Toggle light / dark theme

The Air Force is short of funding to speed development of a laser weapon for what is already one of the most lethal platforms in the U.S. arsenal — the Special Operations AC-130J Ghostrider gunship, Air Force Lt. Gen. Marshall Webb testified Wednesday.

“We’re $58 million short of having a full program that would get us a 60-kilowatt laser flying on an AC-130 by 2022,” Webb, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging threats.

Webb was responding to questions from Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, who said at the current pace of testing and funding, a laser weapon for the AC-130 would not be operational until 2030.

Circa 2013 o.o


Rheinmetall Defense Electronics unveiled their new “Gatling Laser” which can be mounted on ships as part of a new sea-based anti-drone laser system. The four 20 kilowatt lasers fire simultaneously as a single powerful 80 kilowatt beam. The firm boasts units can even be combined for ‘unlimited’ power. The Gatling laser can reportedly shoot down a drone at 500 meters.

Circa 2020


The present age of information technology – the transformation of daily life by laptop computers, smartphones, so-called artificial intelligence, etc – became possible thanks to the exponential increase in the processing power of microcircuits, which began in the 1970s and continues today.

This process is described empirically by the famous Moore’s law: the number of transistor elements that can be packed into an integrated circuit chip doubles about every two years.

Few people are aware, however, that a analogous process has been taking place in laser technology. The intensities of the light pulses which lasers can deliver has been increasing exponentially since the first laser was built in 1960.

Circa 2020 o.o


China’s military is soliciting would-be suppliers for a new airborne laser weapon. Notices on a government website invited defense contractors to provide information on an airborne laser attack pod. Depending on the level of power, the pod could be used to defend a friendly aircraft from incoming missile threats or destroy enemy aircraft and ground targets. Laser weapons are the next revolution in aerial warfare and could make dogfighting obsolete.

According to the South China Morning Post, weain.mil.cn, the official weapons and equipment procurement website of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) published two solicitations to contractors, one titled, “procurement plan for airborne laser attack pod” and the other “price inquiry on procurement plan for controlling software module of laser attack platform.” The solicitations, marked confidential, invited China’s defense firms to bid to develop the items. The Pentagon uses a similar system to procure weapons, equipment, and other technology.

PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md. – Missile-defense experts at Northrop Grumman Corp. will install LAIRCM laser-based missile-defense systems for large military aircraft under terms of a $123.5 million U.S. Navy order announced on Friday.

Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., are asking engineers at the Northrop Grumman Mission Systems segment in Rolling Meadows, Ill., to provide the electro-optical Large Aircraft Infrared Counter Measures (LAIRCM) for a variety of U.S. military aircraft.

LAIRCM automatically detects a missile launch, determines if it is a threat, and activates a high-intensity laser-based countermeasure system to track and defeat the missile, Northrop Grumman officials say.

As the number of confirmed COVID −19 cases worldwide approaches 4 million and the pandemic could be with us for months or years, we look at who can access drugs like remdesivir, being developed by pharmaceutical giant Gilead, which has the patent for the drug and is poised to make massive profits. We look at how much drugs like remdesivir will cost, and who can access them, with writer Achal Prabhala, coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in India, Brazil and South Africa.

This is viewer supported news. Please do your part today.

Triton submarines is the biggest name in deep-sea exploration submersibles, having built the extraordinary DSV Limiting Factor, a “deep-sea elevator” capable of popping down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench several times a week for extended visits.

Now, the company has launched an incredible-looking tourist sub that can take 24 passengers, a pilot and a co-pilot down to 100-meter (328-ft) depths in air-conditioned comfort, providing panoramic views of the aquatic world through colossal 5.5-inch-thick (140-mm) acrylic windows. Where other subs offer restricted views, this thing is very close to a giant transparent tube, like a glass walkway through an aquarium, tall enough to stand in.

The DeepView 24 is the first of a range of DeepView tourist submarines that can be specified in different lengths to accommodate between 12 and 66 passengers. Additional sections can be added six seats at a time; with the 24-seat version already 15.4 m (50.5 ft) in length and weighing 121,250 lb (55,000 kg), a 66-seater would certainly be a sight to behold and a pain in the butt to pull a u-turn in.

The new coronavirus invades the body through a spike protein that lives on the surface of virus cells. The S protein, as it’s called, binds to a receptor called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) on a healthy cell’s surface. Once attached, the cells fuse and the virus is able to infect the healthy cell.

ACE2 receptors are present on cells in many places throughout the body, and especially in the lungs. Cells in the lungs are also some of the first to encounter the virus, since the primary form of transmission is thought to be breathing in droplets after an infected person has coughed or sneezed.

That’s why it was necessary to upgrade Stem Cell Neurotherapy for COVID-19 by adding T-Cells, B-Cells, and Natural Killer Cells to the arsenal. It was not enough to just regenerate new lung cells to replace the lung cells infected by COVID-19, but the COVID-19 Virus Cells had to be attacked and destroyed in order to prevent them from invading and infecting the newly regenerated lung cells.

So, that’s where the idea of using T-Cells, B-Cells, and Natural Killer Cells, usually used in attacking cancer cells, came from.