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Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI) in Potsdam found that hidden dimensions – as predicted by string theory – could influence gravitational waves. In a recently published paper they study the consequences of extra dimensions on these ripples in space-time, and predict whether their effects could be detected. LIGO’s first detection of gravitational waves from a black-hole binary in September 2015 has opened a new window onto the universe. Now it looks like with this new observing tool physicists cannot only trace black holes and other exotic astrophysical objects but also understand gravity itself.

New finds of fossils and stone tools from the archaeological site of Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, push back the origins of our species by one hundred thousand years and show that by about 300 thousand years ago important changes in our biology and behavior had taken place across most of Africa. The first of our kind. Two views of a composite reconstruction of the earliest known Homo sapiens fossils from Jebel Irhoud (Morocco) based on micro computed tomographic scans of multiple original fossils. Dated to 300 thousand years ago these early Homo sapiens already have a modern-looking face that falls within

MIT engineers have fabricated a functional dialysis membrane from a sheet of graphene — a single layer of carbon atoms, linked end to end in hexagonal configuration like that of chicken wire. The graphene membrane, about the size of a fingernail, is less than 1 nanometer thick. (The thinnest existing memranes are about 20 nanometers thick.) The team’s membrane is able to filter out nanometer-sized molecules from aqueous solutions up to 10 times faster than state-of-the-art membranes, with the graphene itself being up to 100 times faster. “Only 10 percent of the membrane’s area is accessible, but even with that

Roger Shawyer, SPR Ltd, invented the EMdrive and recently gave an EMdrive presentation to the UK Defence Academy Shrivenham. EmDrive is the first true Propellantless Propulsion technology. High frequency electrical energy is directly converted to thrust. It is a resonant microwave cavity, shaped to obtain different group velocities at each end, and thus achieve a force difference as the EM wave reflects off each end plate. EmDrive is not a reactionless thruster, it is simply a new class of electrical machine. Conventional microwave technology limits the maximum Q of resonators to around 50,000, giving a specific thrust of 200 mN/kW

The nuclear industry brought more than 9 GWe of new plant on line last year, the largest annual increase in 25 years putting it on track to achieve the Harmony goal of providing 25% of electricity in 2050 using 1000 GWe of new capacity. In the World Nuclear Performance Report 2017, the Association detailed power generation and construction achievements for the previous year. The ten new reactors which came on line in 2016 added 9.1 GWe to global capacity and took the total nuclear capacity supplying electricity to the grid past 350 GWe for the first time ever. This does

Phase 1 of DARPA’s Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) program concluded recently following a series of obstacle-course flight tests in central Florida. Over four days, three teams of DARPA-supported researchers huddled under shade tents in the sweltering Florida sun, fine-tuning their sensor-laden quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) during the intervals between increasingly difficult runs. DARPA’s FLA program is advancing technology to enable small unmanned quadcopters to fly autonomously through cluttered buildings and obstacle-strewn environments at fast speeds (up to 20 meters per second, or 45 mph) using onboard cameras and sensors as “eyes” and smart algorithms to self-navigate. Potential applications for

A BAE railgun system is undergoing multi-shot rep-rate operations at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, in Virginia. Railgun firing test will continue over the next three years. The railgun system has been tested at Dahlgren’s railgun advanced research facility since November. The Navy has successfully tested a next-generation 32-megajoule railgun. The US Navy is gradually increasing the railgun firing rate and energy level. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on seapower and projection forces, said * the pulsed power units, the batteries are getting smaller and are getting more efficient * more shots are

GTM Research has found that India’s system competitive bidding, has produced record low solar pricing. India has utility PV system pricing of 65 cents per watt. This is 11 cents per watt cheaper than in China. Solar energy cost in the USA and Germany are nearly double the price of solar in India. The project is for the global price of solar power installations to continue to fall at about 4.4% per year. However, policy changes in regions or countries like the USA could increase prices where the policy has an impact.

