Lifeboat Foundation

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.

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

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.

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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Simplified molecular computing with DNA. Just mix test tubes.

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

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

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.

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.

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 innovative technologies 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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