The euro edged higher against the U.S. dollar, yen and Swiss franc on Monday as a new cash-for-reforms offer from Greece raised hopes a tangible deal is taking shape that will help Athens avoid a default on its debts. Euro zone finance ministers left a meeting with Greek officials in Brussels voicing optimism at Greece’s …
The Pentagon has been authorized to create “the true and complete integration of air and missile defense” and on “left-of-launch and non-kinetic means of defense.” They will be coordinating — a much wider range of tools than just traditional Patriot-style interceptors. Lasers are literally the flashiest example here, but there’s also room for rail guns; …
1. Japan’s nuclear regulator has approved Kyushu Electric Power Company’s ‘construction plan’ for unit 2 of its Sendai nuclear power plant. The company hopes to restart unit 1 of the plant in July, with unit 2 following within months. Over the next 4-5 years Japan could restart 4 to ten reactors per year. Sendai nuclear …
Researchers have designed, built and operated the first working superconducting qubit device in the UK. Quantum bits, or qubits, are the building blocks for a future computer hardware that calculates according to the rules of quantum physics. Able to run programs and perform tasks that our present day computers simply cannot do, quantum computers are …
Researchers in airplanes flew into thunderclouds and detected a signature spike in photons that does not fit any known source of antiparticles. Although powerful storms have been known to produce positrons — the antimatter versions of electrons — the antimatter observed by Dwyer and his team cannot be explained by any known processes, they say. …
DARPA’s Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) program, which developed a self-steering bullet to increase hit rates for difficult, long-distance shots, completed in February its most successful round of live-fire tests to date. An experienced shooter using the technology demonstration system repeatedly hit moving and evading targets. Additionally, a novice shooter using the system for the …
There are interesting cultural differences between Americans and Japanese. Americans fear the Terminator movie scenario of a robot or Artificial intelligence apacolypse. However, Japan is facing sharp population decrease from lowering birth rates. This could be accelerated with more realistic sexbots that extend the Japanese sex doll industry. This is part of Japan’s greater cultural …
Skolkovo biomed cluster resident 3D Bioprinting Solutions has announced the successful printing of a mouse’s thyroid gland. 3d Bioprinting Solutions is targeting functional printed kidney scheduled for 2018. If confirmed, it would reportedly be the world’s first synthetic construction of a complete, transplantable living organ. “This is undoubtedly a breakthrough in the world of regenerative …
The advent of three-dimensional (3D) printing has generated a swell of interest in artificial organs meant to replace, or even enhance, human machinery. Printed organs, such as a prototype outer ear developed by researchers at Princeton University in New Jersey and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, was on the agenda at the Inside 3D …
Long, sinuous, tendril-like structures seen in the vicinity of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus originate directly from geysers erupting from its surface, according to scientists studying images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. This result is published online today in a study in the Astronomical Journal, along with additional insights into the nature of the structures. “We’ve been …
Today’s submarines are link blimps in the ocean. They float high over the sea floor. Dr Robert Ballard proposes submarines that hide on the ocean floor. Modern nuclear attack submarines like the American Seawolf class are estimated to have a test depth of 490 meters (1,600 ft), which would imply (see above) a collapse depth …