Lifeboat Foundation

San Francisco-based research company Otherlab is developing a new concept for disposable delivery drones made of cardboard.

The project is funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA), and it aims to develop drones which can be used to deliver medical supplies and other cargo to remote or hard-to-reach locations.

The drone is designed to make only an outward journey – no returns – and then be discarded. The fact that the drone only has to make a one-way trip will extend its range. The vehicle’s primary method of propulsion will be gliding.

The devices we’re sending into space are getting smaller and lighter, which means there’s less room for bulky and static components. Flexibility and compactness are coming into vogue, and this prototype satellite radiator is inspired by that most compact and flexible of arts: origami.

An ordinary radiator would, of course, help dissipate heat generated by the sun or on-board electronics. But its shape and size, and therefore to a certain extent its capabilities, are set when it is manufactured.

Goddard Space Flight Center and Brigham Young University researchers are working on a radiator that can fold up or expand as needed to accelerate or slow the rate of heat dissipation as its operators see fit.

Continue reading “Origami-inspired radiator from NASA could change shape to warm or cool tiny satellites” »

A little delayed in sharing this.

Threats posed by adaptive radars to electronic warfare systems are a colossal challenge for the U.S. Navy, but a combo of advanced signal processing, intelligent algorithms, and machine learning techniques are being developed to help warfighters detect and counter them.

Electronic warfare (EW) systems – whether on land or aboard U.S. military ships and aircraft – tap the electromagnetic spectrum to sense, protect, and communicate. But, when necessary, these same systems can be turned against adversaries to deny their ability to disrupt or use radio, infrared, or radar signals.

Continue reading “Cognitive electronic warfare: Countering threats posed by adaptive radars” »

WASHINGTON (AP) — Holy drone, Batman! Mechanical masterminds have spawned the Bat Bot, a soaring, sweeping and diving robot that may eventually fly circles around other drones.

Because it mimics the unique and more flexible way bats fly, this 3-ounce prototype could do a better and safer job getting into disaster sites and scoping out construction zones than bulky drones with spinning rotors, said the three authors of a study released Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics. For example, it would have been ideal for going inside the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, said study co-author Seth Hutchinson, an engineering professor at the University of Illinois.

The bat robot flaps its wings for better aerial maneuvers, glides to save energy and dive bombs when needed. Eventually, the researchers hope to have it perch upside down like the real thing, but that will have to wait for the robot’s sequel.

As strange as it may sound, the universe actually may be a hologram, according to a recent study published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Despite our knowledge of the universe, cosmologists have never been able to agree on a single unified model. This is because many current versions describe the cosmos with either general relativity or quantum theory, and neither of those work well together.

In an attempt to bridge this gap, a team of researchers from Canada, England, and the United States, argued that a holographic explanation of the universe could provide a set model, UPI reports. This is because it is able to account for irregularities in the echo of thermal energy leftover from the Big Bang, known as the cosmic microwave background.

Continue reading “Entire universe could be a hologram, study suggests” »

Nice read.

The results demonstrate that the positions of tens of thousands of atoms can be precisely identified and then fed into quantum mechanics calculations to correlate imperfections and defects with material properties at the single-atom level. This research will be published Feb 2. in the journal Nature.

Jianwei (John) Miao, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and a member of UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute, led the international team in mapping the atomic-level details of the bimetallic nanoparticle, more than a trillion of which could fit within a grain of sand.

Continue reading “Coordinates of more than 23,000 atoms in technologically important material mapped” »

There is much to still be learned around Quantum parallel states. We have just scratched the surface with QC and some of the parallel states and its tie to time travel which in the recent 1 1/2 years has uncovered many truths that we (including myself) thought were bogus or impossible.

As reported by Phys Org, a collaborative study involving researches from Canada, Italy and the UK may have provided the first detectable evidence indicating that our universe may in fact be a ‘vast and complex hologram’. It’s an idea that’s been around since the 1990s — that everything we see around us exists on a flat, 2D surface, but we see everything in 3D because the universe acts like one giant hologram.

To explain the concept better, the common analogy used is to imagine the holographic universe as if you were watching a 3D movie in a movie theater. As movie-watchers, we see images on the screen as having height, width, and depth, even if they’re being projected on a 2D screen. In the case of our universe, it’s a bit more complicated because we can’t just see things, we can touch things too, which makes our perceptions ‘real’.

Continue reading “The Universe Is A Hologram And We Are All Just Illusions” »

Interesting write up some fiction and some non-fiction brought together on a common theory about Quantum. I do have a huge curiosity around the work going on the parallel states research and the job postings by some companies for psychics. Wouldn’t it be funny that if all these folks who thought they saw something like a spirit really did due to Quantum parallel states? What if Musk and others who believe we’re living in VR was actually true and was because of the same thing with the psychics? Who knows; but does make one think for a minute about what if.

The theoretical physicist has written a bold book that deals with the biggest questions, taking in quantum theory and free will along the way.

Researchers have demonstrated the fiber transmission of quantum information in which each quantum bit carries nearly two bits of classical information.

Sending quantum bits can potentially be twice as efficient as sending classical bits. But realizing this so-called superdense coding has been a major challenge. Brian Williams and colleagues from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, have sent quantum bits over a small fiber link, achieving a new record in bit density. Their technique utilizes the hyperentanglement of photon pairs—a combined entanglement in their polarization and time degrees of freedom.

Suppose Alice wants to send a two-bit message to Bob. She could send two photons with the message encoded in their polarizations. Or, using superdense coding, she could send one polarized photon qubit whose polarization state encodes both bits. The latter option requires that the two parties initially share a pair of photons with entangled polarization. Alice performs one of four operations on her photon and then sends it to Bob, who combines it with his photon to measure which operation Alice performed.