Researchers from Stanford University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have created the first-ever system of “designer electrons” – exotic variants of ordinary electrons with tunable properties that may ultimately lead to new types of materials and devices. “The behavior of electrons in materials is at the heart of essentially all …
Energy Horizons provides the Air Force vision and blueprint for energy S&T spanning the domains of air, space, cyber, and infrastructure. Energy Horizons focuses on science and technology in the near (1-5 years), mid (6-10 years), and far (11-15 years) term that hold the most promise to revolutionize AF operations, efficiency, and effectiveness. (72 pages) …
Stable two-dimensional networks of organic molecules are important components in various nanotechnology processes. However, producing these networks, which are only one atom thick, in high quality and with the greatest possible stability currently still poses a great challenge. Scientists from the Excellence Cluster Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM) have now successfully created just such networks made …
Carnival of Space 223 is up at Vintage Space Universe Today – Earth’s place in the “Goldilocks” zone of our solar system may be the result of the expulsion of a fifth giant planet from our solar system during its first 600 million years, according to a recent journal publication. Arxiv – Young Solar System’s …
Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early. “We tried to find all possible explanations for this,” said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration. Opera Collaboration website The OPERA particle detector may have spotted neutrinos traveling …
The IEA’s Monthly Electricity Statistics provides timely electricity production and trade data for all member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Japan will clearly lose about 6-8 TWH of nuclear electricity and electricity from other sources starting in March (half of the month) and then in April. For the first two …
NASA’s Kepler space telescope has found 1202 possible exoplanets. The expectation is 90% of those will be confirmed. The Kepler telescope surveys only one four-hundredth of the sky, the numbers extrapolated to some 20,000 habitable-zone planets within 3,000 light-years of Earth. Of the new candidates, 68 are one-and-a-quarter times the size of the Earth or …
1. Kazakhstan’s annual uranium production has doubled since 2008, according to preliminary uranium production results released by national atomic company Kazatomprom. The 17,803 tU produced by Kazakhstan in 2010 was nearly 30% up on the 14,020 tU produced in 2009 and double the amount produced in 2008. In the field of uranium conversion, Kazatomprom notes …
$50 million engine: It took Scuderi Group most of the $65 million it’s raised so far to develop just one engine, the prototype shown here. It’s a split-cycle two-cylinder engine, in which one cylinder compresses air and the other combusts a fuel-air mixture. Credit: Scuderi MIT Technology Review reports that an engine development company called …
1. Biomedical gerontologist and longevity science advocate Aubrey de Grey was published last year in the May 2010 issue of GQ. Support SENS here De Grey likes to compare the future of treating aging to the time line of human-powered flight. For millennia, man dreamed of flying. Nothing happened. Five hundred years ago, Leonardo da …
DARPA is working on glasses that will endow the user with zoom vision, various forms of nightsight, and act as a heads-up display besides. Perhaps best of all, the proposed kit would also offer “full sphere awareness” – that is, eyes in the back of your head. It is the goals of the DARPA Soldier …