NextBigFuture.com

MIT physicists have found that a flake of graphene, when brought in close proximity with two superconducting materials, can inherit some of those materials’ superconducting qualities. As graphene is sandwiched between superconductors, its electronic state changes dramatically, even at its center. The researchers found that graphene’s electrons, formerly behaving as individual, scattering particles, instead pair up in “Andreev states” — a fundamental electronic configuration that allows a conventional, nonsuperconducting material to carry a “supercurrent,” an electric current that flows without dissipating energy. The researchers’ graphene platform may be used to explore exotic particles, such as Majorana fermions, which are thought

Battery material testing machines that Tesla and Jeff Dahn h ve developed enabled them to test new chemistries more accurately and much faster. This has enabled significant discoveries for the longevity of batteries. Aluminum coated batteries lasted longer than any other material. Novonix is a specialized start-up company spun out of Dr. Jeff Dahn’s lab at Dalhousie University. We have expertise in materials and cell testing, with strong focus on the use of High Precision Coulometry for lifetime evaluation of lithium-ion cells. Novonix has spent the last year developing industry leading high precision chargers able to measure the coulombic efficiency

The Carnival of Space 508 is up at The Evolving Planet Universe Today – Only 10 Light-Years Away, there’s a Baby Version of the Solar System Astronomers are understandanly fascinated with the Epsilon Eridani system. For one, this star system is in close proximity to our own, at a distance of about 10.5 light years from the Solar System. Second, it has been known for some time that it contains two asteroid belts and a large debris disk. And third, astronomers have suspected for many years that this star may also have a system of planets. On top of all

Many analysis of global power and being a superpower often compare nations or regional power blocs based upon who would win or lose in an all out military conflict. Nations and groups can also analyze situations and potential conflicts and they would choose to avoid engaging in conflicts where their side would be a clear cut loser. The first and second Iraq Gulf War were relatively unique situations where there was a large miscalculation by Saddam Hussein. World War 2 and World War 1 had some miscalculations. There was an over-estimation by Germany and Japan of their own military and

John Cioffi described Terabit DSL (TDSL). It include carrying 50-600 GHz wireless signals through the tiny spaces between individual twisted pairs or the cables that bundle a hundred of them. “We are shooting for a terabit/second over 100 meters, 100 Gbits/s at 300 meters and 10 Gbits/s at 500 meters — all those are 200 to 1,000 times better than traditional DSLs,” said Cioffi, whose research at Stanford in the 1980s led phone companies to embrace DSL for broadband. “Those numbers could be off 10-25 percent, but even if they are off by 10x, it’s still a substantial improvement—there’s a

Vuckovic’s Stanford team is developing materials that can trap a single, isolated electron. Working with collaborators worldwide, they have recently tested three different approaches to the problem, one of which can operate at room temperature – a critical step if quantum computing is going to become a practical tool. In all three cases the group started with semiconductor crystals, material with a regular atomic lattice like the girders of a skyscraper. By slightly altering this lattice, they sought to create a structure in which the atomic forces exerted by the material could confine a spinning electron. “We are trying to

Life expectancy by county ranged from 67 to 85 in the USA in 2014. Examining life expectancy by county allows for tracking geographic disparities over time and assessing factors related to these disparities. This information is potentially useful for policy makers, clinicians, and researchers seeking to reduce disparities and increase longevity. People are less likely to live longer if they are poor, get little exercise and lack access to health care, the researchers found. Mokdad said the quality and availability of that health care — for example, access to screening for signs of cancer — has a significant effect on

Researchers from the University of Antwerp and KU Leuven have succeeded in developing a process that purifies air and, at the same time, generates power. The device must only be exposed to light in order to function. “We use a small device with two rooms separated by a membrane,” explains Professor Sammy Verbruggen (UAntwerp/KU Leuven). “Air is purified on one side, while on the other side hydrogen gas is produced from a part of the degradation products. This hydrogen gas can be stored and used later as fuel, as is already being done in some hydrogen buses, for example.” In

