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Mar 20, 2019

Analysts: Rocket Jumps Between Earth Cities Could Smash Airlines

Posted by in category: space travel

A new report by Swiss investment bank UBS predicts that soon high speed travel through the near reaches of space will come to compete with long-haul airline flights.

UBS analysts estimate that space tourism alone will become a $3 billion market by 2030, while the space industry as a whole will double in worth from $400 billion today to $805 billion over the same period. And once we can spend a week of vacation in space, they ask, why not use the technology for Earth-bound long-distance travel?

“Space tourism could be the stepping stone for the development of long-haul travel on earth serviced by space,” wrote UBS analysts Jarrod Castle and Myles Walton in the report, as quoted by CNBC.

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Mar 20, 2019

Supercomputer sheds light on how droplets merge

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, climatology, supercomputing

Scientists have revealed the precise molecular mechanisms that cause drops of liquid to combine, in a discovery that could have a range of applications.

Insights into how merge could help make 3D printing technologies more accurate and may help improve the forecasting of thunderstorms and other weather events, the study suggests.

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Mar 20, 2019

The U.S. Military is Buying a Brutal-Looking Powered Exoskeleton

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, military

The partnership could greatly enhance the productivity of a single officer in the field and decrease fatigue or strain — but the USSOCOM didn’t reveal the exact intended use case for the exoskeleton, which lets the wearer heft 200 pounds (90 kg).

Forklift Arms

It’s the latest sign that exoskeletons are finally hitting the mainstream. Automobile manufacturers are already considering the use of simpler exoskeletons on factory floors. And the Food and Drug Administration approved a lower-body exoskeleton last year for use by people with lower limb disabilities.

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Mar 20, 2019

Robotic ‘gray goo’

Posted by in categories: engineering, particle physics, robotics/AI

Up until now, the ability to make gray goo has been theoretical. However, the scientists at the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science have made a significant breakthrough. The individual components are computationally simple but can exhibit complex behavior.


Current robots are usually self-contained entities made of interdependent subcomponents, each with a specific function. If one part fails, the robot stops working. In robotic swarms, each robot is an independently functioning machine.

In a new study published today in Nature, researchers at Columbia Engineering and MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), demonstrate for the first time a way to make a robot composed of many loosely coupled components, or “particles.” Unlike swarm or modular robots, each component is simple, and has no individual address or identity. In their system, which the researchers call a “particle robot,” each particle can perform only uniform volumetric oscillations (slightly expanding and contracting), but cannot move independently.

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Mar 20, 2019

Computer scientists create reprogrammable molecular computing system

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing

Simplified molecular computing with DNA. Just mix test tubes.


Researchers have designed self-assembling DNA molecules with unprecedented reprogrammability.

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Mar 20, 2019

China Is Building a 33,000 Ton Nuclear Icebreaker

Posted by in category: transportation

The ship would help China establish its position in the Arctic and serve as a test run for nuclear aircraft carriers.

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Mar 20, 2019

We did a breakthrough ‘speed test’ in quantum tunnelling, and here’s why that’s exciting

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Things get weird at the quantum level and now we know they can happen really fast when a particle pushes through an almost insurmountable barrier.

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Mar 20, 2019

The March Journal Club by Dr. Oliver Medvedik will focus on this recent study that showed transplanting the bone marrow of young laboratory mice into old mice prevented cognitive decline in the old mice, preserving their memory and learning abilities

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience

These findings support the idea that cognitive decline is in part due to the aging of blood cells, which are produced in the bone marrow.

Abstract
Restoration of cognitive function in old mice by transfer of blood or plasma from young mice has been attributed to reduced C–C motif chemokine ligand 11 (CCL11) and β2-microglobulin, which are thought to suppress neurogenesis in the aging brain. However, the specific role of the hematopoietic system in this rejuvenation has not been defined and the importance of neurogenesis in old mice is unclear. Here we report that transplantation of young bone marrow to rejuvenate the hematopoietic system preserved cognitive function in old recipient mice, despite irradiation-induced suppression of neurogenesis, and without reducing β2-microglobulin. Instead, young bone marrow transplantation preserved synaptic connections and reduced microglial activation in the hippocampus. Circulating CCL11 levels were lower in young bone marrow recipients, and CCL11 administration in young mice had the opposite effect, reducing synapses and increasing microglial activation.


Mar 20, 2019

Project aims to tame noise from supersonic military jets with ‘swirl’ technology

Posted by in categories: engineering, health, military

It’s cliché to describe something very noisy as “louder than a jet engine.” But supersonic jet engines, like those powering fighters flown by the U.S. military, are so much louder than regular jet engines that scientists have a special term for their sound—” broadband shock-associated noise.”

Now, a team of faculty and students from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Kansas will design and test to cut noise from supersonic military jets. The U.S. Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), the DoD’s environmental science and technology program, is supporting a one-year, $200,000 effort at KU, with the potential to expand that support in the years ahead.

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Mar 20, 2019

Speeding the development of fusion power to create unlimited energy on Earth

Posted by in categories: energy, space

Can tokamak fusion facilities, the most widely used devices for harvesting on Earth the fusion reactions that power the sun and stars, be developed more quickly to produce safe, clean, and virtually limitless energy for generating electricity? Physicist Jon Menard of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has examined that question in a detailed look at the concept of a compact tokamak equipped with high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. Such magnets can produce higher magnetic fields—necessary to produce and sustain fusion reactions—than would otherwise be possible in a compact facility.

Menard first presented the paper, now published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, to a Royal Society workshop in London that explored accelerating the development of tokamak-produced with compact tokamaks. “This is the first paper that quantitatively documents how the new superconductors can interplay with the high pressure that compact tokamaks produce to influence how tokamaks are optimized in the future,” Menard said. “What we tried to develop were some simple models that capture important aspects of an integrated design.”

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