The U.S. Marine Corps’ F-35B Lightning II aircraft reached initial operational capability July 31, 2015 with a squadron of 10 F-35Bs ready for world-wide deployment. Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 (VMFA-121), based in Yuma, Arizona, is the first squadron in military history to become operational with an F-35 variant, following a five-day Operational Readiness Inspection, …
Pratt and Whitney is exploring making airplane engines with fewer parts using additive manufacturing (aka advanced 3D printing). Those parts would need less assembly and be cheaper to make. Frank Preli, chief engineer for materials and process engineering at the company, anticipates the possibility of radical new aircraft designs “like many engines embedded in a …
The US Navy has a roadmap to align electrical power system developments with warfighter needs and enable capability based budgeting. It is meant to be a living document, updated biannually, that invites innovation and guides investment by DOD, government, industry, and academia to achieve synergistic advances in naval power systems. Recommendations have been provided based …
Molecular Psychiatry – Genetic contributions to variation in general cognitive function: a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies in the CHARGE consortium General cognitive function is substantially heritable across the human life course from adolescence to old age. We investigated the genetic contribution to variation in this important, health- and well-being-related trait in middle-aged and older …
Mark Halper reports at Fortune that DOE (US Dept of Energy) plans to sign a 10-year collaboration agreement with China to help that country build at least one molten-salt nuclear reactor within the next decade. And in a smaller development, Oak Ridge publicly announced in January that it will advise Terrestrial Energy, a privately held …
A proposed method for digital metamaterials is a simplified way of building metamaterials, yet still allows for complex and diverse properties to be achieved. Arxiv – Digital Metamaterials (31 pages) Nature Materials – Digital metamaterials Balancing complexity and simplicity has played an important role in the development of many fields in science and engineering. One …
New data released today by the United Nations show that under-five mortality rates have dropped by 49 per cent between 1990 and 2013. The average annual reduction has accelerated – in some countries it has even tripled – but overall progress is still short of meeting the global target of a two-thirds decrease in under-five …
A startup company called Optalysis is trying to invent a fully-optical computer that would be aimed at many of the same tasks for which GPUs are currently used. Optalysis is claiming that they can create an optical solver supercomputer astonishing 17 exaFLOPS machine by 2020. 40 gigaFlops demonstration uses 500×500 pixels working 20 times per …
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to establish a BRICS “energy association” that will include a fuel reserve bank and an energy policy institute. BRICS is a grouping of major emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Fifty of the 66 nuclear reactors currently under construction are in BRICS states. …
JIBO, The World’s First Family Robot, has raised $864,000 on Indiegogo and still has 26 days left to go on its crowdfunding campaign. It is scheduled to be available by December 2015, Jibo will be capable of interacting with its owners; for now, it is just a prototype, but that could soon change. Social robotics …
Carnival of Space 362 is up at Everyday Spacer The Meridiani Journal – Titan’s hidden ocean might be as salty as the Dead Sea Saturn’s moon Titan is known for its methane seas, lakes, and rivers; surprisingly Earth-like in appearance yet distinctly alien at the same time. But there is also evidence for another ocean, …