NextBigFuture.com

This 88-minute talk by Andrew Helwer, Microsoft, discards hand-wavy pop-science metaphors and answers a simple question: from a computer science perspective, how can a quantum computer outperform a...

In 2017, Los Angeles startup Wright Electric partnered with budget airline EasyJet to build a 180-seat electric airliner to fly routes of up to 300 miles starting around 2027. It will feature high...

Israeli startup Eviation is making a nine-passenger all-electric regional passenger aircraft by 2021. It will take 9 passengers up to 650 miles at a cruise speed of 240 knots. Alice uses distributed...

Zunum Aero is a startup backed by Boeing and Jet Blue who is developing hybrid electric and all-electric aircraft of varying sizes. The planes would fly between the thousands of small airports around...

Quantum computing is nearing a critical milestone when it will unlock higher quality, faster, or cheaper solutions for important and valuable problems. They call this milestone quantum advantage. The...

On 2014, Nextbigfuture covered Elon Musk describing his belief that an electric supersonic vertical take-off passenger jet could be built. Elon Musk talked about the supersonic electric passenger...

T-Cell immunotherapy is a multi-billion dollar success. Companies are genetically engineering an individual’s own immune cells to attack cancer in the blood or lymph system. Chimeric antigen receptor...

Chinese scientists used CRISPR gene therapy to correct a mutation that causes Marfan syndrome, an incurable connective tissue disorder that affects about 1 in 5,000 people. A single letter mistake in...

Proteins are major building blocks of life. The protein content of a cell and an organism provides key information for the understanding of biological processes and disease. Despite the importance of...

Researchers from D-Wave Systems and the Vector Institute demonstrated the simulation of a topological phase transition—the subject of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics—in a fully programmable D-Wave...

California Institute of Technology researchers have worked out that super thin structures made of silicon and silica oxide convert waves of infrared light into a momentum that would accelerate a...

Boston Consulting Group has a publication called the “Coming Quantum Leap in Computing”. It was published May 16, 2018 By Massimo Russo, Anant Thaker, and Suhare Adam. This article uses...

The Wiget Works AirFish 8 (AF8) is an 8-10 seater WIG (Wing in Ground effect) seaplane with a 17 meter x 15 meter footprint. It is designed to be operated by 2 crew and carrying capacity for 6-8...

After six months of assembly, the System 001 Ocean Cleanup system is officially complete. The cleanup system will start to be towed in two days by the Maersk Launcher. The system (floater, skirt and...

The Russian MBIR is a 150 MWt, sodium-cooled fast reactor and will have a design life of up to 50 years. It will be a multi-loop research reactor capable of testing lead, lead-bismuth and gas...

Molten salt nuclear reactor developer Terrestrial Energy has partnered with Southern Company and several U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories to develop a more efficient and cleaner method...

There might be a wall of death at around the age of 115 to 116 years of age. There are a few confirmed people who live past that age but it is a tiny number. Only about one in 1,000 centenarians...

SpaceX has a 2016 patent for a distributed Phase shifter array system for its internet satellites. SpaceX is developing lighter and cheaper phased array antennas to receive internet from low-earth...

Estimated August passenger car sales from Goodcarbadcar.net indicate that only four passenger car models sold better than the Tesla Model 3 in August. Those cars were only from Honda and Toyota. They...

Tencent is working with the Chinese government to link travel documents with a WeChat app to facilitate border crossings between the three territories (Hong Kong, Macau and China) that still require...

OPEC said world oil consumption will reach 100 million barrels per day (bpd) later in 2018. This milestone level will be reached sooner than previously forecast. Mohammad Barkindo told an energy...

The Bell V-280 Valor is a tiltrotor aircraft being developed by Bell Helicopter and Lockheed Martin for the United States Army’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program. The prototype reached 190...

Two groups report technical breakthroughs for trapped neutral atom quantum computers. Optical engineering for sorting atoms into 3D patterns Barredo and team report their use of precision...

France completed construction on 76% of its current 58 reactors at an inflation-adjusted cost of $330 billion (€290 billion). The complete buildout of the 58 reactors was less €400 billion. Germany...

