Researchers have built a sheet of nickel with nanoscale pores that make it as strong as titanium but four to five times lighter. Titanium is as strong as steel but about twice as light. This new material is strong as steel but ten times lighter. The empty space of the pores, and the self-assembly process …
Hypersonic glide vehicles are a growing factor in strategic stability calculations. These systems are characterized by speed, precision and manoeuvrability, which can be applied to defeat missile defences. Traditional calculations of strategic stability rely on the ability to undermine an opponent’s nuclear deterrent capability, and hypersonic glide vehicles are seen as providing this assurance. On …
Adam Crowl describes the magnitude (telescope visibility) of new planets in our solar system. Currently the Pan-STARRS1 Sky Survey is trying to capture everything that can be seen from Hawaii down to a magnitude of +22. Eventually Pan-STARRS hopes to push down to +24 in magnitude, which *might* capture Planet Nine, if Pan-STARRS sees its …
Researchers from Columbia Engineering and the Georgia Institute of Technology report today that they have made the first experimental observation of piezoelectricity and the piezotronic effect in an atomically thin material, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), resulting in a unique electric generator and mechanosensation devices that are optically transparent, extremely light, and very bendable and stretcha Piezoelectricity …
The crowdfunding campaign of LPPFusion, Inc. and the Focus Fusion Society was a great success, raising $182,000, or 91% of our original goal of $200,000. (This includes $2,000 in Bitcoins not counted in the number on the Indiegogo website.) We received contributions from 1,923 individuals, many of whom gave more than once. The campaign greatly …
DBS Bank and IBM today announced an agreement in which DBS will deploy IBM’s Watson cognitive computing innovation to deliver a next- generation client experience. This collaboration is part of an ongoing journey by DBS to shape the future of banking. For a start, DBS intends to apply Watson to its wealth management business to …
UK-based New Wave Energy plans to build the first high altitude aerial power plant, using networks of unmanned drones that can harvest energy from multiple sources and transmit it wirelessly to receiving stations on the ground. The network of drones hover in the sky harvesting both solar and wind power, while moving about at low …
24/7 Wall Street has an updated report on the best and worst run states for 2013 Good governance involves raising and spending enough to provide for the well-being of the population without risking the state’s long-term stability. To determine how well the states are run, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed hundreds of data sets from dozens …
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP) researchers believe that the main problem impeding higher density and yields in LPP’s FF-1 device is metal impurities in the plasma. A new optical-UV spectrometer from Ocean Optics, has been used to measure the impurities and confirmed what they are and their amounts. This important step forward was taken with the …
Climatologists and climate-change deniers agree on at least one thing this week: everyone is awaiting the landmark U.N. report on climate change that will be presented at next week’s meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report will also include data that indicates the rate of warming from 1998 to 2012 slowed …
Google is using Solve for X and major projects like self driving cars and Google Glass to attempt to leapfrog the competition to achieve radical improvement. Google’s latest effort is to legitimize efforts to achieve radical life extension with their new company Calico. This will force more aggressive target setting from biotech companies. Elon Musk …
