General science advances thread

[ScienceRocks]

Elon Musk’s speed-of-sound Hyperloop is actually being built

• By Sebastian Anthony on December 19, 2014 at 9:02 am
• 30 Comments

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Way back in the summer of 2013, SpaceX’s Elon Musk proposed a new transportation system that was equal parts awesome and insane: The Hyperloop. The system, which would consist of an above-ground vacuum tube, would be able to get people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in under 30 minutes. Unfortunately, that was the extent of Musk’s involvement: He gave us his plans in the form of a 57-page white paper, and then told the world to go ahead and build it. Now, a group of 100-odd engineers have banded together to try and actually create a Hyperloop — and they seem to be making pretty solid progress.

Back in September, following the release of Musk’s Hyperloop white paper, a company called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc was formed. This isn’t your usual kind of company, though: They’re using a model/service called JumpStartFund, where each employee is only paid if the company ever turns a profit. As a result, most of the workers are already working for other companies, such as Boeing, NASA, and SpaceX — but on the side they do some moonlighting on the Hyperloop project, with the hope that there’s eventually a massive pay-off. Wired reports that there’s about 100 engineers currently working on the Hyperloop project, and that it isn’t some all-inclusive club where everyone can join in: They rejected “100 or so” applicants, too. It’s kind of like crowdsourcing, but a bit pickier.

Anyway, Hyperoloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) has been fairly quiet over the past year — but now, it seems, they’re ready to show their work so far:







There’s a lot of work left to do, of course. So far, a lot of the work appears to have been done by a group of 25 UCLA design and architecture students. The engineers — the ones who work at aerospace companies during the day — are working on a technical feasibility study, which is due to be completed by mid-2015.

Elon Musk 8217 s speed-of-sound Hyperloop is actually being built ExtremeTech

 

[ScienceRocks]

New record for deepest fish
BBC News - New record for deepest fish

A new record has been set for the world's deepest fish.

The bizarre-looking creature, which is new to science, was filmed 8,145m beneath the waves, beating the previous depth record by nearly 500m.

Several other new species of fish were also caught on camera, as well as huge crustaceans called supergiants.

The animals were discovered during an international expedition to the Mariana Trench, which lies almost 11km down in the Pacific Ocean.

The 30-day voyage took place from the Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel, Falkor, and is the most comprehensive survey of world's deepest place ever undertaken.

The Hadal Ecosystem Studies (Hades) team deployed unmanned landers more than 90 times to depths that ranged between 5,000m and 10,600m. They studied both steep walls of the undersea canyon.

 

[ScienceRocks]

First direct evidence that a mysterious phase of matter competes with high-temperature superconductivity
5 hours ago

(Phys.org)—Scientists have found the first direct evidence that a mysterious phase of matter known as the "pseudogap" competes with high-temperature superconductivity, robbing it of electrons that otherwise might pair up to carry current through a material with 100 percent efficiency.

The result, led by researchers at Stanford University and the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, is the culmination of 20 years of research aimed at finding out whether the pseudogap helps or hinders superconductivity, which could transform society by making electrical transmission, computing and other areas much more energy efficient.

The new study definitively shows that the pseudogap is one of the things that stands in the way of getting superconductors to work at higher temperatures for everyday uses, said lead author Makoto Hashimoto, a staff scientist at SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), the DOE Office of Science User Facility where the experiments were carried out. The results were published in Nature Materials.

"Now we have clear, smoking-gun evidence that the pseudogap phase competes with and suppresses superconductivity," Hashimoto said. "If we can somehow remove this competition, or handle it better, we may be able to raise the operating temperatures of these superconductors."

Read more at: First direct evidence that a mysterious phase of matter competes with high-temperature superconductivity

 

[ScienceRocks]

Google self-driving car prototype ready to try road

Google on Monday announced that the first completed prototype of its self-driving car is ready to be road tested.

"We're going to be spending the holidays zipping around our test track, and we hope to see you on the streets of Northern California in the new year," the Internet titan's autonomous car team said in a post at Google+ social network.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Scientists reveal breakthrough in optical fibre communications
Dec 19, 2014

A constellation diagram of one of the mainstream modulation formats of the future system: Sixteen Quadrature-Amplitude modulation

Researchers from the University of Southampton have revealed a breakthrough in optical fibre communications.

Academics from the University's Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) have collaborated with colleagues at Eblana Photonics Inc, in Ireland, to develop an approach that enables direct modulation of laser currents to be used to generate highly advanced modulation format signals.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, explores a radically new approach to the generation of spectrally-efficient advanced modulation format signals as required in modern optical communication systems.

This new technology, patented by the University of Southampton and licensed to Eblana Photonics Inc, avoids the need for costly and power-inefficient external modulator schemes that are currently used to generate such signals..

Dr Radan Slavik, Principal Research Fellow at the ORC, said: "Our paper highlights the exquisite control that we have achieved over the optical field generated directly from a current-modulated semiconductor laser."

