Three South Korean nuclear power reactors forced to stop operations in May 2013 after finding safety-related control cabling had falsified documentation have been given approval to restart. With the cabling having been replaced, Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) has now given Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) approval to restart operations at Shin …
The US dollar is expected to strengthen next year while the euro and yen head in the opposite direction. This is because of the expected taper. Closer to home, the appreciation in the yuan versus the greenback is tipped to slow after lasting for more than eight years. As for the Fed, analysts remain divided …
Eric Lerner presented at the 2013 Fusion Energy Symposium. What Has Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP) achieved so far ? * Ion temperature—goal achieved—over 1.8 billion degrees, enough to ignite pB11 * Confinement time—goal achieved 20 ns—more than 8 ns goal * Energy transfer to plasmoid—over 50% of goal * Density—must increase by 10,000 Steps To …
The Carnival of Space 334 is up at Urban Astronomer Universe Today – For the past five years, I’ve been constructing this list of all things astronomical for the coming year, lovingly distilling the events transpiring worldwide down to a 101 “best events of the year”. A Triple transit of three of Jupiter’s moons on …
Superconducting Circuits for Quantum Information: An Outlook – The performance of superconducting qubits has improved by several orders of magnitude in the past decade. These circuits benefit from the robustness of superconductivity and the Josephson effect, and at present they have not encountered any hard physical limits. However, building an error-corrected information processor with many …
Year to date through November 2013, 14.4 million desktops, notebooks, and tablets were sold through U.S. commercial channels, leading to a 25.4 percent increase over 2012, according to The NPD Group’s Distributor Track and Commercial Reseller Tracking Service. This stellar performance follows the 3.1 percent sales increase experienced in 2012. Chromebooks, and Android tablets collectively …
Multiple airships can be used to transport larger objects as shown here Igor Pasternak wants to be the first to harness helium for multi-ton deliveries. He envisions thousands of 500-foot-long zeppelins capable of traversing the U.S. at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour, ferrying mining equipment to roadless stretches of Alaska and bringing …
The Keystone pipeline expansion is still being stalled. Canadian Ambassador Doer observes that Obama’s “choice is to have it come down by a pipeline that he approves, or without his approval, it comes down on trains. Increased rail capacity is moving more oil from Canada’s oilsands More oil is moving by rail from North Dakota …
Michael Watts and pals at MIT have designed and built the first photonic modulator that operates at an ultralow 1 femtoJoule power level. “We propose, demonstrate, and characterize the first modulator to achieve simultaneous high-speed (25 Gigabits per second), low voltage (0.5 peak-to-peak Voltage) and efficient 1 femtoJoule per bit error-free operation,” they say. The …
The Asean economy is expected to double by 2020, with the nominal gross domestic product of the regional bloc increasing from US$2 trillion in 2012 to US$4.7 trillion. ASEAN Purchasing power parity per capita GDP almost doubled since 2000 Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in ASEAN, taking into account differences in purchasing power …
Pacemaker surgery typically requires a doctor to make an incision above a patient’s heart, dig a cavity into which he can implant the heartbeat-regulating device, and then connect the pulse generator to wires delivered through a vein near the collarbone. Such surgery could soon be completely unnecessary. Instead, doctors could employ miniaturized wireless pacemakers that …