Chinese battery companies have plans for additional factories with the capacity to pump out more than 120 gigawatt-hours a year by 2021, according to a report published this week by Bloomberg Intelligence. That’s enough to supply batteries for around 1.5 million Tesla Model S vehicles or 13.7 million Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrids per year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. In 2018, Tesla’s Gigafactory will produce up to 35 gigawatt-hours of battery cells annually. Roughly 55 percent of global lithium-ion battery production is already based in China, compared with 10 percent in the U.S. By 2021, China’s share is forecast

A study in the journal nature makes the case for maximum human lifespan increasing to 125 without radical life extension. Some previous work by other researchers argue that there is a limit to human lifespan of around 115 years, with their main rationale being that the maximum reported age at death (MRAD) in Japan, France, the United Kingdom. It is 53 years until years until 2070. Researchers looked at how many 72 year old Japanese women there are now and used age specific actuarial model to forecast that at least one of those women should be alive in 2070. The

Space Battleship Yamato is a major anime movie series. The original Yamato movie in Japan eclipsed that of the local release of Star Wars. It was followed by over a dozen movie sequels. After aliens attack in 2199, the Earth secretly builds a massive spaceship inside the ruins of the gigantic Japanese battleship Yamato which lies exposed at the former bottom of the ocean location where she was sunk in World War II. This becomes the “Space Battleship Yamato” for which the story is titled. The new ship gets a space warp drive, called the “wave motion engine”, and a

1. Facebook has reached 2 billion users 2. Google's YouTube’s 1.5 billion 3. Facebook's WhatsApp 1.2 billion 4. Facebook Messenger 1.2 billion 5. WeChat had 938 million users in May 2017 (23% growth YoY) 6. QQ 861 million in Q1 2017, a decrease of 2% YoY 7. Instagram 700 million 8. Weibo 340 million 9. Twitter’s 328 million 10. Skype is at about 300 million 11. Snapchat 255 million 12. Line 217 million at Jan 2017

Microsoft has commented on the newest ransomeware attack. The attack is effecting airlines, banks, and utilities across Europe. “Our initial analysis found that the ransomware uses multiple techniques to spread, including one which was addressed by a security update previously provided for all platforms from Windows XP to Windows 10 (MS17-010),” a spokesperson said in a statement. “As ransomware also typically spreads via email, customers should exercise caution when opening unknown files. We are continuing to investigate and will take appropriate action to protect customers Kapersky indicated that is it a new strain of ransomeware virus The latest from @kaspersky

A new interactive design tool developed by Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute enables both novices and experts to build customized legged or wheeled robots using 3-D-printed components and off-the-shelf actuators. Using a familiar drag-and-drop interface, individuals can choose from a library of components and place them into the design. The tool suggests components that are compatible with each other, offers potential placements of actuators and can automatically generate structural components to connect those actuators. Once the design is complete, the tool provides a physical simulation environment to test the robot before fabricating it, enabling users to iteratively adjust the design

U.S. Navy’s future unmanned tanker will use the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System developed for F35 and other jet landings on US aircraft carriers. The Navy will use the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System, or JPALS for short, to land the MQ-25 unmanned aircraft onto carriers without a human at the controls. Known as the Stingray, the Navy’s future unmanned carrier aviation air system will provide inflight refueling to the U.S. fleet’s fighters, allowing them to operate at far greater ranges than before. “When you’re talking about auto-landing a flying unmanned tanker onto an aircraft carrier, then the

OneWeb Satellites, a 50-50 joint venture between would-be constellation operator OneWeb and satellite manufacturer Airbus, has inaugurated the first serial-production line for its planned 900 communications satellites for OneWeb’s low Earth orbit constellation. “This facility is a pivotal step toward our mission to build a new global knowledge infrastructure, accessible to everyone,” said OneWeb founder and Executive Chairman Greg Wyler. “Over the past year, and thanks to the energizing support of our partners, we’ve greatly accelerated our technical progress. With this facility, we will be able to continuously iterate on the design of our satellites, launch new satellites within hours

For the first time ever, astronomers at The University of New Mexico say they’ve been able to observe and measure the orbital motion between two supermassive black holes hundreds of millions of light years from Earth – a discovery more than a decade in the making. UNM Department of Physics & Astronomy graduate student Karishma Bansal is the first-author on the paper, ‘Constraining the Orbit of the Supermassive Black Hole Binary 0402+379’, recently published in The Astrophysical Journal. She, along with UNM Professor Greg Taylor and colleagues at Stanford, the U.S. Naval Observatory and the Gemini Observatory, have been studying

Spacex had two successful launches this past weekend and successfully recovered the first stages of each launch. New titanium grid fins worked even better than expected. Should be capable of an indefinite number of flights with no service. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 25, 2017 Launch at 1:25 delivering 10 satellites for Iridium. Droneship repositioned due to extreme weather. Will be tight. https://t.co/6ZcSG29B74 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 25, 2017 via GIPHY

Stable flight of a laser sail is an essential requirement of beam-driven propulsion. Centauri Dreams talked to James Benford about work towards stable beam flight. It places considerable demand upon the shape of the sail and beam. James Benford takes a hard look at where we are now in the matter of sail stability. He and his brother Gregory have analyzed it in laboratory work. There is a great deal we still don’t know. There is the need for a dedicated test facility in which deep analysis and experimentation can proceed. Dr Benford is the Chairman of the Sail Subcommittee

