Deep Space Plasma Thruster

Chemical rockets are ponderous. The space shuttle, for instance, carries more than 3.8 million pounds of expensive propellant—even empty, its two solid boosters weigh 193,000 pounds apiece. Oleg Batishchev, principal research scientist at MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, appreciates such rockets for their raw, Earth-escaping punch. But once a craft hits orbit, he says, his new invention makes more sense: The Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster is designed to be a lighter, cheaper way to move through space.

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Telepathy on the Horizon: New Interface Allows Brain-to-Brain Communication

Brain-computer interfacing, or BCI, isn't new. Researchers have used computers to read signals from the brain before -- DARPA is sponsoring initiatives to use such technology to develop prosthetic limbs that respond to neural commands -- but Dr. Christopher James at the University of Southampton has taken BCI a step further, showing that person-to-person communication is possible through true brain-to-brain interfacing.

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Threat of next world war may be in cyberspace: UN

"Cyber war!" flashes on the screen at an Internet security conference. The next world war could take place in cyberspace, the UN telecommunications agency chief warned Tuesday as experts called for action to stamp out cyber attacks.

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First LTE Networks Will Deliver 20 Mbps of Download Speed

When the first LTE (Long Term Evolution) networks and devices are launched next year, users can expect to see a download speed of about 20 Mbps, according to Motorola and ZTE.

On the show floor at ITU World, ZTE and Fujitsu are showing upcoming modems that support download speeds of up to 100 Mbps (bits per second) and upload speeds of up to 50 Mbps when connected to an LTE network, according to their respective spec sheets.

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Servers With Cellphone Chips? Yep, Here They Come

The vast majority of servers sold today run on Intel’s Xeon chip, which is the company’s top-of-the-line mainstream product. Such chips are great for demanding software that manages databases or renders special effects in a movie. But they’re overkill for things like feeding up a Facebook profile page or displaying a Google search box.

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Physicists win Nobel for high-tech wonders

Three Americans whose 1960s research laid the foundation for today’s world of computerized images and lightning-fast communication shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for their work developing fiber-optic cable and the sensor at the heart of digital cameras.

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‘Cleantech’ could be economy’s next boom

The U.S. economy sure could use the Next Big Thing. Something on the scale of railroads, automobiles or the Internet — the kind of breakthrough that emerges every so often and builds industries, generates jobs and mints fortunes.

Silicon Valley investors are pointing to something called cleantech — alternative energy, more efficient power distribution and new ways to store electricity, all with minimal impact to the environment — as a candidate for the next boom.

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After 55 years, a whole new look for the C-130?

Lockheed Martin has displayed a fuzzy image of a whole new version of the 55-year-old C-130 Hercules family tailored to support the needs of special operations forces.

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US Navy creates command to maintain cyber supremacy

The US Navy announced Thursday it was consolidating intelligence gathering and other data capabilities under a single command in a bid to maintain an increasingly challenged US military supremacy in cyberspace.

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Galileo GPS Project Faces More Certain Future

Across the Atlantic, the European Union is cooperating with China and other outside investors to replace the USA’s free Global Positioning System service with an alternative under their own control.

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Panasonic Develops High Energy Lithium-ion Battery Module with High Reliability

Panasonic Corp. has developed a 1.5 kWh battery module from 18650-type (18 mm in diameter x 65 mm in length) lithium-ion battery cells, which are widely used in laptop computers, to provide energy storage solutions for a wide range of environmentally friendly energy technologies.

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How Neutrinos Could Revolutionize Communications with Submarines

Communicating underwater is a tricky business, as any commander of a nuclear submarine will tell you. These guys can remain hidden more or less indefinitely, operating at a depth of 300 meters or so, but communicating is a serious pain in the stern because it can only be done near the sea surface, where submarines are most vulnerable to detection and attack.

Patrick Huber, a physicist at Virginia Tech, says that neutrino communication could offer data rates of up to 100 bits per second at any depth. That's three orders of magnitude better than ELF communication.

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Graphite mimics iron's magnetism

Researchers of Eindhoven University of Technology and the Radboud University Nijmegen in The Netherlands show for the first time why ordinary graphite is a permanent magnet at room temperature. The results are promising for new applications in nanotechnology, such as sensors and detectors. In particular graphite could be a promising candidate for a biosensor material.

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Filming photons, one million times a second

European researchers have created a CMOS (semiconductor) camera capable of filming individual photons one million times a second. The breakthrough will impact on all the most advanced areas of science and makes Europe the world leader in the technology.

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New technology detects chemical weapons in seconds

Scientists at Queen's University Belfast are developing new sensors to detect chemical agents and illegal drugs which will help in the fight against the threat of terrorist attacks.

