Raytheon developing cheap thermal imagers for the smartphones of soldiers for DARPA

Raytheon Company has been awarded $13.4 million by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under the Low Cost Thermal Imaging Manufacturing (LCTI-M) program. The goal of LCTI-M is to develop a wafer scale manufacturing process that will make thermal imagers affordable and accessible to every warfighter. Under the three-year contract, Raytheon Vision Systems (RVS) …

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Anderson Forecast: U.S. economy mired in slump, but little chance of double-dip recession

The most recent Anderson forecast calls for a 2 percent national growth rate for the current quarter and a sub–2 percent growth rate for most of 2012. Further down the road, GDP is forecasted to exceed 3 percent in 2013 as a number of contractionary forces continue to abate. Despite the tepid numbers, the current …

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Two Explanations of China’s Economic Growth

1. Forbes – How China’s Economy Keeps Growing Frank Newman is probably the only American to ever run a Chinese bank and a large American bank in his career. Newman ran the Shenzhen Development Bank for five years, ending in 2010. Prior to that, he worked as a CFO at Bank of America and was …

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Researchers find best routes to self-assembling 3-D shapes

Researchers at Brown and Johns Hopkins universities have found optimal configurations for creating 3-D geometric shapes — like tiny, highly simplified geodesic domes that assemble by themselves. The Brown team developed the algorithmic tools, and the Johns Hopkins team tested selected configurations. The research may lead to advances from drug-delivery containers to 3-D sensors and …

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UN Recommended Actions against Soot, Methane and Ozone could save 2.5 million lives per year

Nextbigfuture has indicated the benefits and need to act against black carbon (ie Soot) Download Report: Actions for Controlling Short-Term Climate Forcers (36 pages) Cost-Effective Actions to Cut Black Carbon, Methane and Tropospheric Ozone Spotlighted in New Report A package of 16 measures could, if fully implemented across the globe, save close to 2.5 million …

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Bridging the Carbon Dioxide Emissions Gap by 2020

A United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report last month calculated that the existing pledges would result in emissions of 50-55 billion tonnes in 2020, compared with a level of 44 billion tonnes needed to meet the 2 degrees Celsius target. Emissions Gap Report download The emissions gap by 2020 which, as a result of improved …

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Steroids Reduce Mortality by 33 Per Cent in Preemie Babies as Young as 22 Weeks at a cost of $50

With chubby cheeks and weighing in at a healthy 10 pounds, the imminently huggable Lexi Morrison is far removed from the 1-pound, 9 –ounce preemie she was in June when she was born premature at 24 weeks. Giving antenatal corticosteroids in extremely preterm infants like Lexi — those born between 22 and 25 weeks gestation …

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Intel and the future of computing

The 2011 International Electron Device Meeting is held annually to describe the state of the art in transistors and switching circuits. This year’s Washington meeting is exploring a variety of options for continuing Moore’s law for as long as is feasible. The keynote speaker, Intel Senior Fellow Mark Bohr, noted that traditional scaling ran out …

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Carnival of Space 226

Carnival of Space 226 is up at Dear Astronomer Nicole Gugliucci at Discovery News writes about how Astronomers can make very precise measurements of a black hole’s mass and size, using an array of techniques that span the electromagnetic spectrum. A group led by Jerome Orosz of San Diego State University used data from optical …

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Protein Electronics devices could be on the market within ten years

Nature Asia Materials – Biological materials: Protein electronics Similar proteins demonstrate different charge transport characteristics offering a route to biological electronic devices. Long-range electron transfer in proteins is an important biological process, driving functions such as cellular respiration. If the charge transport properties of these biological materials can be fully understood and controlled, opportunities open …

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NASA satellites show 40% decline in SO2 values over the largest US coal power plants between 2005–2007 and 2008–2010

NASA satellites show some success in reducing air pollution from US coal plants Geophysical Research Letters – Estimation of SO2 emissions using OMI retrievals Satellite sulfur dioxide (SO2) measurements from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) satellite sensor, averaged over a period of several years, were compared with emissions inventories for major US sources. Low- and …

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