Read more at: Scientists reveal breakthrough in optical fibre communications

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Quantum physics just got less complicated
Dec 19, 2014

Quantum physics says that particles can behave like waves, and vice versa. Researchers have now shown that this 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum uncertainty principle in disguise. Credit: Timothy Yeo / CQT, National University of Singapore

Here's a nice surprise: quantum physics is less complicated than we thought. An international team of researchers has proved that two peculiar features of the quantum world previously considered distinct are different manifestations of the same thing. The result is published 19 December in Nature Communications.

Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner made the breakthrough while at the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore. They found that 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum 'uncertainty principle' in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.

"The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information," says Wehner, who is now an Associate Professor at QuTech at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Read more at: Quantum physics just got less complicated

 

[ScienceRocks]

Harvard coloring tech could be an attractive alternative to paint
By Ben Coxworth
December 23, 2014
3 Pictures

Most people probably don't think of a coating of paint as being a particularly major component of a manufactured item. If the object is quite large, however, or if a lot of them are being made, paint can add considerably to its weight and/or production costs. With that in mind, researchers from Harvard University's Laboratory for Integrated Science and Engineering have created a new lightweight, low-cost coloring technology for both rough and smooth surfaces.

 

[ScienceRocks]

1.2-Million-Year-Old Stone Tool Unearthed in Turkey
1.2-Million-Year-Old Stone Tool Unearthed in Turkey Archaeology Sci-News.com
Dec 24, 2014 by Sci-News.com

Archaeologists have found a Paleolithic stone flake in the ancient deposits of the Gediz River, revealing that human ancestors passed through the gateway from Asia to Europe much earlier than previously thought.


1.2-million-year-old quartzite flake found in Turkey. Image credit: Royal Holloway University of London.


Although Paleolithic stone tools have been found in western Turkey before, few have been associated with geological deposits of known age. As a result, the timing of early humans’ progress across the Anatolian peninsula is poorly understood.

The newfound stone tool is composed mainly of quartz and is about 5 cm long.

It shows evidence of being hammered by a hard tool and, according to the scientists, is at least 1.2 million years old.

“The flake was an incredibly exciting find. I had been studying the sediments in the meander bend and my eye was drawn to a pinkish stone on the surface. When I turned it over for a better look, the features of a humanly-struck artifact were immediately apparent,” said Prof Danielle Schreve of Royal Holloway University of London, UK, who is a co-author of the paper published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

“This discovery is critical for establishing the timing and route of early human dispersal into Europe.”

 

[ScienceRocks]

Little Uruguay has big plans for smart agriculture
3 hours ago by Ana Inés Cibils

A combine harvester is used in a wheat field near the city of Mercedes, 270 km northwest of Montevideo, Uruguay, on December 4, 2014

Uruguay, a country of 3.3 million inhabitants and four times as many cows, hopes to feed 50 million people thanks to drones, "smart" combines and other high-tech farming techniques.

Read more at: Little Uruguay has big plans for smart agriculture

Sounds awesome! No more slave labor to feed the population!

 

[ScienceRocks]

Department of Defense developing smart sniper bullets that can change direction
Trent Moore
Friday, December 26, 2014 - 9:58am

It sounds like something straight out of science fiction, but the Department of Defense is developing a new smart bullet that can be controlled in flight — meaning it’s basically a bullet you can steer.

 

[longknife]

Department of Defense developing smart sniper bullets that can change direction
Trent Moore
Friday, December 26, 2014 - 9:58am

It sounds like something straight out of science fiction, but the Department of Defense is developing a new smart bullet that can be controlled in flight — meaning it’s basically a bullet you can steer.

Informative but kind of old "news". This was reported in Military Times a year ago.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Study unveils new half-light half-matter quantum particles
10 hours ago

Prospects of developing computing and communication technologies based on quantum properties of light and matter may have taken a major step forward thanks to research by City College of New York physicists led by Dr. Vinod Menon.

In a pioneering study, Professor Menon and his team were able to discover half-light, half-matter particles in atomically thin semiconductors (thickness ~ a millionth of a single sheet of paper) consisting of two-dimensional (2D) layer of molybdenum and sulfur atoms arranged similar to graphene. They sandwiched this 2D material in a light trapping structure to realize these composite quantum particles.

"Besides being a fundamental breakthrough, this opens up the possibility of making devices which take the benefits of both light and matter," said Professor Menon.

Read more at: Study unveils new half-light half-matter quantum particles

 

[ScienceRocks]

Dark Matter --Is It the "Operating System" of the Universe?

Is dark matter the "operating system" of the Universe? Tom Broadhurst, an Ikerbasqueresearcher at the UPV/EHU's Department of Theoretical Physics, thinks it is. He has participated alongside scientists of the National Taiwan University in a piece of research that explores cold dark matter in depth and proposes new answers about the formation of galaxies and the structure of the Universe. These predictions, published today in the prestigious journal Nature Physics, are being contrasted with fresh data provided by the Hubble space telescope.

