MIT researchers make carbon nanotubes without metal catalyst

Carbon nanotubes — tiny, rolled-up tubes of graphite — promise to add speed to electronic circuits and strength to materials like carbon composites, used in airplanes and racecars. A major problem, however, is that the metals used to grow nanotubes react unfavorably with materials found in circuits and composites. But now, researchers at MIT have for the first time shown that nanotubes can grow without a metal catalyst. The researchers demonstrate that zirconium oxide, the same compound found in cubic zirconia "fake diamonds," can also grow nanotubes, but without the unwanted side effects of metal.

Read More

Supercomputer Visuals Without Graphics Chips

Before specialized graphics-processing chips existed, pioneers in the field of visualization used multicore supercomputers to realize data in three dimensions. Today, however, the speed at which supercomputers can process data is rapidly outstripping the speed at which they can input and output that data. Graphics-processing clusters are becoming obsolete.

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory and elsewhere are working on a solution. Rather than moving massive datasets to a specialized graphics-processing cluster for rendering, which is how things are done now, they are writing software that allows the thousands of processors in a supercomputer to do the visualization themselves.

Read More

Plasmodium Computing

The single-celled organism Physarum polycephalum is a power-house of raw animal intelligence. Researchers are learning how to program it to carry out simple computations.

Read More

Traffic jam in brain causes schizophrenia symptoms

There are fewer pathways (green strands) for information to flow between neurons in the brain of a mouse bred to exhibit symptoms of schizophrenia compared to a normal mouse. Fewer pathways make it hard for information to flow between neurons and results in the symptoms of schizophrenia Credit: Peter Penzes, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Read More

Is Linux Irrelevant?

As the story goes, in the late eighties Bill Gates was asked about the competition Unix posed to Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT). He smiled and asked, "Which Unix?"

The same could be said of Linux today. Which Linux? Linux is now defined mostly by the fact that it isn't any one single thing -- no one distribution, software house, or entity has the last word on what Linux is going to be. To that end, the only "Linux" worth calling out by that name alone is the Linux kernel itself -- a kernel which is continually repackaged and distributed in a slew of different ways.

Read More

Naval Research Laboratory’s XFC UAS Achieves Flight Endurance Milestone

The Naval Research Laboratory has completed a successful flight test of the fuel cell powered XFC (eXperimental Fuel Cell) unmanned aerial system (UAS). During the June 2 flight test, the XFC UAS was airborne for more than six hours. NRL’s Chemistry and Tactical Electronic Warfare Divisions are developing the XFC UAS as an expendable, long endurance platform for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).

Read More

New Artificial Bone Made of Wood

A new procedure to turn blocks of wood into artificial bones has been developed by Italian scientists, who plan to implant them into large animals, and eventually humans.

Read More

Nanotechnology Offers Big Rewards

Nanotechnology promises to make our lives better. Andrew Maynard, Chief Science Advisor for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, talks to Jorge Ribas about three ways it could.

Video

Nvidia graphics tech set for future Intel chips

Nvidia said Monday that Intel and a bevy of circuit board makers have licensed Nvidia graphics technology for future Intel chips.

The leading graphics chip supplier for game PCs has licensed its Scalable Link Interface (SLI) technology to Intel and makers of PC motherboards, including Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI for future Intel chips. SLI is a technology for linking two or more graphics boards and used typically in high-end gaming boxes.

Read More

New day or night camera puts the eyes on Vancouver's runways

Vancouver International Airport (YVR) is the first commercial airport in the world to install a day and night camera to its existing Tarsier Foreign Object Debris (FOD) radar detection system. The new camera will upgrade YVR's 24-hour automated runway debris detection system in all weather conditions by providing visual confirmation of any potentially dangerous objects on the runway.

Read More

Boeing to Demonstrate Unmanned Cargo Aircraft for USMC

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] received a $500,000 contract from the U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory on Aug. 5 to demonstrate the company's A160T (YMQ-18A) Hummingbird for the Marines' Immediate Cargo Unmanned Aerial System Demonstration Program.

Read More

New Generation of Body Armor Takes the Load Off Soldiers

To alleviate discomfort and reduce the fatigue that reduces the soldier's tactical effectiveness, a new generation of body armor systems is being developed. A body mapping pressure system by Sensor Products Inc. called Tactilus is enabling a highly-skilled team of designers and engineers to develop new vests and carriage systems that optimally distribute the load that soldiers carry. The project is being directed by KDH Defense Systems of Johnstown, PA through a contract with the US Air Force.

Read More

10-ton cannon airdropped over Afghanistan

How do you get a 10-ton cannon to a remote Army outpost in Afghanistan?
Call the Air Force.

An Air Force C-130 Hercules airdropped a 155 mm M198 Howitzer to soldiers in the Paktika Province in Afghanistan on Saturday.

Read More

Virtual Reality Could Keep You From Being a Surgical Guinea Pig

New pilots train on flight simulators before flying their first 757. Scientists experiment on animals before giving their new drug to patients. And fledgling surgeons perform their first few operations on… real people.

Now, a small but growing group of doctors are trying to make surgical training safer by bringing virtual reality into the operating room — and taking the trial-by-error out.

Read More

Laser locator

BAE Systems and Vectronix are to produce, maintain, and provide logistical support for up to 200 laser target locator modules (LTLM) per month under a five-year contract worth up to $347m (£208m).

The handheld laser target finders will enable US Army soldiers to identify targets while on foot at any time of the day, regardless of whether visibility is obscured by fog or smoke.

Dan Murray, LTLM programme director for BAE Systems in Nashua, New Hampshire, said: ‘These modules will enable soldiers to determine target co-ordinates quickly, safely, and accurately.

Read More

Goodbye, Ritalin. Hello, Brain Magnets

An Israeli company wants to keep adults focused using a magnetic field to stimulate the brain. The technique, called transcranial magnetic stimulation, involves hooking someone up to a device that creates a magnetic field. The field then induces an electrical current in specific brain regions, which activates that part of the brain. It's worked for depression, and now may help the estimated 8 million adults with ADHD.

Read More

Today’s G.I.s train with video games

The ICT is aresearch lab for gaming technology that specializes in creating products for the United States military, including a city management trainer called UrbanSim and a negotiation trainer called BiLAT. Virtual Iraq was designed as a PC-based form of exposure therapy for Army veterans who served in Iraq and came back with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Read More

Up to $147.1M to HPTi for DoD High Performance Computing Work

The High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) was set up to modernize the US Department of Defense (DoD) labs’ high performance computing capabilities. The HPCMP provides supercomputer services, high-speed network communications, and computational science expertise that enables the DoD labs and test centers to conduct a range of research, development, and test activities to put advanced technology in the hands of US forces.

Read More