There is need for more responsive and effective close air support for US troops in Iraq. C-27J transport plane War is boring discusses converting $25-30 million C27 transport planes into slightly scaled down versions of the AC-130 gunship. AC-130 gunship There has been a proposal to use AC-130’s in a roving mode over Iraq. This …
By placing quantum dots on a specially designed photonic crystal, researchers at the University of Illinois have demonstrated enhanced fluorescence intensity by a factor of up to 108. Potential applications include high-brightness light-emitting diodes, optical switches and personalized, high-sensitivity biosensors. A quantum dot is a tiny piece of semiconductor material 2 to 10 nanometers in …
One of the most widely publicized ideas for offsetting climate change is to sequester carbon dioxide. The US Department of energy estimates the following costs: Using present technology, estimates of sequestration costs are in the range of $100 to $300/ton of carbon emissions avoided. The goal of the program is to reduce the cost of …
Boron nanotubes can provide strong, light weight, cost effective radiation shielding for space and fusion reactors Compared to CNTs, boron nanotubes have some better properties such as high chemical stability, high resistance to oxidation at high temperatures and are a stable wide band-gap semiconductor. Because of these properties, they can be used for applications at …
China’s former top drug regulator was sentenced to death Tuesday for taking bribes to approve untested medicines, as the country’s main quality control agency announced its first recall system targeting unsafe food products. Clearly this shows that China is serious about cleaning up corruption and food and drug quality. It may shrink the pool of …
30 Gigawatts by 2020 is considered achievable (supply chain constraints) but 40 gigawatts by 2020 is the target India and Brazil have 80% of the known Thorium reserves and Thorium nuclear fission is India’s long term energy strategy. Funding projects would not be a problem as NPCIL is currently sitting on cash reserve of Rs …
Vinod Khosla debates Herman Scheer about energy solutions at CNET Vinod says many things that are correct but is only half right on nuclear. He indicates that it was a mistake not to advanced nuclear power over the past 30 years, but then he says it is too late for nuclear to make an impact …
2006 2005 2004 Wealth Amount 5 3 2 US$30B+ Forbes list (which mainly catches owners 67 49 32 US$10B+ of public assets, can underestimate some 167 124 102 US$5B+ like CTO of Cisco, who may be billionaire 946 793 691 US$1B+ from cisco stock + large startup positions) 10000 8200 7500 US$160M+ (my own estimate) …
The new age of climate re-engineering and the $25 million bounty from Richard Branson is discussed at open the future. It is noted that the re-engineering efforts would have the best chance of succeeding if we adjust technology and behavior to stop making the problems worse. Gregory Benford’s proposal for climate re-engineering is discussed at …
A contest to build a robot that can operate autonomously in urban warfare conditions, moving in and out of buildings to search and destroy targets like a human soldier, was launched in Singapore on Tuesday. Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) is offering one million Singapore dollars ($652,000) to whoever develops a robot that completes …
Fuel cells have been made efficient for small machines like lawnmowers. Many standard fuel cell designs use electronics to control power output, but such designs require complex systems to manage humidity and fuel recovery and recycling systems to achieve acceptable efficiency. The new process controls the hydrogen feed to match the required power output, just …