Lifeboat Foundation

Say this for DARPA, it’s not shy about picking ominous names for its projects. Or, in this case, not worried when the partners it works with choose them. Pictured above: the “Nightmare” a “stealth bike” developed by LSA Autonomy for DARPA that has just been moved on to the second stage of development, according to Defense One. DARPA commissioned both it and another bike from Logos Technologies to meet some specific goals: run quietly on electric power, but also run on whatever fuel a soldier in the field.

Alex Dzwill of Logos told Defense One that its bike, the SilentHawk, could run on anything from gasoline to propane to jet fuel:” It will figure it out.”

This is a big deal.

Growing enough food to feed 9 billion people by 2050 will require huge amounts of energy and water. Using nanoparticles to boost plant growth and yield could save resources and reduce water pollution.

Interesting…

First, we take ‘Time’, as we know it’s one of those things that we take for granted—time moves forward and never backward. But did you ever stop to wonder why it moves in one direction, as opposed to the other?

The question continues to stump physicists. After all, there are certain physical processes that are actually time-reversible—they look the same no matter which way you run them.

Continue reading “New Research Suggests Dark Energy Might be the Reason Time Runs Forward” »

Any electric car maker worth its salt knows that their vehicles are only as good as the charging stations that keep them running… and that includes Apple, apparently. Reuters sources understand that Apple is asking charging station manufacturers about their technology for the sake of its oft-rumored electric car project. It’s not certain how deep the talks go or who’s involved (the companies certainly aren’t talking). However, NRG Energy issued a vague response noting that it’s talking to “every potential manufacturer of tomorrow.” We wouldn’t rule it out, then.

There’s more evidence than that. An unnamed worldwide engineering company has already offered to help Apple build charging stations, Reuters says. Meanwhile, Apple has publicly hired EV charging experts from BMW, Georgia Tech and Google.

If true, the approach is a logical fit for Apple. Part of Tesla’s success in EVs comes from its willingness to build a network of high-speed charging stations — you’re more likely to buy a Model S if you know that you can drive it long distances without spending hours waiting for a recharge. Apple may need that same kind of reassurance. And let’s not forget that Apple’s strategy revolves around controlling as much of the experience as possible. It only makes sense that the company would want optimized charging stations instead of leaving drivers to use generic stations that might not work as effectively.

Continue reading “Apple reportedly looks into making electric car charging stations” »

The US Navy will be taking its futuristic Railgun out of the lab where it has been tested for to past eight years. Over the next two years, railguns will be tested in open firing ranges and eventually at sea, where the futuristic electromagnetic gun will be able to demonstrate its full capacity to fire projectiles at targets 50–100 nautical miles (92 – 185 kilometers) away.

The Navy is evaluating two electromagnetic railgun models. A 32-megajoule prototype built by BAE Systems and the 32 megajoule Blitzer developed by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS). The company has also developed a 3-megajoule railgun variant. In the future, the Navy plans to deploy railguns rated to 64-megajoule.

A railgun can deliver muzzle velocities greater than twice those of conventional guns. Using electromagnetic power, where magnetic fields created by strong electrical currents accelerate a sliding metal conductor between two rails, the railgun achieves muzzle speeds of more than Mach 7.5 without the use of chemical propellant.

Continue reading “Shipping containers full of capacitors will enable flexible railgun designs for shipboard and fixed or mobile land based railguns” »

A more efficient way to mine water and other chemical volatiles to create rocket fuel in situ is arguably the fastest way to colonize the Moon and Mars.

Despite the recent buzz about eventually mining asteroids for metals, their real near-term value may be as space-based sources of water and carbon dioxide from which to make rocket propellant. The trick is in mining such volatile compounds efficiently enough to convert them to fuel in situ. That is, without having to import such resources from gravitationally-bound, planetary surfaces like the Moon, Mars or even Earth.

Here’s where a potentially revolutionary patent pending process dubbed “Optical-Mining” would figure in. The idea is to use this new technology to excavate both water ices and other volatile compounds from small 10 meter-diameter Near-Earth Asteroids. If successful, such an In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) asteroid-mining operation could mark the tipping point in viably extracting resources from thousands of such asteroids.

Continue reading “How To ‘Optically-Mine’ Water From An Asteroid” »

New and improve fuel cells.

Fuel cells, which generate electricity from chemical reactions without harmful emissions, have the potential to power everything from cars to portable electronics, and could be cleaner and more efficient than combustion engines. Abstract: Fuel cells, which generate electricity from chemical reactions without harmful emissions, have the potential to power everything from cars to portable electronics, and could be cleaner and more efficient than combustion engines.

Pressure is on DARPA by US Military to speed up on completing the soft Exosuit.

The clothing-like Soft Exosuit has been described as a “Wearable Robot” by the U.S. Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) that’s commissioning universities and research institutions to advance this military technology. The DARPA Soft Exosuit is part of the agency’s Warrior Web program.

A prototype Soft Exosuit had a series of webbing straps around the lower half of the body with a low-power microprocessor and a network of flexible strain sensors. These electronics act as the “brain” and “nervous system” of the Soft Exosuit. They continuously monitor data signals, including suit tension, wearer position (walking, running, crouched) and more.

Continue reading “DARPA Speeds-up Work on ‘Soft Exosuit’ that will Strengthen US Soldiers” »

Improving energy efficiencies — nice.

The remarkable properties researchers at the Australian National University (ARC Centre of Excellence CUDOS) and the University of California Berkeley have discovered in a new nano-metamaterial could lead to highly efficient thermophotovoltaic cells. The new artificial material glows in an unusual way when headed.

As shown in the image, the metamaterial comprises 20 stacked alternating layers of 30-nm-thick gold and 45-nm-thick magnesium fluoride dielectric, perforated with 260 × 530 nm holes that are arranged into a 750 × 750 nm square lattice.

Continue reading “Magnetic Hyperbolic Optical Metamaterial Could Advance Thermophotovoltaics” »