A new printing process can print images at 100,000 dpi, suggesting much higher resolution than can be obtained using pigmenting. Some test images were just 50 nanometres wide and were printed at a resolution of 127,000 DPI (dots per inch). The display on an iPhone 7, for comparison, is 326 DPI. Science Advances – Resonant laser printing of structural colors on high-index dielectric metasurfaces Man-made structural colors, which originate from resonant interactions between visible light and manufactured nanostructures, are emerging as a solution for ink-free color printing. We show that non-iridescent structural colors can be conveniently produced by nanostructures made

MIT spinout New Valence Robotics (NVBOTS) has brought to market the only fully automated commercial 3-D printer that’s equipped with cloud-based queuing and automatic part removal, making print jobs quicker and easier for multiple users, and dropping the cost per part. To use the printer, called NVPro, a user submits a project from any device, which queues up in the NVCloud software. When a part gets printed, a retractable blade cuts the piece out and moves it into a bin, and the next project begins automatically. Projects can be monitored remotely via webcam. It was commercially launched last April, the

Apple now has a valuation of over $800 billion. It is the most valuable publicly traded company. Google is at $649 billion. Microsoft is at $531 billion. Amazon is at $448 billion Facebook is at $434 billion. Berkshire Hathaway is at $408 billion as the largest non-tech company. Alibaba, the Chinese internet company, is the highest valuation for a non-US public company.

Pre-election polls had forecast a sizable Macron victory, and he appeared to have delivered, with projections issued after polls closed showing him with around 65 percent of the vote. Macron promised to reform two institutions notoriously resistant to change: the European Union and the French bureaucracy. Macron promised to do more for the weaker EU nations. This win could strengthen the EU currency and at least temporarily weaken Bitcon and Etherium.

SpaceX’s second re-launch of a previously used Falcon 9 rocket booster is targeted for next month, for a mission launching a Bulgarian communications satellite from Kennedy Space Center. The turnaround time between missions will be significantly shorter — five months instead of 12, if a mid-June target date holds. Maxim Zayakov, CEO of Bulsatcom and BulgariaSat, does not think reusing the booster makes the mission riskier and in fact could make it safer. Zayakov said insurers supported the decision to reuse a rocket, but the terms improved after the successful SES-10 mission.

Bitcoin and Etherium have been surging for months. There seems to be an increasing amount of capital flows into bitcoin from around the globe. “The biggest driver right now is you’re starting to see institutional investors take a keen interest in the entire sector,” said Brian Kelly, founder of Brian Kelly Capital, which recently launched a digital assets fund for outside investors. Bitcoin is at $1548 now. Etherium is at $99. One analyst indicates- if Le Pen wins, bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets will have a very strong run. On a Le Pen defeat, there would likely be a moderate retrace

Huochebang, aka Truck Alliance, is a Unicorn private company which is valued at US$1 billion or more. They received another $156 million in funding in a round led by Baidu. At the end of 2016 they had received $115 million in funding. Dai Wenjian, Huochebang’s founder, told a Beijing forum last month the company has connected some 2.6 million trucks with around 400,000 logistic companies in China, and is set to deliver a profit in 2017. The latest investment comes at a time when Baidu is gearing up to rebuilt itself as an artificial intelligence(AI)-focused company, and transportation is seen

Around the time of WW2 Navy ships transitioned from Battleships and ships with large cannons to the era of ships mainly carrying planes with bombs. Later ships used planes with missiles or launched missiles directly. Hypervelocity projectiles will shoot over twice as fast as current projectiles from the same navy guns. They would boost range from 30 miles to over 100 miles depending on what it’s fired out of. If network connectivity is added to the HVP’s design, it could be guided in-flight with command updates coming from external sensors. This means it can hit moving vehicles using a remote

