General science advances thread

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Cooled down and charged up, a giant magnet is ready for its new mission
The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory—or Fermilab—announced that a 680-ton superconducting magnet is secure in its new home and nearly ready for a new era of discovery in particle physics. This achievement follows ..

New methods to make longer streams of plasma with greater longevity could lead to laser-powered lightning rods
Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod 250 years ago to protect people and buildings from lightning strikes. Someday, those metal poles may be replaced with lasers.

Scientists build wrench 1.7 nanometers wide
Hold up your two hands. They are identical in structure, but mirror opposites. No matter how hard you try, they can't be superimposed onto each other. Or, as chemists would say, they have "chirality," from the Greek word ..

 

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German Rheinmetall shows off 80 kilowatt naval combat laser with four 20 kw laser barrels

This week at the Defence and Security Equipment Industry in London, German defense contractor Rheinmetall Defence Electronics showcased a new sea-based anti-drone laser system. The system, according to Chinese web site qq.com, features not one but four high energy lasers (HEL) mounted on turret, making it look like some kind of laser gun. The...

 

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Skarp Razor shaves with lasers instead of metal blades

• Stanley Goodner
• September 25, 2015
• 2 PICTURES

Laser technology has come a long way over the decades, having made leaps from science fiction to science fact within the medical field, manufacturing, and even as a "death star" beam to help unlock the mysteries of the universe. But the latest laser-enabled concept is something the average consumer can more readily appreciate. The Skarp Razor may become the first-ever personal shaving tool powered by a laser.

Extending life of plasma channels could allow lasers to be used as lightning rods

• Ben Coxworth
• September 25, 2015

Today's simple metal lightning rods may be on their way to obsolescence. That's because scientists at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem are developing a high-tech alternative that could potentially reach higher and be more effective – laser lightning rods.

 

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Black Phosphorous has great electrical and optical properties

Since 2014, black phosphorous can be split into layers 10 to 20 atoms thick. Black phosphorous has an inherent bandgap, something that graphene lacks. The bandgap can be tuned from 0.3 to 2.0 electron volts. No other 2D material has this range. It bridges the bandgaps of graphene (0 eV) and of transition-metal dichalcogenides such as molybdenum...

 

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Researchers create first entropy-stabilized complex oxide alloys
Researchers from North Carolina State University have created the first entropy-stabilized alloy that incorporates oxides - and demonstrated conclusively that the crystalline structure of the material can be determined by ...

 

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Self-driving truck hits the highway in world first

• Nick Lavars
• October 4, 2015
• 12 PICTURES

Daimler Trucks has shifted gears in its ongoing effort to develop autonomous vehicles. By fitting its Highway Pilot self-driving system to a Mercedes-Benz Actros truck and steering it down a stretch of Autobahn 8 near Stuttgart, the company has marked the first time an autonomous production semi has been tested out on public roads.

 

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The topolariton, a new half-matter, half-light particle
October 7, 2015 by Rod Pyle

A new type of "quasiparticle" theorized by Caltech's Gil Refael, a professor of theoretical physics and condensed matter theory, could help improve the efficiency of a wide range of photonic devices—technologies, such as optical amplifiers, solar photovoltaic cells, and even barcode scanners, which create, manipulate, or detect light.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-10-topolariton-half-matter-half-light-particle.html#jCp

 

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Northrop Grumman all terrain hellhound has 100kw generator and could integrate a 30kw laser in months

At the Association of the United States Army conference, Northrop Grumman announced that they’re looking to integrate a 10-kilowatt solid-state fiber laser onto their newest tactical dune buggy. The Hellhound is a rear-engine vehicle with seating for six, weighs in at 13,000 pounds, loaded. It can be transported by a CH-47 Chinook helicopter. The...

 

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A breakthrough on the mathematical understanding of Einstein’s equations

Proposed 15 years ago, the bounded L2 curvature conjecture has finally been proved by a group of three researchers at the Laboratoire Jacques-Louis Lions (CNRS / UPMC / Université Paris Diderot) and Princeton University. It provides a potentially minimal framework in which it is possible to solve the Einstein equations, which in turn could be a critical step toward the proof of major conjectures, such as Penrose's cosmic censorship conjectures. This work has appeared in Inventiones Mathematicae on October 14.

Even though this year marks its 100th anniversary, Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity still holds its share of mysteries. This theory of gravitation stipulates that matter curves spacetime in proportion to the mass of the object. This phenomenon is measured using a mathematical tool called the curvature tensor, on which the bounded L2 curvature conjecture focuses to find possible frameworks for making sense of solutions to Einstein's equations. Proposed 15 years ago by Sergiu Klainerman, this conjecture has at last been demonstrated by Sergiu Klainerman, Igor Rodnianski and Jérémie Szeftel.

 

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Tesla's live Autopilot upgrades give the Model S parallel parking and lane changes with the push of a button

• Heidi Hoopes
• October 16, 2015

Following news earlier this week that Tesla would finally be releasing Autopilot upgrades to allow certain semi-autonomous features, the company announced October 14 that Autopilot was now live and detailed some of the changes. Model S vehicles produced after October of last year are now capable of automatic parallel parking, lane changes with the tap of the turn signal, and traffic-aware cruise control, along with some other options. Version 7.0 of the Model S' firmware will also add new apps and a refresh of the UI that provides the bulk of the driver's interaction with the car's features.

 

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Elon Musk sees a future of all electrically powered transportation including supersonic passenger jets

Elon Musk likes the idea of an electric aircraft company. He believes a supersonic, vertical take-off and landing electric passenger jets are possible. He has a design in mind for that. Elon believes that Aircraft and ships, and all other modes of transport, will go fully electric - not half electric, but fully electric. The only mode of...

 

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Lockheed Martin completes 60 tests of laser turret for high-speed warplanes

• David Szondy
• October 17, 2015

Last year, Lockheed Martin began testing a new tactical laser turret for future warplanes. After 60 test flights Lockheed says the 360° capability of the turret system has been verified, moving the technology a step closer to deployment on tactical aircraft flying at near-supersonic speeds.

 

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US Navy Lasers, Railgun, and Hypervelocity Projectiles

Three new weapons that could improve the ability of Navy surface ships to defend themselves against enemy missiles—solid state lasers (SSLs), the electromagnetic railgun (EMRG), and the hypervelocity projectile (HVP). Any one of these new weapon technologies, if successfully developed and deployed, might be regarded as a “game changer” for...

 

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3D Printing Used to Make First Real Handheld Railgun, which Fires Plasma Projectiles at 560 mph
BGR News ^ | October 19, 2015 | Zach Epstein

If you think the image above looks frightening, you’re right. The crazy contraption pictured in the image is the first portable railgun, a futuristic projectile launcher associated most commonly with the military or NASA. The man in the image above isn’t in the military, and he’s not a NASA engineer. Instead, he’s a civilian who used some engineering smarts, some widely available parts and a 3D printer to create a functioning weapon that can fire graphite, aluminum, tungsten and even plasma projectiles at speeds of more than 560 mph.

And then there’s the best part: There are videos of this homemade railgun in action.

Little is known about Imgur user “NSA_Listbot” beyond the fact that he’s just short of being a wizard with AutoCAD and a 3D printer. The man took to Imgur over the weekend to share what may very well be one of the most amazing and terrifying DIY projects that has even been attempted. And he didn’t just attempt it, he built it.