Biological and chemical weapons have the potential to pose a national security threat to the U.S. that the country is not equipped to handle, a panel of lawmakers and a military leader told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum.
Category: military – Page 68
Part of one of the inscriptions found at Kom Ombo, a temple in southern Egypt. The image at the top of the inscription appears to show the king Seti I with the gods Horus and Sobek. Part of one of the inscriptions found at Kom Ombo, a temple in southern Egypt. The image at the top of the inscription appears to show the king Seti I with the gods Horus and Sobek. (Image credit: Egyptian Antiquities Ministry)A giant stone engraving that fits together like a jigsaw puzzle, found in a temple in southern Egypt, may reveal new information about a pharaoh named Seti I, who launched a series of military campaigns in North Africa and the Middle East after he became pharaoh in about 1,289 or 1,288 B.C., several Egyptologists told Live Science.
The engraving has both drawings and hieroglyphs on it; the engraving mentions an event that happened during the reign of Horemheb, an elite general in King Tut’s army who eventually became a pharaoh.
Archaeologists with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities discovered the engraving while conducting a groundwater-lowering project in Aswan; inside Kom Ombo, a temple dedicated to the god Horus and a crocodile-headed god named Sobek. The temple dates back 2,300 years; the engraving may have originally been in an earlier temple, now lost, at Kom Ombo that was located on the same spot as the later temple. [The 25 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth].
Researchers have experimentally demonstrated, for the first time, a mechanically flexible silver mesh that is visibly transparent, allows high-quality infrared wireless optical communication and efficiently shields electromagnetic interference in the X band portion of the microwave radio region. Optical communication channels are important to the operation of many devices and are often used for remote sensing and detection.
Electronic devices are now found throughout our homes, on factory floors and in medical facilities. Electromagnetic interference shielding is often used to prevent electromagnetic radiation from these devices from interfering with each other and affecting device performance.
Electromagnetic shielding, which is also used in the military to keep equipment and vehicles hidden from the enemy, can also block the optical communication channels needed for remote sensing, detection or operation of the devices. A shield that can block interference but allow for optical communication channels could help to optimize device performance in a variety of civilian and military settings.
Rachel Bronson, PhD, president and CEO, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said: “We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality. 90 seconds to midnight is the closest the Clock has ever been set to midnight, and it’s a decision our experts do not take lightly. The US government, its NATO allies and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; we urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the Clock.”
The Doomsday Clock’s time is set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board with the support of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, which includes 10 Nobel Laureates. Previously, the Doomsday Clock had been set at 100 seconds to midnight since 2020.
The Doomsday Clock statement explains that “Russia’s war on Ukraine has raised profound questions about how states interact, eroding norms of international conduct that underpin successful responses to a variety of global risks. And worst of all, Russia’s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict—by accident, intention, or miscalculation—is a terrible risk. The possibility that the conflict could spin out of anyone’s control remains high… Russia has also brought its war to the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor sites, violating international protocols and risking widespread release of radioactive materials. Efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency to secure these plants so far have been rebuffed.” The statement has been translated into Ukrainian and Russian.
Nine military officers who had worked decades ago at a nuclear missile base in Montana have been diagnosed with blood cancer and there are “indications” the disease may be linked to their service, according to military briefing slides obtained by The Associated Press. One of the officers has died.
All of the officers, known as missileers, were assigned as many as 25 years ago to Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to a vast field of 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silos. The nine officers were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to a January briefing by U.S. Space Force Lt. Col. Daniel Sebeck.
Missileers ride caged elevators deep underground into a small operations bunker encased in a thick wall of concrete and steel. They remain there sometimes for days, ready to turn the launch keys if ordered to by the president.
For the past 60 years, helicopters have provided essential vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities–omnidirectional maneuverability, hovering, landing on almost any flat surface–for countless military operations. Even as VTOL aircraft technology continues to advance, however, one key goal still remains elusive: improving top speed beyond 150 kt-170 kt. Faster VTOL aircraft could shorten mission times and increase the potential for successful operations, while reducing vulnerability to enemy attack. Unfortunately, new VTOL designs so far have been unable to increase top speed without unacceptable compromises in range, efficiency, useful payload or simplicity of design.
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Vertical takeoff and landing experimental plane.
US Marines Defeat DARPA Robot
Posted in military, robotics/AI
DARPA has trained one of its robots to identify humans. There’s just one little problem: The robot is cartoonishly easy to confuse.
Violence and warfare were widespread in many Neolithic communities across Northwest Europe, a period associated with the adoption of farming, new research suggests.
Of the skeletal remains of more than 2,300 early farmers from 180 sites dating from around 8,000—4,000 years ago to, more than one in ten displayed weapon injuries, bioarcheologists found.
Contrary to the view that the Neolithic era was marked by peaceful cooperation, the team of international researchers say that in some regions the period from 6000BCE to 2000BCE may be a high point in conflict and violence with the destruction of entire communities.
It generates energy by forcing the stream to form a vortex.
Without employing any blades, the transportable hydraulic turbine SETUR from Vortex Hydrokinetics serves as a power source. The water source could be rivers, tidal streams, ocean currents, or even canals.
The portable equipment is lightweight as a result of the 3D-printed bladeless hydraulic turbine.
Vortex Hydrokinetics.
As reported by Designboom, the turbine, shaped like an atomic bomb, generates energy by forcing the stream to form a vortex and then using that vortex as a source of current. According to the design team, the cost-effective SETUR can be used both independently and as part of a multi-unit hydropower farm.
We live in an era of renewed space exploration, where multiple agencies are planning to send astronauts to the Moon in the coming years. This will be followed in the next decade with crewed missions to Mars by NASA and China, who may be joined by other nations before long. These and other missions that will take astronauts beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and the Earth-Moon system require new technologies, ranging from life support and radiation shielding to power and propulsion. And when it comes to the latter, Nuclear Thermal and Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NTP/NEP) is a top contender!
NASA and the Soviet space program spent decades researching nuclear propulsion during the Space Race. A few years ago, NASA reignited its nuclear program for the purpose of developing bimodal nuclear propulsion – a two-part system consisting of an NTP and NEP element – that could enable transits to Mars in 100 days. As part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program for 2023, NASA selected a nuclear concept for Phase I development. This new class of bimodal nuclear propulsion system uses a “wave rotor topping cycle” and could reduce transit times to Mars to just 45 days.
The proposal, titled “Bimodal NTP/NEP with a Wave Rotor Topping Cycle,” was put forward by Prof. Ryan Gosse, the Hypersonics Program Area Lead at the University of Florida and a member of the Florida Applied Research in Engineering (FLARE) team. Gosse’s proposal is one of 14 selected by the NAIC this year for Phase I development, which includes a $12,500 grant to assist in maturing the technology and methods involved. Other proposals included innovative sensors, instruments, manufacturing techniques, power systems, and more.