Comeback of supersonic flight

In the labs and wind tunnels of Cleveland's Glenn Research Center and three other NASA facilities, the prospect of commercial supersonic flight is quietly coming out of mothballs.
Glenn engineers and their counterparts at the Langley, Dryden and Ames research centers are at work devising greener, fuel-efficient and less-polluting supersonic engines.

Read More

High-Tech, Armored Off-Roader Key to Afghan Surge

Pentagon is in the middle of a crash program to build and ship to Afghanistan a new generation of bomb-resistant off-road vehicle, equipped with everything from composite armor to “electronic keels.”

Read More

Intel Shows 48-Core Processor for Research

Intel showed an 48-core processor nicknamed the “single-chip cloud computer” that consumes about the same power as desktop processors available currently. The fully programmable 48 processing cores are the most Intel has ever had on a single silicon chip, says the company.

Read More

World’s Fastest Personal Submarine

The Super Falcon submersible uses its inverted wings to move through water like a plane through air.

Read More

Cheaper, Smaller Network of Spy Satellites Gives Troops on the Ground Their Own Eye in the Sky

With Kestrel Eye satellites, grunts on the ground will be able to check out surrounding terrain from a bird's eye view in near real time.

Read More

Dark-field laser mouse works on transparent surfaces

Borrowing dark-field illumination techniques used in microscopy to increase contrast of tiny particulates like dust and surface imperfections such as grease and scratches, Logitech (Fremont, CA) developed a new optical mouse that uses a technique called dark-field laser tracking.

Read More

JQI researchers create 'synthetic magnetic fields' for neutral atoms

Achieving an important new capability in ultracold atomic gases, researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute, a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland, have created "synthetic" magnetic fields for ultracold gas atoms, in effect "tricking" neutral atoms into acting as if they are electrically charged particles subjected to a real magnetic field.

Read More

Practical T-Ray Amplifier

Terahertz sensors can see through clothing and sniff for bombs, but they've had to do so with very weak signals.

Terahertz radiation, which is generated by ultrashort-duration lasers, is often weak, and it is difficult to amplify the terahertz signal without using large, complex, and costly laser systems.

Read More

Image URL

USAF Growing Cyber Warfare Ops Center

The newly-created 24th U.S. Air Force, the service’s latest numbered force, aims to establish the first elements of a cyberspace command operations center in San Antonio by the end of December.

Read More

Desert Prowler Unveiled

A photograph of the Beast of Kandahar, the classified stealth UAV first reported in April, has emerged on a blog linked to left-wing French newspaper Liberation.

Rad More

ICBMs Shift to New USAF Command

U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) took a concrete step toward fulfilling its mission of operating two-thirds of the Pentagon's nuclear triad when it took command Dec. 1 of 20th Air Force and its 450 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Read More

US Army Wants 120mm GPS-Guided Mortars to Fight Afghan Insurgents

The US Army is pushing to get precision mortars developed and deployed to the field in Afghanistan as soon as possible. The precision mortars are needed to target insurgents who are dug in along mountain ridgelines and other high positions.

Read More