A potential cure for Type 1 diabetes looms on the horizon in San Antonio, and the novel approach would also allow Type 2 diabetics to stop insulin shots. The discovery, made at The University of Texas Health Science Center, now called UT Health San Antonio, increases the types of pancreatic cells that secrete insulin. UT Health San Antonio researchers have a goal to reach human clinical trials in three years, but to do so they must first test the strategy in large-animal studies, which will cost an estimated $5 million. Those studies will precede application to the U.S. Food and

The Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch Vasily Fomin sayd Russian scientists have surpassed their colleagues from the United States on hypersonic speed advances. The Russian Defense Ministry said Russia is targeting initial hypersonic missile and other advanced weapons deployments by 2025 within the framework of the 2018-2025 State Armaments Program. China has been performing successful mach 7 hypersonic scramjet tests since 2015. China will test a prototype combined-cycle hypersonic engine later this year that they hope will pave the way for the first demonstration flight of a full-scale propulsion system by 2025. If successful, the engine

China is developing a new drone that uses ground effect technology to skim the surface of the ocean, allowing it to fly just eighteen inches off the water. The unmanned vehicle could be a challenging opponent for potential adversaries, some of whom would find it difficult to detect. The new ultra-low altitude anti-ship unmanned system can fly as low as 50 cm above the sea, can reach a maximum altitude of 3,000 km, along with an endurance of 1.5 hours – depending on the flight profile. The maximum take-off weight (MTOW) is 3000 kilograms and can carry a 1000 kg

Reaction Engines Ltd. today began construction of a new engine test facility where it plans to undertake the first ground based demonstration of its revolutionary SABREâ„¢ air-breathing rocket engine. SABREâ„¢ (Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) is a leading contender for the next generation of hypersonic flight and space access vehicles. There are three core building blocks to the SABRE engine technology, the pre-cooler, the engine core and the thrust chamber. Each of these systems can be developed and validated using ground based demonstrations which saves cost and time relative to flight test, a design feature that benefitted the development of the

Scott Aaronson talked about the China quantum computer researchers achieving 5 photon boson sampling and the theoretical work of a Bristol team. The Bristol give numerical evidence that BosonSampling, with n photons and m modes, can be approximately simulated by a classical computer in “merely” about n2n time (that is, the time needed to calculate a single n×n permanent), as opposed to the roughly mn time that one would need if one had to calculate permanents corresponding to all the possible outcomes of the experiment. As a consequence of that, they argue that achieving quantum supremacy via BosonSampling would probably

Chinese researchers have built a 10 qubit quantum computer. China builds ten qubit quantum computer, They will scale to 20 qubits by end of this year and could beat the performance of any regular computer next year with a 30 qubit system. A chinese research team led by Pan Jianwei is exploring three technical routes to quantum computers: 1. systems based on single photons, 2. ultra-cold atoms and 3. superconducting circuits. Experimental set-up for multiphoton boson-sampling. The set-up includes four key parts: the single-photon device, demultiplexers, ultra-low-loss photonic circuit and detectors. The single-photon device is a single InAs/GaAs quantum dot

The first large airliner designed and built in China successfully completed its maiden flight in Shanghai Friday. The C919 is roughly the size of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 and the Airbus A320neo. Yet western experts believe it won’t put much of a dent in the market share of the dominant U.S. and European players. Launched nine years ago and now running three years late, the C919 jet won’t enter service until 2019 or 2020. The C919 is remarkably similar to the A320. The Chinese even chose to give the flight deck the same Airbus-style side-stick pilot controls rather than

The US Navy is making progress developing unmanned systems and directed energy weapons. Congress would like to see more effort operationalizing and fielding these technologies. The Navy has done a good job getting test versions of the laser weapon system and electromagnetic railgun out to sea ahead of full development: in the case of railgun, the Navy is still pursuing a pulsed power system to allow for continuous firings, and in the case of the laser weapon system the Navy is at 150 kilowatts of power compared to the 300 KW goal. The Navy had reached the point where it