A high energy laser mounted on an Apache AH-64 attack helicopter acquired and hit an unmanned target. The test was conducted by Raytheon and the U.S. Army Apache Program Management Office in collaboration with U.S. Special Operations Command at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. It was the first time a fully integrated laser system successfully shot a target from a rotary-wing aircraft over a wide variety of flight regimes, altitudes and air speeds, proving the feasibility of laser attack from Apache. The system tracked and directed energy on a stationary target at a slant range of 1.4 kilometers. (Slant

Caltech engineers have developed a new camera design that replaces the lenses with an ultra-thin optical phased array (OPA). The OPA does computationally what lenses do using large pieces of glass: it manipulates incoming light to capture an image. Lenses have a curve that bends the path of incoming light and focuses it onto a piece of film or, in the case of digital cameras, an image sensor. The OPA has a large array of light receivers, each of which can individually add a tightly controlled time delay (or phase shift) to the light it receives, enabling the camera to

At the Symposium on Computational Geometry in July, Erik Demaine and Tomohiro Tachi of the University of Tokyo will announce the completion of a quest that began with a 1999 paper: a universal algorithm for folding origami shapes that guarantees a minimum number of seams. “In 1999, we proved that you could fold any polyhedron, but the way that we showed how to do it was very inefficient,” Demaine says. “It’s efficient if your initial piece of paper is super-long and skinny. But if you were going to start with a square piece of paper, then that old method would

Nearly 3,500 exoplanets have been confirmed so far. In a new Caltech-led study, researchers have classified these planets in much the same way that biologists identify new animal species and have learned that the majority of exoplanets found to date fall into two distinct size groups: rocky Earth-like planets and larger mini-Neptunes. The team used data from NASA’s Kepler mission and the W. M. Keck Observatory. “This is a major new division in the family tree of planets, analogous to discovering that mammals and lizards are distinct branches on the tree of life,” says Andrew Howard, professor of astronomy at

China’s economy is not falling into a black hole. Wheels are in motion for economic reforms. China’s mainland equities — known as the A-shares — will be included in the massive MSCI Emerging Markets Index starting in June 2018. Some 222 Shanghai and Shenzhen listed companies made the cut. For now, the weighting is under 1%. In the not so distant future, it will rise to 5%. Brendan Ahern, CIO of KraneShares in New York predicts China A-shares allocation will hit 17% at full inclusion in several years. That additional 17% allocated to China will raise its weight to over

New program aims to develop advanced battle management/command and control tools and a comprehensive interactive virtual environment to test novel concepts for future expeditionary combat operations. As nation-state and non-state adversaries adapt and apply commercially available state-of-the-art technology in urban conflict, expeditionary U.S. forces face a shrinking operational advantage. To address this challenge, a new DARPA program is aiming to create powerful, digital tools for exploring novel expeditionary urban operations concepts—with a special emphasis on coastal cities, where future such battles are deemed most likely to occur. The program will test the new tools and concepts in an integrated virtual

Russian will start operational evaluation of the most advanced Armata tank starting in 2019 and they will have laser guided missiles with 3 times the range of the newest American tank. The T-14 Armata is equipped with an unmanned turret and all the crew is located at the front of the hull. The new unmanned remote turret of Aramata T-14 would be equipped with a new generation of 125mm 2A82-1M smoothbore gun with an automatic loader and 32 rounds ready to use. The main gun can fire also new laser-guided missile with a range from 7 to 12 km. The

Another week and another F35 grounding. This time it was a bad software upgrade to the ALIS ground support system has grounded the Marine Corps F-35B squadron based in Yuma, Arizona, the F-35 Joint Program Office announced. The Air Force’s F-35As did not have the faulty upgrade, but the F35s have problems with the pilot’s air supply at high altitude. This problem temporarily grounded the F-35As at Luke Air Force Base, before they returned to flight under a restriction to low altitudes only. Air supply — drawn from the engine intakes the On-Board Oxygen Generation System (OBOGS) — has proven

IBM and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) announced they are collaborating on a first-of-a-kind brain-inspired supercomputing system powered by a 64-chip array of the IBM TrueNorth Neurosynaptic System. The scalable platform IBM is building for AFRL will feature an end-to-end software ecosystem designed to enable deep neural-network learning and information discovery. The system’s advanced pattern recognition and sensory processing power will be the equivalent of 64 million neurons and 16 billion synapses, while the processor component will consume the energy equivalent of a dim light bulb – a mere 10 watts to power. IBM researchers believe the brain-inspired,

