Driver-assist hardware and software included in the Model 3 will make the $35,000 car 10 times safer than the average car. Both Tesla and NHTSA assert that safety is also higher when Autopilot is activated. So, Model 3 customers who upgrade to the full Enhanced Autopilot, which includes automatic lane changes, steering, and parking, the …
If all the solar incident on Mars were to be captured with 100% efficiency, then Mars would warm to Earth-like temperatures in about 10 years. However, the efficiency of the greenhouse effect is plausibly about 10%, thus the time it would take to warm Mars would be ~100 years. This assumes, of course, adequate production …
MIT physicists have created a new form of matter, a supersolid, which combines the properties of solids with those of superfluids. By using lasers to manipulate a superfluid gas known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, the team was able to coax the condensate into a quantum phase of matter that has a rigid structure — like …
Scientists from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), CIEMAT (Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research), Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, in collaboration with the firm BioDan Group, have presented a prototype for a 3D bioprinter that can create totally functional human skin. This skin is adequate for transplanting to patients or for use …
Applications of the genome editing system CRISPR are appearing at a furious pace, and gathering momentum toward therapeutic use in human cells. Indeed, Chinese scientists recently began a human clinical trial using CRISPR-edited cells to fight lung cancer, and U.S. clinical trials are slated to begin in 2017. But leading up to this exciting milestone, …
Russia’s RSK-MiG is working on a new lightweight fifth-generation stealth fighter to replace the Mikoyan MiG-29 and MiG-35 Fulcrum series fighters. Called the Liogkiy Mnogofunktsionalniy Frontovoi Samolyet (LMFS)—or Light Multi-Function Frontal Aircraft in English—United Aircraft Corporation is developing the new aircraft out of its own funds, reports aviation journalist Piotr Butowski in the French-language trade …
Africa is urbanizing at an alarmingly fast rate, nearly twice the rate of China. According to the African Development Bank, over five hundred million people will move into Africa’s cities in the next thirty-five years. Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, is urbanizing at a rate quadruple the global average. Urbanization has had a tremendous effect on …
The Wall Street Journal indicates a forthcoming report from the US Government Accountability Office focuses most closely on issues with turbopumps in SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The report has found a “pattern of problems” with the turbine blades within the turbopumps, which deliver rocket fuel into the combustion chamber of the Merlin rocket engine. Some …
The Breakthrough Starshot is an effort backed by US$100 million from Russian investor Yuri Milner to vastly accelerate research and development of an interstellar space probe. Leaders of the mission plan to start funding technology-development projects within months, with the aim of launching a fleet of tiny, laser-propelled probes in the next 20 years. The …
Three massive battery storage plants—built by Tesla, AES Corp., and Altagas Ltd.—are all officially going live in southern California at about the same time. Any one of these projects would have been the largest battery storage facility ever built. Combined, they amount to 15 percent of the battery storage installed planet-wide last year. The new …
China’s One Belt One Road has proved to be a boon for trans-Eurasian rail transport, as these new rail lines would become its vanguard, establishing physical links between many of the key countries and a platform of cooperation from which to drive closer diplomatic and economic ties. What started out as two regular routes emerging …