Science and Technology Blog

Within the past couple of years, memristors have morphed from obscure jargon into one of the hottest properties in physics. They’ve not only been made, but their unique capabilities might revolutionise consumer electronics. More than that, though, along with completing the jigsaw of electronics, they might solve the puzzle of how nature makes that most delicate and powerful of computers – the brain.

Read Memristor minds: The future of artificial intelligence from New Scientist and Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics by DARPA.

The photograph shows an experiment in which dense deuterium is irradiated by a laser. The white glow in the container in the centre of the photograph is from deuterium.

A material that is a hundred thousand times heavier than water and more dense than the core of the Sun is being produced at the University of Gothenburg. The scientists working with this material are aiming for an energy process that is both more sustainable and less damaging to the environment than the nuclear power used today.

Ultra-dense deuterium may be a very efficient fuel in laser driven nuclear fusion. Ultra-dense deuterium is a million times more dense than frozen deuterium, making it relatively easy to create a nuclear fusion reaction using high-power pulses of laser light.

"If we can produce large quantities of ultra-dense deuterium, the fusion process may become the energy source of the future. And it may become available much earlier than we have thought possible", says Leif Holmlid.

"Further, we believe that we can design the deuterium fusion such that it produces only helium and hydrogen as its products, both of which are completely non-hazardous. It will not be necessary to deal with the highly radioactive tritium that is planned for use in other types of future fusion reactors, and this means that laser-driven nuclear fusion as we envisage it will be both more sustainable and less damaging to the environment than other methods that are being developed."

Source: nextbigfuture.com

SpaceX successfully launched a Malaysian satellite into orbit late Monday night, the second successful launch for the private space exploration company, which aims to reduce the cost of orbital transport tenfold.

After a series of expensive failures, SpaceX had its first successful launch last September, but that mission carried a dummy payload. Before, on previous disastrous launch, the company lost a Malaysian satellite, the ashes of actor James Doohan and an inexpensive NASA satellite.

The Falcon 1 rocket carried RazakSAT, a small Malaysian satellite built by ATSB, an Asian satellite design firm. The satellite carries a high resolution camera that will be used to monitor natural resources.

RazakSAT was launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific, and reached orbit ten minutes later.

Falcon 1, a two-stage, liquid oxygen/rocket-grade kerosene vehicle designed from the ground up by SpaceX, will place the RazakSAT satellite, equipped with a high resolution Medium-Sized Aperture Camera (MAC), into a near equatorial orbit.

RazakSAT was designed and built by ATSB, a pioneer and leader in the design and manufacture of satellites in Malaysia. The satellite is expected to provide high resolution images of Malaysia that can be applied to land management, resource development and conservation, forestry and fish migration.

SpaceX’s Falcon 1 launch site is located approximately 2500 miles southwest of Hawaii on Omelek Island, part of the Reagan Test Site (RTS) at United States Army Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA) in the Central Pacific. Due to the location of the launch site, the Kwajalein local date at the opening of the launch window will be Tuesday, July 14th. – SpaceX

Source: Wired

Scientists have been looking to replace fuel guzzling aircrafts with solar powered variants, an innovation that, in addition to passing the green test, would also enable planes to remain in the sky for longer.

Darpa, the Pentagon’s advanced-research organization, recently developed an aircraft named Odysseus that could theoretically stay in the air for a decade. The aircraft is intended only for military purposes.

Solar Impulse, a new Swiss solar powered aircraft could have commercial uses. The aircraft, which doesn’t require a single drop of fuel, is designed to run on sunlight alone, as its four engines would be powered by electricity converted by solar cells mounted on the wings. Thanks to this design, the aircraft has the potential to stick around in the air for longer than your average airliner.

The Solar Impulse will be tested later this year, and if all goes well, the Swiss will build a second version that they expect to pilot first across the Atlantic, and then across the entire world in 2012.

Source: PopSci

Those enthusiasts who were downloaded and installed the new browser Google Chrome without read very carefully EULA could discover with surprise that it contains incredible clauses.

According to what you approved to, Google owns everything you create and publish while using Chrome (by example, using Chrome to post articles on your Wordpress blog).

Here is a fragment from Chrome EULA that explains the question:

11. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.