President Barack Obama spoke at Florida Power and Light’s new DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center about $3.4 billion in stimulus money going to smart-grid projects that will help link renewables to consumers.
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Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Silk-Silicon Implantable Electronics Conform to Tissues, Then Melt Away
In the quest to make our bodies ever more bionic, researchers have now developed implantable silicon-silk electronics that almost dissolve completely inside the body, leaving behind nanocircuitry that could be used for improved electrical interfaces for nervous system tissues or photonic tattoos that display blood-sugar readouts on the skin’s surface.
US Navy chief favors speeding up unmanned programs
Wants to speed up autonomous underwater systems
Navy unmanned combat plane could move out sooner
The U.S. Navy's top admiral said on Monday he hoped to speed up work on unmanned weapons systems, including underwater vehicles and an unmanned combat plane being developed by Northrop Grumman Corp.
Laser-Powered Elevator to Space Hits Some Snags
A laser-powered robot failed to complete its climb up a long cable dangling from a helicopter Wednesday in a $2 million competition to test the potential reality of the science fiction concept of space elevators.
Chilton: U.S. Needs More Ready-to-Launch Satellites
U.S. Strategic Command chief Gen. Kevin Chilton said Nov. 3 he would give up new, state-of-the-art space systems to swell the number of satellites the military could launch as needs arise.
The U.S military's space community has become focused on managing programs and budgets "to capability gaps" rather than ensuring there are ample space systems "in the barn" ready to be placed on orbit.
BAE Systems to Support US Air Force Nuclear Treaty Monitoring
BAE Systems received a contract worth up to $20 million to support the US Air Force global monitoring for nuclear treaty compliance.
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Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Compressing photonic signals for greater bandwidth
Cornell researchers have developed an ingenious method to time-compress optical signals. The process could enable optical communication systems to carry many more bits per second or could also be used to generate short bursts of light with complex waveforms needed to control chemistry and physics experiments where changes are induced by light.
NASA: 2 companies win $1.65M moon lander prize
NASA said it will this week award $1.65 million in prize money to a pair of aerospace companies that successfully simulated landing a spacecraft on the moon and lifting off again.
Large Hadron Collider to start up in three weeks
A piece of cable was responsible last year for the world's most expensive short circuit.
More than $50 million-worth of damage was done to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most advanced particle accelerator ever built, a few days after its ceremonial opening.
China commander says space weapons inevitable
A top China air force commander has called the militarization of space an "historical inevitability", state media said Monday, marking an apparent shift in Beijing's opposition to weaponising outer space.
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Turning Twitter into an application server
As much as Twitter is a powerful communication and social application, it's a relatively simple Web app. As part of a new contest sponsored by Engine Yard, Ruby on Rails developers are going to turn Twitter into their own application server. Zinc air battery maker looks beyond lithium
Start-up ReVolt Technology is developing rechargeable zinc air batteries, a technology it says promises longer runtime for consumer electronics and plug-in vehicles.
The Switzerland-based company, which was spun out of a Norwegian research institute five years ago, anticipates commercializing a rechargeable coin-size batteries next year. But the technology has the potential to be a cheaper and more energy-dense alternative to lithium ion batteries in consumer electronics, grid storage, and transportation.
Northrop Grumman Corporation to Provide Precision Pointing Concept
Northrop Grumman Corporation's (NYSE:NOC) milli-Hemispherical Resonator Gyroscope (mHRG)-based precision pointing concept has been selected by the U.S. Army Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD) for exploration under the Far Target Location Improvement Program Broad Agency Announcement.
GD to Develop New High-Speed Encryptor
General Dynamics C4 Systems has been awarded a $7.6 million contract to develop the new KG-530 SONET OC-768C in-line encryptor in support of an NSA initiative to secure and distribute data, at a full 40 gigabits per second line rate, used for government and military missions.
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Russia Leads Nuclear Space Race After U.S. Drops Out
The Russian space agency may build a nuclear-powered spacecraft with the blessing of the country’s leader, Russian and international media reported Thursday.
The craft would cost $600 million and Russian scientists claim it could be ready as early as 2012.
Three-dimensional solar cells
Using zinc-oxide nanostructures grown on optical fibres and coated with dye-sensitised solar-cell materials, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new type of three-dimensional photovoltaic (PV) system.
