Bad Astonomer makes the case that the amount of cooling we’d see from Maunder Minimum of reduced sunspot activity would still be less than the global warming we’ve been experiencing since the 20th century. It might slow things down for a while, but the climate change we’re seeing now — and it’s real, folks — …
US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity, which could mean that the Earth – far from facing a global warming problem – is actually headed into a mini Ice Age. The Sun normally follows an 11-year cycle of activity. The current cycle, Cycle 24, …
The Senate Armed Services Committee has approved its version of fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill without funding the railgun or free electron laser weapons programs. The determination was that the Free Electron Laser has the highest technical risk in terms of being ultimately able to field on a ship, so we thought the Navy could …
EMMA (Electron Model of Many Applications) is the first non- scaling, fixed-field, alternating-gradient (NS-FFAG) particle accelerator prototype of a new generation of nuclear energy solutions that will be significantly smaller and cheaper than its predecessors. UK Daily Mail – The Electron Model of Many Applications – is an object of scientific beauty, a shiny blue-and-red …
Data Dictionary – infrastructure investment (Gross fixed capital formation) has been driving China’s GDP growth over the last decade and they are trying to engineer a shift to a more consumption driven economy. China: Toward a Consumption-Driven Growth Path (13 pages, Oct 2006) Peterson Institute for International Economics China’s Currency Continues to be Undervalued – …
Nanoletters – Highly Ordered Square Arrays from a Templated ABC Triblock Terpolymer Square-symmetry patterns are of interest in nanolithography but are not easily obtained from self-assembly of a diblock copolymer. Instead, we demonstrate highly ordered 44 nm period square patterns formed in a thin film of polyisoprene-block-polystyrene-block-polyferrocenylsilane (PI-b-PS-b-PFS) triblock terpolymer blended with 15% PS homopolymer …
Nanoletters – Holographic Control of Motive Shape in Plasmonic Nanogap Arrays Here we demonstrate that 4-beam holographic lithography can be utilized to create plasmonic nanogaps which are 70 times smaller than the laser wavelength (488 nm). This was achieved by controlling phase, polarization, and laser beam intensity in order to tune the relative spacing of …
ARRIS demonstrated real file transfer throughput of 4.5 Gbps of DOCSIS downstream traffic being transmitted over 128 DOCSIS downstream channels into a single Fiber Node. An ARRIS C4 CMTS was configured using four newly-released 32 Downstream Cable Access Modules (32D CAMs) to source the 128 DOCSIS downstream channels into the Fiber Node. The Bandwidth Monitor …
Science Express – High Pre-Eruptive Water Contents Preserved in Lunar Melt Inclusions io9 – researchers used a special ion probe to analyze samples of volcanic glass dug up from the Moon’s surface by the crew of Apollo 17. Water and other volatiles from deep beneath the Moon’s surface remain preserved in this glass, and allowed …
Enabling Breakthroughs In Technology, Mike Mayberry, Director of Components Research VP, Technology and Manufacturing Group Intel Corporation (June 2011) 17 pages Mike presented a roadmap to 7 nm node in 2017 and 10 nm in 2015. At Research@Intel Day Intel (2011), Intel’s Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner indicated that the 14 nm node would be …
DARPA has proposed 2012 budget which includes a review of projects and what was achieved in 2010 and what is being done in 2011 and what is planned for 2012 (380 pages). Budget is about $3 billion per year. Here I look at a selection of projects that are nanotech and quantum related projects. Tip-Based …