China’s ambitious One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative is likely to have “modest” short-term impact on total investment and overall economic growth in the vast region, says Oxford Economics. Launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013, OBOR aims to create an infrastructure network by building roads, ports and railway tracks along ancient trading routes that will span 65 countries and connect some 60% of the global population. “While it’s hard to quantify the total number of projects and amount of financing, the China Development Bank alone has reserved US$890 billion (S$1.24 trillion) for over 900 projects, highlighting the magnitude of

Unlike conventional radios, which are designed to work with specific waveforms (AM and FM, cellular, digital TV, and WiFi, for example), software defined radios can send and receive many different waveforms, and toggle between them on the fly by means of software code that defines their behavior at any particular moment. As such, they have the electronic guts and, increasingly, the artificial intelligence needed to navigate and even coordinate activity at the interface of the physical and digital domains. What is still needed, and what DARPA is aiming to energize, is a community of SDR users to map out and

Prof. Sergio Canavero, a neurosurgeon from Torino, Italy, is planning the world’s first transplantation of a human head (aka body transplant) within ten months. He gave an interview to OOOM magazine. Sergio is together with various teams in the US, China and South Korea, the author of more than 140 scientific publications continued to pursue the plan he called HEAVEN (Head Anastomosis Venture). In his GEMINI protocol, Canavero outlines every necessary step of the procedure in detail, laid out like in an instruction manual. * The world’s first human head transplant will be performed within the next ten months. *

The final collapse of the Venezuela government is a matter of when and not if. Also, the when will probably be in some number of months Juan Barreto at Foreign Policy magazine writes: Venezuela is not the first developed country to put itself on track to fall into a catastrophic economic crisis. But it is in the relatively unusual situation of having done so while in possession of enormous oil assets. The Venezuelan government doesn’t claim to be full-fledged in its devotion to Marxism-Leninism. It has been pursuing as absurd an economic policy mix as its Soviet predecessor. It has

An improved J-31 stealth fighter prototype has increased test flights in April 2017. This stealth fighter could be used for Chinese aircraft carriers. China now has a refurbished Ukrainian aircraft carrier and a domestically produced aircraft carrier. Both carriers use older jump ramp technology instead powered launching systems. The twin-engine J-31 is roughly the same size as the American F-35, with a range of 775 miles, a maximum takeoff weight of 28 tons, and a Mach 1.8 top speed. The improved prototype first flew on December 26, 2016. The new J-31 prototype is three tons heavier and about 20 inches

The first phase of the United States’ THAAD anti-missile defense system has been activated on a golf course in South Korea to guard against the North Korean threat, Western news agencies said Monday. “It has reached initial intercept capability,” a U.S. official, speaking on grounds of anonymity, told Agence France Presse of the hit-to-kill Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System. The activation of the THAAD system, first reported by Reuters, was still in the initial phases and would not be fully operational with launchers ready to shoot down short and medium-range missiles for several months, a U.S. official said. South

An Indonesian man claimed to be 146 years old – the longest living human ever. He died in his village in Central Java. According to his papers, Sodimedjo, also known as Mbah Ghoto (grandpa Ghoto), was born in December 1870. But Indonesia only started recording births in 1900 – and there have been mistakes before. Yet officials told the BBC his papers were valid, based on documents he provided and interviews with him. He was taken to hospital on 12 April because of deteriorating health. Six days later he insisted on checking out to return home. Mbah was an Indonesian

Researchers from Harbin Medical University in China and controversial neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero built upon earlier head-grafting experiments to figure out how to avoid damage to the brain tissue during the operation, as well as long-term immune rejection. Previously, scientists have attempted the procedure on dogs and monkeys, which helped to test neural preservation when blood flood to the brain had been cut off. The researchers used three rats for each operation: a smaller rat, to be the donor, and two larger rats, acting as the recipient and the blood supply. To maintain blood flow to the donor brain, they connected