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'Borderless Networks' - Cisco's next big thing

Late last year Cisco unveiled collaboration as the first of these major initiatives , identifying this as a $U7b extension of the $US27b unified communications market. Early this year it flagged virtualisation as the second of these, unveiling the bold step of entering the server market in competition with well-established players, to better enable it to play in the data centre virtualisation market.

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Navy Moves to Meet Information Age Challenges

The Navy is merging its information technology, intelligence and communications operations into one organization to better address Information Age challenges, including threats to computer networks.

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IBM Research jumps into genetic sequencing

It took 13 years for researchers to catalog all the information in a human genome the first time. Now IBM believes it can do better--somewhat perversely by equipping a newer genetic sequencing method with brakes.

Big Blue is among those who believe electronics technology can be applied to the task of sequencing a person's genes, thereby bringing genetic testing into the computing era and lowering its cost to something like $100 to $1,000.

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LM to Develop Cyber Information Assurance for Military Networks

Protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and security of military networks is the goal of a new contract that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded to Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT). Under the workscope of this $31 million Military Network Protocol contract, Lockheed Martin's team will develop new cyber assurance procedures to improve security, dynamic bandwidth allocation, and policy-based prioritization levels at the individual and unit level.

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1st Oshkosh M-ATVs on the Ground in Afghanistan Protecting Warfighters

Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE:OSK) announced today that the first MRAP All Terrain Vehicles (M-ATV) are on the ground and in theater in Afghanistan. The vehicle's fielding comes just three months after Oshkosh was awarded the M-ATV contract.

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Microcapsules for drug delivery

Micrometre-sized capsules that are able to deliver drugs inside living cells to replace regular dosing are being developed by scientists at Queen Mary, University of London.

The technique inserts ‘micro shuttles’ that are loaded with a full course of prescription drugs under the skin. These are then opened remotely using biological triggers, such as a drop in blood sugar levels, or activated manually with a pulse of light.

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Bone Graft Grown in Exact Shape of Complex Skull-Jaw Joint

Bones often come in complex, delicate shapes, making it hard to find matching natural replacements for them in patients suffering from injuries, diseases or birth defects. Now researchers have grown bone grafts in the exact shape of a desired bone, an advance that could help provide doctors with just what they need for face, skull and other skeletal reconstructions.

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VASIMR Plasma Rocket Passes Power Test, Announces Launch Date

Spacecraft headed to Mars or beyond may harness a new source of propulsion that could refuel almost anywhere in the solar system. Last week, the VASIMR prototype plasma rocket achieved 200 kilowatts of power, the milestone the team was striving for. Now they are beginning development of a flight-capable version, slated for launch in 2013.

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A New Kind of 'Top Gun' for a New Kind of War

Until recently, the Air Force hierarchy had insisted that the men and women "flying" its MQ-1 Predator drones be full-fledged pilots, even as they kept their feet firmly on the ground in Nevada. But General Norton Schwartz, tapped as the service's chief of staff last year by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, felt assigning such rated pilots to drones made little sense after spending $1 million and up to 18 months to train each one.

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Two research groups build tiny plasmon lasers

Just after researchers at Norfolk State University (Norfolk, VA), Purdue University (Purdue, IN), and Cornell University (Ithaca, NY) announced a tiny laser fabricated from a 44-nm-diameter “Cornell dot” with a gold core and dye-doped silica shell, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley (Berkeley, CA) announced a laser with a 5 × 30 nm lasing region.

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USAF Progresses On Alternative Fuels

On track to certify its aircraft fleet to use synthetic Fisher-Tropsch (F-T) fuel by 2011, the U.S. Air Force has launched a similar certification effort for hydrotreated renewable jet (HRJ) biofuels and is now becoming interested in fuels from cellulosic feedstocks.

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New US Army Camouflage Trials

New US Army camouflage trials are to take place in Afghanistan, according to comments made to the media by military officials in recent days. These will involve two new types of US military camouflage, one known as 'MultiCam', the other, a modified version of the UCP (Universal Camouflage Pattern) already in use.

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U.S. asks Tokyo to pay ¥1 billion for F-35 details

The United States has asked Tokyo to pay around ¥1 billion for information on the capabilities of the stealthy F-35, a leading candidate to replace Japan's aging fighter-jet fleet, sources said Saturday.

It is rare for a country to be charged such a large sum for information on potential imports of defense equipment.

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Shuttling PC Data at the Speed of Light

Sometime next year, says Intel, the first components will appear that use fiber to shuttle data between your computer and other devices, such as digital cameras.

The technology, which Intel calls Light Peak, will be enabled via a small chip and separate optical module.

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Former U.S. Pacific Command Official Convicted of Spying for China

James Fondren, a former official with U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), was found guilty of espionage Sept. 25 for his involvement in a Chinese spy ring. He faces a 15-year sentence.
Fondren retired from the U.S. Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 1996, then joined PACOM as a civilian employee from 2001 to 2008. He served as deputy director of the command's Washington liaison office.

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