Carnival of Space 101 is up at Robot Explorers This site provided one of the articles on Helion Energy’s nuclear fusion effort. Crowlspace takes another look at the Fermi Paradox (which is an argument that aliens should be here so long as one race of alien in the galaxy is successfully able to colonize space.) …
Carnival of Space #99 is up at Alice Astro Info. This site provided information on microscale solar sails and the article with details on PGE (Pacific Gas and Electric) signing an agreement with startup Solaren for Space based solar power by 2016. Innumerable Worlds looks at the tiny movement of our sun caused by Earth …
Carnival of space 96 is up at Astroengine. This site provided an article on the quantum fractal theory of space time. Planetary society blog looks at water on Mars. 21st Century Waves feels we are close to space colonization starting in 2015. Astroblogger considers asteroids at the L4 and L5 points Greg Fish, a popular …
Evolutionary biologist Alan Walker, a professor at Penn State University, argues that humans may lack the strength of chimps because our nervous systems exert more control over our muscles. Our fine motor control prevents great feats of strength, but allows us to perform delicate and uniquely human tasks. Walker’s hypothesis stems partly from a finding …
the American Express advisory panel choose not to select the life extension research project which was voted into 22nd place among the 25 projects being voted on now. Only 5 will receive funding. Thanks to Those who had voted for the life extension project at the end of August. Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist …
Emerging cognitive neuroscience and related technologies written by the National Research Council. Chapter 5: Potential intelligence and military applications Paraphrasing from the executive summary: This area of neuroscience and cognitive enhancement is advancing too quickly for this group to fully track and anticipate disruptive leaps in capability. Chapter 3: Emerging areas of neuroscience and neurotechnology …
Rodney Brooks, co-founder and CTO of iRobot, is leaving his iRobot post to found his own robotics company, Heartland Robotics. Heartland Robotics, based in Cambridge, Mass., will focus on the manufacture of industrial worker robots. “I want to effect a powerful evolution in the world’s labor markets, and my current focus is to develop low-cost …
Excellent analysis of the possible restart of Bellefont nuclear reactors by Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat . A quick back-of-the-envelope estimate suggests that the cost to complete the two units could be $3.6 billion at a minimum. This could save 2 billion versus the construction of new reactors. If there is carbon taxes or costs …
Scientists from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands harnessed energy from the wind by flying a 10-sq metre kite tethered to a generator, producing 10 kilowatts of power. An Italian company, Kitegen, has come up with a theoretical design for a system that could generate a gigawatt, as much power as a standard coal-fired …
NXP Launches The World’s Fastest Cellular Modem, the PNX6910, which is capable of achieving data transfer rates of 150 Mbits downlink and 50 Mbits uplink, and supports multi-mode LTE/HSPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/GSM capability. The world’s fastest cellular modem from NXP – Nexperia Cellular System Solution PNX6910 will be available to early access customers in the second quarter of …
Engineers at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have whipped up, for the first time, permanent nanoscale bubbles—bubbles that endure for more than a year—from batches of foam made from a mixture of glucose syrup, sucrose stearate, and water. Future applications of these microbubbles could significantly extend the lifetimes of common gas-liquid products …