DARPA is on track to start a multi-year mission in 2021 to service at least 20 commercial and government spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit (GEO). Flight versions of two dexterous robotic manipulator...

US Missile Defense Agency commander Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves reports China has performed several dozen hypersonic tests. In August, 2018, China successfully tested its first waverider boost...

China has an algorithm-powered app called “Crazy for making babies” (aka Fengkuangzaoren). There are over 8 million users and 70,000 families successfully used it to help conceive over...

100 times more heat than predicted by the standard radiation theory can flow between two nanoscale objects, even at bigger-than-nanoscale distances. Applications of this could be better solar cells,...

China imported US$260 billion worth of semiconductors in 2017, more than its $162 billion imports of crude oil. Chinese-made chips made up less than 20% of domestic demand in the same year, according...

China has started building a Type 039B (Yuan-class) diesel submarine for Thailand. They expect to deliver it by 2023. It will displace 2,600 tonnes, and have a top speed of 18 knots and can stay...

Jeffrey J. Plaut, NASA Jet Propulsion Scientist, Reviews the Evidence for Shallow Subsurface Ice on Mars. The Marsis and Sharad missions to Mars provide evidence of shallow ground ice that is tens of...

Hypersonic weapons are weapons and vehicles that can move faster than 5 times the speed of sound. Russia and China have both deployed new rockets that are tipped with hypersonic warheads. The US has...

Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) is looking High Power Microwave (HPM) weapons to vessels like Iran’s speedboats. They are looks for High Power Microwave sources and...

The University of Minnesota has made a highly-touted new technology for “cryo-preserving” living biomaterials such as fish embryos available for licensing. Ultimately, the public institution is...

The Keck Planet Finder telescope might start operating in 2019. It will be used to discover exoplanets, particularly around nearby, bright stars and will excel at measuring the masses of planets...

The South China Morning Post reports that China has fixed the WS-15 engine problems which have delayed mass production of the J-20 stealth fighter. The WS-15 were largely related to blades...

Dr. David Poston, Los Alamos National Laboratory talks about the simple and safe NASA Kilopower Project. KRUSTY showed that developing a small reactor is not inherently expensive. – A new reactor...

Researchers have found a way to reduce production costs of solar cells by more than 10%. Switching the Silicon Used in Solar Cells for Renewable Energy Drops Costs Silicon is the standard...

Two 30-meter tall Rotor Sails have been installed onboard the product tanker vessel Maersk Pelican targeting a reduction in fuel cost and associated emissions on typical global shipping routes of...

China’s first quarter 2018 retail sales were 10% more than the US level. China was at $1.436 trillion and the US was at $1.306 trillion. China’s overall retail is growing at 9% per year...

Dr. Abigail Fraeman – NASA/JPL – Member of the Opportunity, Curiosity, and Mars 2020 Rover teams. Mars 2020 discussion started 25 minutes into the talk. Dr. Carol Stoker – NASA/Ames...

DESICO has a solution to some of the regulatory problems in the cryptocurrency market, especially in the area of fraudulent ICOs. 2018 is referred to by some as “the year of regulation”, with...

The Energy Information Administration provides its monthly energy report which details historical and current US energy usage and emissions. US overall emissions are below the yearly amount in 1993....

Esprezzo is a blockchain middleware company based out of the Cayman Island, Boston and San Francisco. The project was borne out of pain points in other projects. Remy Carpentino previously built a...

Amazon shares reached $2050 and the company passed $1 trillion in market value. Apple is at $1.1 trillion in market value. Microsoft is at $853 billion. Google (Alphabet) is at $840 billion. Facebook...

There is a NASA review of the resources available on the Mars and the Moon and development of machines for construction on the moon and Mars. Lunar Regolith Resources and their Uses • Lunar oxygen:...

Dr. John Callas, NASA/JPL provides an update on NASA Exoplanet work. This was at the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California...

Dr. Jeff Volosin, NASA Goddard describes the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The first month of orbiting space telescope data has just been dumped. 1500 transit events have been...

Planets that are twice as far away as Earth appear 16 times dimmer since the intensity of sunlight weakens by a factor of four going out and by another four times coming back. If Planet 9 is at an...