The US Navy is still considering putting an electric-powered gun aboard a Maine-built destroyer, but the futuristic weapon would be installed after the ship is built, a top Navy officer said. The construction schedule is too far along to install an electromagnetic railgun aboard the Lyndon B. Johnson at Bath Iron Works, “but it’s certainly …
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have taken some initial steps toward the creation of bioengineered human hearts using donor hearts stripped of components that would generate an immune response and cardiac muscle cells generated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which could come from a potential recipient. The investigators described their accomplishments – which include …
The cost of deploying fast fibre connections straight to homes could be dramatically reduced by new hardware designed and tested by University College of London researchers. While major advances have been made in core optical fibre networks, they often terminate in cabinets far from the end consumers. The so called ‘last mile’ which connects households …
Global wealth reached 250 trillion US dollars in 2015, slightly less than a year earlier, due to adverse exchange rate movements. The underlying wealth trends do, however, generally remain positive, according to the Credit Suisse Research Institute’s annual “Global Wealth Report.” The rise in household wealth was particularly strong in the US and China between …
Helion Energy has raised $10.6 million in a new funding round in July, 2015 to develop technology that aims to create a fusion reactor to generate power. The company disclosed the funds in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Helion plans to raise more than $21 million total in the continuing round. …
According to an earlier report by China News Service, Liang Xiaohong, deputy head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, disclosed that the Long March-9 is planned to have a maximum payload of 130 tons and its first launch will take place around 2028. “China is discussing the technological feasibility and requirements of the …
A team of scientists led by Carnegie’s Jacqueline Faherty has discovered the first evidence of water ice clouds on an object outside of our own Solar System. Water ice clouds exist on our own gas giant planets–Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune–but have not been seen outside of the planets orbiting our Sun until now. At …
NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has reached the Red Planet’s Mount Sharp, a Mount-Rainier-size mountain at the center of the vast Gale Crater and the rover mission’s long-term prime destination. “Curiosity now will begin a new chapter from an already outstanding introduction to the world,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at NASA …
NASA NIAC has funded another solar electric space sail project called Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS) which wants to send a probe 150 kilometers per second or 30 AU per year [9 times faster than Voyage One]. Nextbigfuture has had dozens of articles on the electric space sail technology and projects to develop that …
Previously nextbigfuture had noted the World Health Organizations increased estimate of deaths caused by air pollution. Regular commenter Goatguy looks at the future projection of warming and provides his own estimates to a chart provided by other climate researchers. Soot and particulates are still the best target for saving lives from air pollution and mitigating …
Virginia Postrel writes about the changes over the last ten years in the availability of customized entertainment. She notes that much of these gains do not show up in GDP statistics. It is a form of progress that large numbers of people experience every day, the increase in entertainment variety and convenience represents a challenge …