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May 31, 2020

Room Temperature Superconductor Breakthrough at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Posted by in categories: materials, particle physics

An international team of researchers has discovered the hydrogen atoms in a metal hydride material are much more tightly spaced than had been predicted for decades — a feature that could possibly facilitate superconductivity at or near room temperature and pressure.

Such a superconducting material, carrying electricity without any energy loss due to resistance, would revolutionize energy efficiency in a broad range of consumer and industrial applications.

The scientists conducted neutron scattering experiments at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory on samples of zirconium vanadium hydride at atmospheric pressure and at temperatures from −450 degrees Fahrenheit (5 K) to as high as −10 degrees Fahrenheit (250 K) — much higher than the temperatures where superconductivity is expected to occur in these conditions.

May 31, 2020

Nanotech Breakthrough Could Revolutionize Night Vision

Posted by in category: nanotechnology

Circa 2016


Researchers build “teeny, tiny structures” that can change infrared to visible light.

Continue reading “Nanotech Breakthrough Could Revolutionize Night Vision” »

May 31, 2020

Perovskite photovoltaics on coated ultrathin glass as high-efficiency flexible indoor generators

Posted by in categories: internet, robotics/AI

A revolution is underway in the development of autonomous wireless sensors, low-power consumer electronics, smart homes, domotics and the Internet of Things. All the related technologies require efficient and easy-to-integrate energy harvesting devices for their power. Billions of wireless sensors are expected to be installed in interior environments in coming decades.

May 31, 2020

Visiting Vehicle Launches, Arrivals and Departures

Posted by in category: space

The International Space Station has hosted a variety of spacecraft shuttling crews and delivering supplies.

May 31, 2020

Elon Musk’s biggest worry about SpaceX’s first astronaut mission isn’t the rocket launch — it’s the spaceship’s return to Earth

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

Elon Musk’s “biggest concern” is reentry — the final stage of SpaceX’s biggest mission for NASA, when its astronauts must hurtle back to Earth.

May 31, 2020

New coronavirus losing potency, top Italian doctor says

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

ROME (Reuters) — The new coronavirus is losing its potency and has become much less lethal, a senior Italian doctor said on Sunday.

“In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” said Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan in the northern region of Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of Italy’s coronavirus contagion.

“The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago,” he told RAI television.

May 31, 2020

Black Holes Help Prove That a Special Kind of Space-Time Is Unstable

Posted by in categories: cosmology, information science, quantum physics

Einstein’s equations describe three canonical configurations of space-time. Now one of these three — important in the study of quantum gravity — has been shown to be inherently unstable.

May 31, 2020

SpaceX Dragon Endeavour Docking with the International Space Station

Posted by in category: space travel

#ICYMI: NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour arrived at the International Space Station and docked today, May 31, 2020, at the station’s Harmony port at 10:16 a.m. ET.

Following soft capture, 12 hooks were closed to complete a hard capture at 10:27 a.m. ET.

May 31, 2020

ARC: A compact, high-field, fusion nuclear science facility and demonstration power plant with demountable magnets

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, science

Circa 2015


The affordable, robust, compact (ARC) reactor is the product of a conceptual design study aimed at reducing the size, cost, and complexity of a combined fusion nuclear science facility (FNSF) and demonstration fusion Pilot power plant. ARC is a ∼200–250 MWe tokamak reactor with a major radius of 3.3 m, a minor radius of 1.1 m, and an on-axis magnetic field of 9.2 T. ARC has rare earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) superconducting toroidal field coils, which have joints to enable disassembly. This allows the vacuum vessel to be replaced quickly, mitigating first wall survivability concerns, and permits a single device to test many vacuum vessel designs and divertor materials. The design point has a plasma fusion gain of Qp ≈ 13.6, yet is fully non-inductive, with a modest bootstrap fraction of only ∼63%. Thus ARC offers a high power gain with relatively large external control of the current profile. This highly attractive combination is enabled by the ∼23 T peak field on coil achievable with newly available REBCO superconductor technology. External current drive is provided by two innovative inboard RF launchers using 25 MW of lower hybrid and 13.6 MW of ion cyclotron fast wave power. The resulting efficient current drive provides a robust, steady state core plasma far from disruptive limits. ARC uses an all-liquid blanket, consisting of low pressure, slowly flowing fluorine lithium beryllium (FLiBe) molten salt. The liquid blanket is low-risk technology and provides effective neutron moderation and shielding, excellent heat removal, and a tritium breeding ratio ≥ 1.1. The large temperature range over which FLiBe is liquid permits an output blanket temperature of 900 K, single phase fluid cooling, and a high efficiency helium Brayton cycle, which allows for net electricity generation when operating ARC as a Pilot power plant.

May 31, 2020

Steganography Anchors Pinpoint Attacks on Industrial Targets

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

Ongoing spear-phishing attacks aim at stolen Windows credentials for ICS suppliers worldwide.