There is updated technical information on the Lockheed compact fusion reactor project. It was originally believed that the compact reactor would fit on a large truck. It looked like it might weigh 20 tons. After more engineering and scientific research, the new design requires about 2000 ton reactor that is 7 meters in diameter and 18 meters long. This would be about one third the length of a Dolphin diesel submarine and it would be slightly wider and taller. It would be similar in size to a A5W submarine nuclear fission reactor. We would not know for sure because the

Indonesia is exploring a number of new options for nuclear power, including high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) and a thorium molten salt reactors. Indonesia has signed several nuclear deals * In early 2015, they signed a contract to build and test a pebble-bed HTGR at Serpong with a consortium of Russian and Indonesian companies led by NUKEM Technologies. * in August 2016, they signed a cooperation agreement with China Nuclear Engineering to develop small HTGRs in Kalimantan and Sulawesi by 2027. * they have signed agreements with Russia’s Rosatom to develop a floating nuclear power plant to power smaller inhabited islands.

Britains new aircraft carriers will have mach 3 anti-missile missiles which Russia will be deploying new mach 6 missiles. Russia’s 3M22 Zircon wil attach at Mach 6, or 4,600 miles per hour. The Sea Ceptor defensive missiles on the Queen Elizabeth–class carriers can only intercept targets traveling up to Mach 3, or about 2,300 miles per hour. The Zircon has an estimated range of 250 miles. Russia is also developing hypersonic missiles with 400 to 500 mile range.

In a world first, Montreal-based startup Lyrebird today unveiled a voice-imitation algorithm that can mimic a person’s voice and have it read any text with a given emotion, based on the analysis of just a few dozen seconds of audio recording. With this innovation, Lyrebird is going a step further in the development of AI applications by offering to companies and developers new speech synthesis solutions. Users will be able to generate entire dialogs with the voice of their choice or design from scratch completely new and unique voices tailored for their needs. On the website lyrebird.ai, samples using the

Elon Musk had a 40-minute interview with TED’s Chris Anderson on Friday, April 28, 2017 at the TED 2017 conference in Vancouver. Some quotes- * only improves if a lot of people work very hard. * by itself, it degrades. * You look at ancient civilizations like ancient Egypt and they were able to make the pyramids and they forgot how to do that. And the Romans, they built these incredible aqueducts, they forgot how to do it. * If the future doesn’t include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species,

SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket on solid ground again, after launching the vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket stage landed at Spacex Landing Zone 1 which is located just off the coast of the Cape. It’s the fourth time SpaceX has landed one of its rockets on land, and the 10th time the company has successfully recovered a rocket post-launch. Spacex launched a secret spy satellite called NROL-76 for the National Reconnaissance Office. This is the first mission that SpaceX has done for the US military. Falcon 9 first stage has landed at LZ-1 https://t.co/gtC39uBC7z pic.twitter.com/766RxdZ99X —

Elon Musk says traffic jams will be eliminated with multi-level tunnel networks for cars. Musk spends only two or three percent of his time to the Boring company. It is a hobby. It is nevertheless making good progress. A snail can currently travel 14 times faster than a tunnel boring machine and a preliminary goal will be for the Boring Company tunneling machine to catch up to the snail.

Elon Musk showed a teaser image for Telsa’s forthcoming electric semi truck. Elon will have a full reveal of the electric semi truck in September. The electric tucks is also self-driving. It is powerful enough to tow a regular big rig up a hill and it handles like a sports car.