In cosmology, cold dark matter is a form of matter the particles of which move slowly in comparison with light, and interact weakly with electromagnetic radiation. It is estimated that only a minute fraction of the matter in the Universe is baryonic matter, which forms stars, planets and living organisms. The rest, comprising over 80%, is dark matter and energy.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Nanoscale neighbors: First use of transformation optics to accurately analyze nonlocality in 3D plasmonic systems
10 hours ago by Stuart Mason Dambrot

The schematic of the problem. A dimer of separated nanospheres where the surface charge smearing is described by an effective cover layer of (A) a constant thickness Δd’, (B) a constant permittivity, εS =1 (shifting the metal bo

undary by …more
(Phys.org) —The ubiquitous van der Waals interaction – a consequence of quantum charge fluctuations – includes intermolecular forces such as attraction and repulsion between atoms, molecules and surfaces. The most long-range force acting between particles, it influences a range of phenomena including surface adhesion, friction and colloid stability. Typically a simple task when parallel surfaces are further apart than 10 nanometers, calculating van der Waals forces between, for example, a pair of nanospheres less than five nanometers apart becomes quite difficult. Moreover, the latter scale requires that the effect of nonlocality (the direct interaction of two objects that are separated in space with no perceivable intermediate agency or mechanism) be considered, introducing complexity into, and thereby further hampering, analysis.

Read more at: Nanoscale neighbors First use of transformation optics to accurately analyze nonlocality in 3D plasmonic systems

 

[ScienceRocks]

There's three millitary innovations that impress me of the past 20 years.
1. The f-22. Of course, we only built 120 of them.
2. The laser being deployed on a destroyer that is the real deal.
3. And finally the iron dome.


Upgrading Israel’s Iron Dome with swarmware

Upgrading Israel s Iron Dome with swarmware - Opinion - Jerusalem Post

If the summer war with Hamas in Gaza proved anything, it was the role the Iron Dome anti-missile system played in minimizing civilian deaths in Israel and keeping the war from escalating in response to greater casualties. But while Israel enjoyed the tactical advantage afforded by this technological marvel, Hamas, for its part, wasn’t just sitting idly by. It was learning how to beat it.

The qualitative edge that Israel has developed in the sky – offensively, with advanced jets and well-trained fighters and now UA Vs, and defensively with the Iron Dome and other layers of missile defense – is crucial to its survival, especially given its 20-milewide waist at the center of the country.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Audi takes its self-driving A7 development car on a 550-mile trip from the San Francisco Bay Area to CES 2015 in Las Vegas.

During a ride in Audi's self-driving car along a freeway in Las Vegas at last year's CES, the system failed and the driver had to take over. After a year of development, Audi must feel it solved all the glitches, as it sends an A7 fitted with its self-driving gear on a two-day, 550-mile road trip from the San Francisco Bay Area to Las Vegas, and the 2015 International CES.

Audi s 550-mile self-driving gamble - CNET

 

[ScienceRocks]

Weather service to boost its computer power for forecasting
12 hours ago by By Seth Borenstein

The National Weather Service is about to boost its computing power by more than tenfold, which officials hope will translate to better forecasts.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's two supercomputers will more than triple in computational ability this month and more than triple again by October. Computers will go from now being able to handle 426 trillion operations a second to 5,000 trillion calculations in the fall.

The upgrade costs $44.5 million.

NOAA chief Kathryn Sullivan, in a press release, said the computer boost "will lead to more timely, accurate, and reliable forecasts." The weather service's main computer forecast model this month will double its resolution for forecasts of less than 10 days.

Read more at: Weather service to boost its computer power for forecasting

 

[ScienceRocks]

New acoustic levitation device goes out of alignment to expand potential applications
By Ben Coxworth
January 6, 2015
1 Comment
3 Pictures

Acoustic levitators are already pretty intriguing devices, in that they use opposing sound waves to suspend small objects in mid-air. Now, however, scientists from Brazil's University of São Paulo have created what they claim is a better acoustic levitator. It's less fussy about the exact orientation of its components, making it more feasible for use in practical applications.

 

[ScienceRocks]

High-temperature superconductor 'fingerprint' found

High-temperature superconductor fingerprint found
28 minutes ago by Anne Ju

(Phys.org) —Theorists and experimentalists working together at Cornell may have found the answer to a major challenge in condensed matter physics: identifying the smoking gun of why "unconventional" superconductivity occurs, they report in Nature Physics, published online Dec. 22.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Honda's predictive cruise control aims to detect lane-changes ahead of time
By Nick Lavars
January 8, 2015
1 Comment

The emergence of adaptive cruise control in recent years has certainly been a welcome development, and now Honda is promising to take things one step further. It has today unveiled its Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control (i-ACC), a technology it claims is capable of predicting the chances of a car cutting into your lane up to five seconds before it occurs.

 

[ScienceRocks]

US Navy buying $81 million in heat resistant batteries for hypersonic railguns

The U.S. Navy placed an $81.4 million order with K2 Energy Solutions Inc. for a battery system to power an electromagnetic railgun. K2 will design and build the lithium-ion storage system. The U.S. Navy plans to install and test a prototype electromagnetic railgun aboard a joint high speed vessel in fiscal year 2016.