Researchers at the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a novel design approach for exoskeletons and prosthetic limbs that incorporates direct feedback from the human body. The findings were published this week in Science. This technique, called human-in-the-loop optimization, customizes walking assistance for individuals and significantly improves energy economy during walking. The algorithm that enables this optimization represents a landmark achievement in the field of biomechatronics. “Existing exoskeleton devices, despite their potential, have not improved walking performance as much as we think they should,” said Steven Collins, an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering. “We’ve seen improvements related

In May, 2016, Elon Musk’s net worth according to Forbes had climbed to $15 billion, but Tesla stock has risen about 20% and is at $18.6 billion. Elon has 33.6 million shares of Tesla (about 19% of the company) worth $12.86 billion at todays $383 per share. Spacex had filings with a valuation of $10 billion and Elon owns 54% of Spacex. However, Fidelity had claimed that Spacex was worth $15 billion in 2016. This would put Elon’s Spacex stake at $8.1 billion. The combined amounts should actually put Elon Musks net worth at about $21 billion. Spacex value could

Thyssenkrupp has built the first rope (cable) free elevator. This will enable system like the Star Trek Turbolift which can move up down and side to side. This is elevator industry’s holy grail. It ends the 160-year reign of the rope-dependent elevator. MULTI harnesses the power of linear motor technology to move multiple cars in a single shaft both vertically and horizontally! * magnetic system enables faster elevators to be built * horizontal movement allows more than one cabin per shaft * horizontal movement allows more efficient routing where there was no routing flexibility before * magnetic and ropeless system

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully made its second trip to space June 23. It launched to Bularia’s first communications satellite. The BulgariaSat-1 launch marks the Falcon 9’s second flight this year, and may kick off a double-header with a Sunday SpaceX launch as well. SpaceX has successfully landed one of these rocket stages 12 times out of 17 tries. It is the seventh time Spacex has landed at sea on the droneship. Rocket is extra toasty and hit the deck hard (used almost all of the emergency crush core), but otherwise good — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 23, 2017

China’s aircraft carrier technology is still far behind the USA. China only has one refurbished Soviet aircraft carrier and a domestic submarine based on the Soviet carrier will be operational in 2020. China’s next aircraft carriers could start getting up to the level of 1980 era US carriers in size and some technology in the late 2020s. China’s submarine technology is more rapidly closing the technology gap and also could have numeric superiority by 2025. China’s operational undersea force has 63 vessels – five nuclear-powered attack submarines, four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, and 54 diesel-powered attack submarines. However, in fewer

John Martinis, one of Google’s quantum computing gurus, laid out Google’s “stretch goal”: to build and test a 49-qubit (“quantum bit”) quantum computer by the end of 2017. This computer will use qubits made of superconducting circuits. Each qubit is prepared in a precise quantum state based on a two-state system. The test will be a milestone in quantum computer technology. In a subsequent presentation, Sergio Boixo, Martinis’ colleague at Google, said that a quantum computer with approximately 50 qubits will be capable of certain tasks beyond anything the fastest classical computers can do. Researchers say that quantum computers promise

ORA sound uses the amazing properties of graphene in our proprietary nano-composite formulation to build unique, high performance loudspeaker membranes. Prototypes already exist and reviewers indicate that they can hear the sound quality improvement. GrapheneQ provides audiophile sound quality from smaller, more efficient loudspeakers. Graphene provides significant benefits for loudspeaker performance: * Instant improvements in sound quality * Immediate extension of battery life, up to 70% * More volume from small speakers * Unrivaled high frequency response for improved localization cues GrapheneQ reacts more accurately than other materials which allows it to truthfully recreate the original recording without additional artifacts.

Alibaba CEO Jack Ma says China is shifting from exporting to importing and China is going to to be the world’s largest consumption place and that engine is going to drive the world economy. Ma said this during Gateway ’17, the e-commerce giant’s biggest public event in the US, where he addressed 3,000 small business owners and urged them not only to import from China, but also to sell to China. Back in January, Ma even told President Donald Trump that within five years Alibaba could create 1 million US jobs for small businesses that sell goods to Chinese consumers.

