aggregation in a family of new semi-conducting polymers is the key to creating highly efficient organic solar cells that can be mass produced more cheaply. Their findings also open the door to experimentation with different chemical mixtures …

Read more

Design principles of the assistive soft exosuit

Harvard published details of their soft exosuit that they are making with DARPA funding. A soft lower-extremity robotic exosuit is intended to augment normal muscle function in healthy individuals. Compared to previous exoskeletons, the device is ultra-lightweight, resulting in low mechanical impedance and inertia. The exosuit has custom McKibben style pneumatic actuators that can assist …

Read more

Design principles of the assistive soft exosuit

Harvard published details of their soft exosuit that they are making with DARPA funding. A soft lower-extremity robotic exosuit is intended to augment normal muscle function in healthy individuals. Compared to previous exoskeletons, the device is ultra-lightweight, resulting in low mechanical impedance and inertia. The exosuit has custom McKibben style pneumatic actuators that can assist …

Read more

Bureaucracy and hurdles for attempting to reduce excess carbon or feed the people

Iron Fertilization sequesters carbon An international research team has published the results of an ocean iron fertilization experiment (EIFEX) carried out in 2004 in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature. Unlike the LOHAFEX experiment carried out in 2009, EIFEX has shown that a substantial proportion of carbon from the induced algal bloom sank …

Read more

Brain Implantable Device to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI)

Investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) today announced a new research initiative designed to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and other neurological and psychiatric disorders. The goal of the project, which is made possible by a $30 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is to design and …

Read more

SETI will likely find intelligent life in the next 20 years if it exists predicts Seth Shostak

Answers about Intelligent Alien Life should come within 20 years, astronomers told members of a Congressional science committee. A three-way race is under way to learn if life exists elsewhere in the solar system or beyond, Seth Shostak, senior astronomer with the California-based SETI Institute, said during a hearing before the House Science and Technology …

Read more

New Nanotechnology Solutions from Eric Drexler

108 pages of new nanotechnology solutions from Eric Drexler and Dennis Pamlin written in May 2013. The key development for the 21st century is advanced, atomically precise manufacturing (APM). This report examines the potential for nanotechnology to enable deeply transformative production technologies that can be developed through a series of advances that build on current …

Read more

Ultrafast photodetector could lead to increased fiber optical broadband speeds

Photodiodes, or photodetectors, are key components of fiber-optical broadband networks: they convert light to electrical signals. The inability to efficiently fabricate these detectors directly onto silicon chips has hindered faster broadband speeds thus far. Using thin films of germanium and silicon, a research team at the A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics has developed an ultrafast photodetector …

Read more