The Hardest Superconducting Metal Nitride

Transition–metal (TM) nitrides are a class of compounds with a wide range of properties and applications. Hard superconducting nitrides are of particular interest for electronic applications under working conditions such as coating and high stress (e.g., electromechanical systems). However, most of the known TM nitrides crystallize in the rock–salt structure, a structure that is unfavorable …

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8K ultra-high definition televisions could reach 1 million units by 2019 with consumer shift to continually larger TVs

8K ultra-high definition (UHD) resolution television unit shipments have yet to begin commercial volume roll out, shipments will steadily increase over the next five years reaching nearly 1 million units by 2019, according to a new report from IHS. 8K UHD TVs offer a resolution of 7680 x 4320 pixels and are forecast to reach …

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MIT and Stanford will work with Toyota to develop better self driving cars

MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) announced a new $25 million research center funded by Toyota to further the development of autonomous vehicle technologies, with the goal of reducing traffic casualties and potentially even developing a vehicle incapable of getting into an accident. Announced at a press conference in California, the Toyota-CSAIL Joint …

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Arms races in Middle East and Asia fuel Russian plans to increase arms sales to $50 billion per year in 2020s

Russia is ramping up arms sales across the middle east. Russia is not just looking at arms sales to Iran but also to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is looking at buying the Iskander tactical ballistic missile system. This missile system purchase would include a launcher, a loader-transporter, a routine maintenance vehicle, a command post vehicle, …

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China may be close to deploying Mach 10 hypersonic WU-14 Missile

China this week carried out another test of a new high-tech hypersonic glide vehicle, an ultra high-speed missile designed to deliver nuclear weapons and avoid defenses. The latest test of what the Pentagon calls the Wu-14 hypersonic glide vehicle was carried out from the Wuzhai missile test range in central China. The test was judged …

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Nuclear power update for Japan, Russia, China and Europe

1. Kyushu Electric Power has begun restaringt of one of its nuclear reactors on Tuesday. This begins a Japanese government-backed process to get more atomic stations online throughout Japan, a policy supported by industry, yet largely opposed by the public. Kyushu Electric plans to restart a second reactor in the middle of October. Next year …

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Sri Lanka is the first country to sign up for Google Loon

Sri Lanka is the first country to sign up for Google Loon. “Hopefully in a few months every person and every device on the island will be covered by 3G (third generation,” Deputy Economic Policy Minister Harsha de Silva said in his twitter feed. Sri Lanka’s Telecom Minister Mangala Samaraweera said the Google Loon balloons …

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Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket with supercharged air augmentation

The Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket – A Conceptual High-Performance Earth-to-Orbit Propulsion System by John Bucknell A new propulsion concept called the Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket (NTTR) is proposed for Earth to Orbit applications. The NTTR utilizes a nuclear fission reactor to thermally heat hydrogen propellant into a rocket plenum. The rocket nozzles are located at …

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NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Exoplant closest to being like Earth

NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another “Earth.” The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the …

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Russia pushes back PAK DA stealth bomber to upgrade existing Tu-160 Bomber

Russia’s Air Force has suffered from a string of crashes over the past month that highlight the country’s maintenance and modernization woes. On June 4, a MiG-29 and an Su-34 both crashed. The SU-34 is one of Russia’s most advanced fighter jets, and was officially introduced into service in March of 2014. On July 14, …

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Chairman of the Joint Chief says global security is most unpredictable in his 40 years of service in latest US military strategy

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs indicates that today’s global security environment is the most unpredictable than he has seen in 40 years of service. Since the last National Military Strategy was published in 2011, global disorder has significantly increased while some of our comparative military advantage has begun to erode. The US now faces …

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