Morgan Stanley and Michael Pettis differ on what China’s sustainable economic growth rate is over the next ten to fifteen years China. Morgan Stanley, however, proposes that China can manage to grow at an average annual rate above 5 percent for the next ten years, which suggests that they think this sustainable growth rate today is around 6 percent or a little less. Pettis thinks China is unlikely to manage growth rates above 3 percent on average, and probably much lower. Key Metrics for China’s future economic growth * China’s Debt to GDP is about 260% now – China can

Enzinc is working with the US Navy to develop a better and safer battery. Enzinc and the Navy Research lab have a unique three-dimensional (3D) zinc electrode. The research aims to bring a safer, more affordable rechargeable battery to market for electric vehicles, ebikes, and home and grid energy storage.“This breakthrough in rechargeable battery technology means that zinc has the potential to displace lithium because it is a safer, more affordable, and more readily available material,” said President and CEO of EnZinc, Michael Burz. “Large battery-powered electronics from electric vehicles to home energy storage will be able to be powered

Cascading F-35 testing delays could cost the Department of Defense (DOD) over a billion dollars more than currently budgeted to complete development of the F-35 baseline program. Because of problems with the mission systems software, known as Block 3F, program officials optimistically estimate that the program will need an additional 5 months to complete developmental testing. According to best practices, credible estimates are rooted in historical data. The program’s projections are based on anticipated test point achievements and not historical data. GAO’s analysis—based on historical F-35 flight test data—indicates that developmental testing could take an additional 12 months. These delays

Large building structures built could be produced faster and less expensively than traditional construction methods allow using a new MIT 3d printing system. A building could also be completely customized to the needs of a particular site and the desires of its maker. Even the internal structure could be modified in new ways; different materials could be incorporated as the process goes along, and material density could be varied to provide optimum combinations of strength, insulation, or other properties. Ultimately, the researchers say, this approach could enable the design and construction of new kinds of buildings that would not be

The UK’s newest fusion reactor has been turned on for the first time and has officially achieved first plasma. The reactor aims to produce a record-breaking plasma temperature of 100 million degrees for a privately-funded venture. This is seven times hotter than the centre of the Sun and the temperature necessary for controlled fusion. Oxford, England-based Tokamak Energy said today that with its ST40 reactor “up and running”, the next steps are to complete the commissioning and installation of the full set of magnetic coils which are crucial to reaching the temperatures required for fusion. This will allow the ST40

Stephen Helms Tillery wants to make you smarter — by electrically stimulating your brain. The Arizona State University neuroscientist has been awarded funding for a four-year study to develop a method of brain stimulation that may boost learning and retention up to 30 percent. The money comes from the Army’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is the bureau behind technology including GPS, the internet, stealth tech and drones. The brain will be stimulated by a method called Transdermal Electrical Neuromodulation so it learns more quickly, more efficiently and with increased recall. Certain neuromodulators — chemicals that affect transmission between

There are 200 million electric bicycles ridden today and most are in China. China has had annual sales of about 30 million bikes sold for several years but about 25 million are replacements for worn out bikes. Growth exists, but it has slowed greatly. The Electric Bike Worldwide Report predicts that the electric bike industry is poised to grow to 2 billion by 2050. Eventually 84 million e-bikes could be sold each year. China is the world’s largest manufacturer of bicycles and electric vehicles, with sales of up to 80,000,000 units, accounting for 80% of global turnover. Today some 700

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), materials offer several key features not available in graphene and are emerging as next-generation semiconductors. TMDs could realize topological superconductivity and thus provide a platform for quantum computing. “Our proposal is very realistic – that’s why it’s exciting,” Kim said of her group’s research. “We have a theoretical strategy to materialize a topological superconductor … and that will be a step toward building a quantum computer. The Cornell group’s proposal: The TMDs’ unusual properties favor two topological superconducting states, which, if experimentally confirmed, will open up possibilities for manipulating topological superconductors at temperatures near absolute zero.

Researchers have made a seaweed-derived material to help boost the performance of superconductors, lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells. Seaweed is an abundant algae that grows easily in salt water. While Yang was at Griffith University in Australia, he worked with colleagues at Qingdao University and at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the U.S. to make porous carbon nanofibers from seaweed extract. Chelating, or binding, metal ions such as cobalt to the alginate molecules resulted in nanofibers with an “egg-box” structure, with alginate units enveloping the metal ions. This architecture is key to the material’s stability and controllable synthesis, Yang says.