An unknown, unseen “planetary mass object” may lurk in the outer reaches of our solar system, according to new research on the orbits of minor planets to be published in the Astronomical Journal. This object would be different from — and much closer than — the so-called Planet Nine, a planet whose existence yet awaits confirmation. According to the calculations, an object with the mass of Mars orbiting roughly 60 AU from the sun on an orbit tilted by about eight degrees (to the average plane of the known planets) has sufficient gravitational influence to warp the orbital plane of

Terrestrial Energy has begun a feasibility study for the siting of the first commercial Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ (CNL) Chalk River site, with a further vision of creating a technology hub at CNL to support the commercialization of small modular reactors (SMR). Terrestrial Energy CEO Simon Irish said the company, which aims to deploy the IMSR in the 2020s, was pleased to begin the process to identify a suitable location to build the plant. CNL and Terrestrial Energy last year signed a memorandum of understanding to conduct testing and validation activities in support of Terrestrial’s

A sniper with Canada’s elite special forces in Iraq has shattered the world record for the longest confirmed kill shot in military history at a staggering distance of 3,540 meters (2 miles). The 3.54 kilometer confirmed kill is 1065 meters past old record and was about 40% further. The Canadian Armed Forces confirmed Thursday that a member of Joint Task Force 2 made the record-breaking shot, killing an Islamic State insurgent during an operation in Iraq within the last month. The elite sniper was using a McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle while firing from a high-rise during an operation that took

A few thousand microsatellites with deployable telescopes could provide constant image monitoring of the earth at 0.25 meter to 0.5 resolution. This would scale up persistent drone monitoring to a global scale. There would be issues of data transmission and storage. There is a company with 149 microsatellites that each weight about 5 kilograms and can provide resolution of 3 to 5 meters now. The current larger commercial earth observation (EO) satellites provide images with approximately 0.5 meter GSD and fly at altitudes of approximately 600 km above the earth’s surface. These parameters drive the size of the primary mirror

The House Armed Services Committee released its draft of the 2018 defense policy bill, which asks the US Army to accelerate its air-deployable Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) vehicle. The committee believes the Army is developing strategies to potentially accelerate the MPF schedule given that the current projected schedule has MPF fielding beginning in 2024. The committee directs the Secretary of the Army to provide a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services by October 5, 2017, that outlines potential opportunities for MPF program acceleration. The briefing should include a review of testing requirements and potential areas for consolidation; funding

Planet Labs uses 149 microsatellites to monitor the pulse of our planet with daily news and imagery, stories, and tech updates. Current satellite imaging only allows us to look at various disconnected locations. Planet’s always-on, daily imagery provides a global monitoring capability never before possible. Frequent satellite imagery is often a critical component to understanding our increasingly complex, interconnected world. Use Planet’s timely imagery to monitor and understand global activity and patterns of life. They already have on average over 150 images for each location on the Earth’s land surface. This can be accessed with there Planet Explorer. Disney Parking

The discovery of a superconducting phase in sulfur hydride under high pressure with a critical temperature above 200 K has provided fresh impetus to the search for superconductors at ever higher temperatures. Although this system displays all of the hallmarks of superconductivity, the mechanism through which it arises remains to be determined. Here researchers provide a first optical spectroscopy study of this superconductor. Experimental results for the optical reflectivity of H3S, under hydrostatic pressure of 150 GPa, for several temperatures and over the range 60 to 600 meV of photon energies, are compared with theoretical calculations based on Eliashberg theory. Two significant features

Fusion power has the potential to provide clean and safe energy that is free from carbon dioxide emissions. However, imitating the solar energy process is a difficult task to achieve. Two young plasma physicists at Chalmers University of Technology have now taken us one step closer to a functional fusion reactor. Their model could lead to better methods for decelerating the runaway electrons, which could destroy a future reactor without warning. ​It takes high pressure and temperatures of about 150 million degrees to get atoms to combine. As if that was not enough, runaway electrons are wreaking havoc in the

The IMF now projects China’s GDP growth at 6.7 percent in 2017 and an average annual growth of 6.4 percent between 2018-20 period. The First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund David Lipton said the IMF was confident that China will once again find its way through the challenges ahead. China has the potential to safely sustain strong growth over the medium term. While some near-term risks have receded, reform progress needs to accelerate. specific recommendations build on the progress achieved and the government’s existing reform agenda. In particular: China needs to further boost consumption . Continued increases

The US Navy would be able to buy aircraft carriers more quickly and increase its carrier fleet from 11 to 12 under 2018 budget plans being written by the House Armed Services Committee. The legislation unveiled by the committee Tuesday calls for a new carrier every three years rather than the current pace of one every five years, and would order the service to maintain a dozen of the ships after 2023. The plans will be rolled into the committee’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which will set defense policy and priorities for 2018, but any sped-up acquisition