Nice.
Researcher Tim Burgess added atoms of zinc to lasers one hundredth the diameter of a human hair and made of gallium arsenide — a material used extensively in smartphones and other electronic devices.
The impurities led to a 100 times improvement in the amount of light from the lasers.
Continue reading “A little impurity makes nanolasers shine” »
A newly published study details how engineers developed programmable RNA vaccines that work against Ebola, H1N1 influenza, and a common parasites in mice.
MIT engineers have developed a new type of easily customizable vaccine that can be manufactured in one week, allowing it to be rapidly deployed in response to disease outbreaks. So far, they have designed vaccines against Ebola, H1N1 influenza, and Toxoplasma gondii (a relative of the parasite that causes malaria), which were 100 percent effective in tests in mice.
The vaccine consists of strands of genetic material known as messenger RNA, which can be designed to code for any viral, bacterial, or parasitic protein. These molecules are then packaged into a molecule that delivers the RNA into cells, where it is translated into proteins that provoke an immune response from the host.
Russian military scientists’ work on developing defensive capabilities against the threat of hypersonic weapons systems is in full swing, according to Ground Forces Air Defense Force chief Alexander Leonov.
Speaking to Russian radio station RSN, Lieutenant-General Leonov indicated that “over the long term, we will be faced with hypersonic targets such as warheads [which do not fly to their target according to a traditional ballistic trajectory], as well as hypersonic aerial vehicles; this trend is very promising. Work to combat these prospective weapons must be organized, and is in fact already being carried out.”
The officer indicated that at present, medium and long-range hypersonic missile systems are perceived as the main threat when it comes to hypersonic weaponry.
Nice.
(Phys.org)—As the saying goes, no two fingerprints are alike, and the same is true for quantum fingerprints. Just as a human fingerprint is only a fraction of the size of a person, yet can be used to distinguish between any two people (at least in theory), quantum fingerprints are exponentially smaller than the string of information they represent, yet they can be used to distinguish between any two strings.
Ever since quantum fingerprinting was first proposed in 2001, it has for the most part remained an interesting theoretical concept, with only a handful of protocols having managed to experimentally demonstrate the idea.
Continue reading “Quantum fingerprinting surpasses classical limit” »
An unmanned Israeli vessel has test-fired a torpedo.
The Seagull, from Elbit Systems, demonstrated its weapons capability by launching a torpedo off the Israeli coast near Haifa, according to Israeli news site Ynetnews.
“The test was carried out in the Haifa area, and its primary goal was to determine if it’s possible to arm and launch a relatively large precision missile from an unmanned ship,” Ynetnews said. “The next phases in the development of the system are expected to include launching the torpedo at a target to destroy it.”
“Numerous commercial satellites — including newly emerging CubeSats — cover large areas with higher revisit rates and deliver high-quality imagery in near real-time to customers,” according to IARPA Program Manager HakJae Kim. “Although the entire Earth has been — and continues to be — imaged multiple times, fully automated data exploitation remains limited.”
The two-phase Multi-View Stereo 3D Mapping Challenge will kick off July 11 with the ultimate goal of creating a 3D mapping system, as well as a community citizen scientists interested in working on future crowdsourcing challenges.
The challenge includes a total of $14,000 in prizes during the initial Explorer phase, though the full challenge has a prize pool of $100,000. Prize allocations for the Master contest have yet to be determined.
Continue reading “IARPA puts up $100K for 3D satellite mapping solution” »
