Phantom flights

Boeing has announced plans to develop and demonstrate an unmanned flying test bed for advanced air system technologies.

The programme, known as Phantom Ray, will make use of a prototype vehicle that Boeing originally intended for the Joint-Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) programme.
The vehicle will conduct 10 flights over a period of around six months and is scheduled to make its first flight at the end of 2010. Potential supporting missions could include intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic attack and autonomous aerial refuelling.

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Personal purifier

A UK technology group hopes to unveil a personal air purification device that could be worn on a belt as part of the fight against viruses such as H1N1 swine flu.

London-based Tri-Air is developing a decontamination system that simulates the natural purification properties of fresh air. It creates airborne cascades of hydroxyl radicals, which naturally occur outdoors, to destroy microbes that could include viruses such as H1N1 or bacteria such as MRSA in the air and on surfaces.

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The risks of North Korea's nuclear restart

On April 13, the U.N. Security Council condemned North Korea's rocket launch earlier in the month. Within nine hours, North Korea denounced and rejected the Security Council statement; expelled international inspectors and the U.S. technical team from its Yongbyon nuclear facilities; walked away from the Six-Party Talks and all previous agreements; threatened to strengthen its "self-defensive nuclear deterrent"; and said that it would restore its nuclear plant to normal operation and reprocess spent fuel rods. Two weeks later, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs threatened to take measures that "will include nuclear tests and test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles" and "will make a decision to build a light water reactor power plant and start the technological development for ensuring self-production of nuclear fuel as its first process without delay" unless the Security Council promptly apologizes for its infringement on North Korea's sovereignty.

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Physicist’s Fool-Proof War Formula

The military has been trying for years to turn the chaos of war into a simple math problem. So far, those efforts have been trumped by a confluence of shaky variables: free will, tribal factions and chance being a few examples. But one physicist says he’s cracked the code. How’d he do it? He turned on the TV.

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