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Cheap, Printed Solar LEDs To Light Up Off-Grid African Villages
Danish researcher Frederik Krebs has created an LED lamp embedded within a flexible, printable solar panel that could replace the kerosene lamps still used around the developing world.
While sheets of photovoltaics aren't that new, Krebs is the first person to embed LEDs inside those solar panels.
While sheets of photovoltaics aren't that new, Krebs is the first person to embed LEDs inside those solar panels.
Trident laser accelerates protons to record energies
An international team of physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory has succeeded in using intense laser light to accelerate protons to energies never before achieved. Using this technique, scientists can now accelerate particles to extremely high velocities that would otherwise only be possible using large accelerator facilities.
New System-on-a-Chip Boosts the Appeal of E-Ink
Marvell’s Armada 166e builds an E-Ink graphics controller right into the processor, allowing for e-readers that cost less — with displays that refresh more quickly.
Power-beamers rise again
Like the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, the Power Beaming Challenge is part of the NASA-backed Centennial Challenges, a program aimed at encouraging new technologies that could be adopted by the space agency for future exploration.
US Navy LockMart Contract For Design Of New Surface Ship Electronic Warfare System
The U.S. Navy recently selected Lockheed Martin to provide its next-generation of electronic warfare (EW) systems for surface ships, which will significantly improve the Navy's ability to detect threats to the fleet.
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Pentagon Touts New, Lighter Vehicle for Afghanistan
The Pentagon on Monday showed off a new, lighter armored vehicle built for the rugged roads of Afghanistan, saying it was rushing to ship the "life-savers" to U.S. troops.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Breakthrough in industrial-scale nanotube processing
Rice University scientists today unveiled a method for the industrial-scale processing of pure carbon-nanotube fibers that could lead to revolutionary advances in materials science, power distribution and nanoelectronics. The result of a nine-year program, the method builds upon tried-and-true processes that chemical firms have used for decades to produce plastics. The research is available online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
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High-performance plasmas may make reliable, efficient fusion power a reality
In the quest to produce nuclear fusion energy, researchers from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility have recently confirmed long-standing theoretical predictions that performance, efficiency and reliability are simultaneously obtained in tokamaks, the leading magnetic confinement fusion device, operating at their performance limits. Experiments designed to test these predictions have successfully demonstrated the interaction of these conditions.
Firing up those femtocells
The folks over at the Femto Forum, in conjunction with the European telecommunications standards institute, recently announced a "plugfest" for March 2010. The plugfest will serve as a forum to for interoperability tests among femtocell network gateways, security gateways, femtocell access points and chipsets.
Femtocells are tiny base stations designed for use in residences and branch offices, capable of supporting roughly two to to five phones/mobile devices.
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DoD and Taser's New Grenade Launcher Round Delivers Incapacitating Shock From 200 Feet
The new Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation (HEMI) projectile is being developed for the Pentagon by Taser International under a $2.5 million contract and should be ready for prototype testing some time after the new year.
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Star power comes to Earth
Though not yet running at full capacity, the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, CA) is now operational. It has taken 15 years and $3.5 billion to build the huge 192-beam laser system, which is now on a gradual ramp toward its full design output of 1.8 MJ of ultraviolet pulse energy.
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Raytheon Tests JSOW-ER As Anti-Ship Weapon
Raytheon has conducted the first free-flight test of a powered, extended-range version of its Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW-ER) as the U.S. Navy prepares to begin an analysis of alternatives (AOA) for anti-ship missiles to replace the Harpoon.
Satellite Is New Missile Attack Warning System
A new satellite that is set to provide early warning of missile attacks has entered a more advanced test stage.
The Space Based Infrared System (SBIS) geo-synchronous spacecraft, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, will provide an early warning system against missiles being launched. The satellite is due for launch in 2012.
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Army Develops ‘Ghost’ Imaging to Aid on Battlefield
Physicists at the Army Research Laboratory are bringing quantum “ghost” imaging from the realm of scientific curiosity to practical reality.
Ghost imaging is a technique that allows a high-resolution camera to produce an image of an object that the camera itself cannot see.
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