A group of paralysed patients will soon undergo a revolutionary procedure that could allow them to walk with the power of thought. The key to returning mobility is a tiny, matchstick-sized device called a stentrode. It will be implanted into a blood vessel next to the motor cortex, the brain’s control centre – bypassing the …
Star Wars: The Force Awakens stormed the box office and walked away with $247.9 million in its first three days domestically (including $57 million in Thursday night “previews”) along with another $281 million internationally for a record $524.9 million worldwide opening. Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with …
How Big Can a Black Hole Grow? The discovery of mega black holes within the last few years that prompted Andrew King of the University of Leicester, UK to look at the subject. The heaviest black holes we’ve now seen have a mass of up to 40 billion times that of our sun, which led …
The IMF projection for Global growth for 2015 is projected at 3.1 percent, 0.3 percentage point lower than in 2014, and 0.2 percentage point below the forecasts in the July 2015 World Economic Outlook (WEO) Update. Prospects across the main countries and regions remain uneven. Relative to last year, the recovery in advanced economies is …
DARPA Risers Max Shulaker (Stanford) explains his ongoing research into enabling much faster, lower-power microchips. He spoke at DARPA’s “Wait, What?” forum on Sept. 10, 2015. 3D carbon nanotube chips could lead to blisteringly quick processing at least 1,000 times faster than the best existing chips are capable of. The 3D design enables scientists to …
Suncor Energy, Canada’s largest oil company, confirmed this week it has entered into a five-year agreement with Komatsu Ltd., the Japanese manufacturer of earthmoving and construction machines, to purchase new heavy haulers for its mining operations north of Fort McMurray. All the new trucks will be “autonomous-ready,” meaning they are capable of operating without a …
Methylococcus capsulatus is a methanotroph, a bacterium that metabolises methane. Salmon will consume pelletised protein made from these bacteria. And that could be handy for fish farmers. Calysta, a biotechnology firm in Menlo Park, California, proposes to take advantage of the rock-bottom price of methane, a consequence of the spread of natural-gas fracking, to breed …
SpaceX has won certification from Space and Missile Systems Center. This carries enormous import for the international launch industry, for the Pentagon, the Air Force and the Intelligence Community. It’s not that Musk’s SpaceX is going to win deals tomorrow from the current national security launch monopoly, the United Launch Alliance. It’s that Musk has …
The chemical composition of stars hosting small exoplanets (with radii less than four Earth radii) appears to be more diverse than that of gas-giant hosts, which tend to be metal-rich. This implies that small, including Earth-size, planets may have readily formed at earlier epochs in the universe’s history when metals were more scarce. We report …
In 2016, Naval Sea Systems Command will conduct the first at sea test of its electromagnetic railgun, hurling a guided 44 pound projectile and hypersonic speeds off the coast of Florida, NAVSEA officials said on Tuesday. The BAE Systems designed test weapon will be mounted on the newly delivered Joint High Speed Vessel USNS Trenton …
The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 256 is up at Yes Vermont Yankee [Canadian Energy Issues] The most recent reported concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) at the Keeling Observatory in Mauna Loa Hawaii ( April 9 2015) shows 404.65 parts per million. This is the highest it has ever been in human history. It takes roughly …