• The U.S. military prepares for the coming conflicts triggered by climate change

    The popular debate surrounding “global warming” is rife with emotion and has paralyzed U.S. policymakers; military planners, however, remain divorced from the emotional content of the topic, looking at possible future scenarios and conducting planning to address the associated challenges and threats arising from sharp changes in climate

  • New cement absorbs CO2

    Concrete — the essential material used by the world’s $3.8 trillion construction industry — accounts for 5 percent of the world’s man-made carbon dioxide emissions; each ton of cement emits about 800 kg (1,763 lb.) of CO2 during manufacture — and every year, some 3 billion tons of cement turn into nearly 30 billion tons of concrete, a British start-up has devised a new cement — based on magnesium silicates rather than limestone — that absorbs and stores CO2 when it is produced

  • Russia revives cold war-era raygun air fleet

    Pravda reports that the Russian military has revived a cold war-era project: mounting lasers on large transport planes; the Obama administration, after concluding that airborne lasers would not be effective as a boost-phase defense against ballistic missiles, has downgraded the program; it appears that Russia, too, does not intend for the airborne lasers to be used as ballistic missile defense, but rather use them to blind satellites or spy planes

  • Is the U.S. military interested in a Kiwi Jetpack?

    Kiwi company claims the U.S. military is interested in its Jetpack (not really a jetpack, but personal ducted-fan aircraft too heavy to be lifted by its user); the company made the headlines in the spring by saying it was about the sell the first commercial jetpack for $75,000 a piece; the price has since gone up a bit, to $140,00 a unit, but the company says that 1,600 people have “expressed interest” in buying the Jetpack

  • Oregano reduces atmosphere-damaging emissions of methane by gassy cows

    Cows account for 37 percent of methane gas emissions caused by human activities, such as agriculture; the EPA says that compared to carbon dioxide, methane has 23 times the potential to create global warming because of the gas’s absorption of infrared radiation, the spectral location of its absorbing wavelengths, and the length of time methane remains in the atmosphere; researchers find that the addition of oregano to cow feed cuts the amount of methane emitted by belching cows by 40 percent; the oregano also improves milk production

  • Scientist offers better ways to engineer Earth's climate to blunt global warming

    A Canadian scientist suggests two novel geoengineering approaches to limit the effects of climate change on Earth: “levitating:” engineered nano-particles, and the airborne release of sulphuric acid; both ideas are more refined than, and have advantages over, another geoengineering concept developed by geoengineers: mimicking volcanic eruptions by injecting massive amounts of sulphur dioxide gas into the upper atmosphere

  • K-State says its security studies program leads nation

    Kansas State University is currently the only university in the United States to offer a full Ph.D. in security studies, a hybrid of political science and history; the director of the security studies program says that in comparison to a homeland security master’s program, K-State’s security studies Ph.D. has much more of a focus on the phenomena that arise during international events; in a homeland security master’s program, there is more of a focus on domestic policy

  • Lasers will protect helicopters from heat-seeking missiles

    A Michigan company using off-the-shelf telecommunications fiber optics to develop rugged and portable mid-infrared supercontinuum lasers that could blind heat-seeking weapons from a distance of 1.8 miles away; the technology will be used to protect combat helicopters from heat-seeking missiles

  • Obama to pare down list of export-controlled technologies

    For many years, academic institutions and businesses in the United States have complained about the long list of technologies that the U.S. government considers too sensitive to export without a license; last week, President Obama announced that administration would pare down the list of export-controlled item; businesses and universities are happy, but some in the arms-control community are not happy

  • IDF shows Hezbollah removing arms from exploded home

    One lesson both Hezbollah and Hamas have drawn from their recent military encounters with Israel — Hezbollah in July-August 2006, Hamas in December 2008-January 2009 — is that both would benefit from increasing even more the use of the Shi’a population in southern Lebanon (Hezbollah) and the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip (Hamas) as human shields against the Israeli military; hiding weapons and explosives in residential buildings, however, increases the number of deadly accident, as the one which occurred in Lebanese village of Shehabiyeh last Friday

  • Germany to extend life of nuclear reactors

    Germany said on Monday that it would extend the life of the country’s 17 nuclear reactors by twelve years on average — the lives of older plants will be extended by eight years and those of newer ones by fourteen years; Chancellor Angela Merkel’s predecessor Gerhard Schroeder had decided to mothball the reactors by around 2020, but Merkel said the extension was necessary to allow more time for renewable energy to become cost effective

  • Technical problems grounds homemade Danish space rocket

    The launch of the first homemade rocket into space failed Sunday owing to technical difficulties; the two Danish inventors who used private funds to develop the 9-meter, 1.6-ton prototype hope to send a person into space within three or four years, which would make Denmark only the fourth nation to do so

  • Laser-powered, ground-charged UAV stays aloft for hours

    A UAV is only as good as its power source: if the drone cannot stay over target for long periods of time and must return to base to refuel, this not only adds to the costs of operating the drone but it also degrade its intelligence gathering capabilities; Seattle-based company demonstrates that it can use a laser beam to charge the UAV’s photovoltaic cells, generating enough power to keep the drone in the air for hours; the company has bigger plans for extending flight duration of military craft — and much more: in the longer term, it envisions lasers powering remote ground-based sensors, delivering power to forward military bases, or supplying emergency power during disasters

  • Self-learning robots to be used in earthquake, disaster rescue missions

    Rescue robots capable of understanding the changing and unpredictable environment of disaster scenarios may one day be deployed to search for survivors in the aftermath of earthquakes; a robot equipped with a newly developed software, for example, would be able to recognize how something such as a stick could be used as a tool to push an object through an area too small for the robot to go into

  • Small thorium reactors could lead to fossil-fuel-free world within five years

    An argument is made that nuclear reactors which use thorium as an accelerator (hence the technical name: Accelerator Driven Thorium Reactors, or ADTR) could lead to fossil-fuel-free world within five years; thorium is an abundant mineral deposit, with 3 to 5 times more thorium in the world than uranium; more importantly, virtually all of the thorium mined can be used as fuel compared to only 0.7 percent of the uranium recovered in its natural state, this means, in energy terms, that one ton of thorium mined is equivalent to 200 tons of uranium mined, which is equivalent to 3.5 million tons of mined coal; ADTRs also enjoy proliferation resistance advantages compared to other reactor systems