MoD unveils unmanned fighter jet 'of the future'

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

LONDON (AFP) – An unmanned jet capable of striking long-range targets has been dubbed the "combat aircraft of the future" by the Ministry of Defence.

The Taranis -- named after the Celtic god of thunder -- was unveiled at a ceremony at BAE Systems in Warton, Lancashire, on Monday. The £142.5 million prototype is the size of a light aircraft and has been equipped with stealth technology to make it virtually undetectable.

In a press release, the MoD described the Taranis as "a prototype unmanned combat aircraft of the future."

It is built to carry out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions while its crew stays safely on the ground and can control the aircraft from anywhere in the world.

The unmanned fighter jet can also carry bombs and missiles and, if the trials prove successful, the MoD said it should "ultimately be capable of striking targets at long range, even in another continent."

The current generation of propeller-driven drones -- such as the Predator and Reaper -- are capable of carrying missiles, but these unmanned planes can only be used in areas where the military has air dominance, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The first flight trials are due to start next year.

"Taranis is a truly trailblazing project," said Minister for International Security Strategy Gerald Howarth.

"The first of its kind in the UK, it reflects the best of our nation's advanced design and technology skills and is a leading programme on the global stage."

The Taranis was created by the MOD in partnership with BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, QinetiQ and GE Aviation.

"Taranis has been three-and-a-half years in the making and is the product of more than a million man-hours," said Nigel Whitehead, group managing director of BAE Systems' Programmes and Support business.

"It represents a significant step forward in this country's fast-jet capability.

"This technology is key to sustaining a strong industrial base and to maintain the UK's leading position as a centre for engineering excellence and innovation."

Fighter Jets going Supersonic

A New Bloom for Algae

Monday, July 5, 2010

A DOE Roadmap Marks a Return to Research on a Source of Fuel That Was Once Thought Too Costly

This week the U.S. Department of Energy released a new roadmap for the development of algal biofuels. DOE researchers had dismissed this type of biofuel as too costly to be commercially successful in the mid-1990s following a nearly two-decade-long research project.The new roadmap was accompanied by the announcement of $24 million in new DOE funding for algal biofuels research.

That money is in addition to $140 million in algae funding from last year's Recovery Act.

"Biotechnology has come a long way" since the earlier project, says Valerie Sarisky-Reed of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, one of the lead authors of the roadmap. "With a dedicated research and development program, we can bring the economics to a suitable place within a 10-year time frame," she says.

We chose to invest in it again because we felt we were within striking distance.The DOE originally considered algae as a means of making biofuels because some types of algae naturally produce large amounts of oil. The prolific organisms, if grown in ponds or closed bioreactors, could be used to produce more fuel per acre than other biofuels approaches, such as biochemically or thermochemically converting cellulosic biomass into fuel.

But the DOE program, which concluded in 1996, found that growing algae, and then harvesting and processing the oils, would only be cost-effective at high petroleum prices--between $59 and $186 a barrel. About that time, oil prices were less than $20 a barrel.

Current estimates of the required price of petroleum for algae to be competitive range widely, from $10 to $100 a barrel, Sarisky-Reed says. Some estimates are even higher. Conventional approaches are only competitive when oil prices are as high as $400 a barrel, says David Berry, a partner at Flagship Ventures, based in Cambridge, MA.

Green fuel: Algae, pictured here in a tank, is being studied by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Lab for its potential to make

biofuels. Credit: NREL, Warren Gratz

Making Biodiesel at Home video youtube

Top 10 Tech Inventions Shaping 2010

Saturday, July 3, 2010

3M/Littmann Electronic Stethoscope Model 3200 With Zargis Cardioscan

The stethoscope hasn’t undergone many significant breakthroughs until now. 3M’s new stethoscope listens to a patient’s heartbeat, captures the sound for later playback, lets you transmit sounds real-time to your PC, which can then be further analyzed, attached to medical records, or reviewed online with colleagues.The sound-amplifying 3M Littmann Electronic Stethoscope 3200 will not only be able to catch dangerous murmurs and heart defects but will also eliminate more than eight million unnecessary echocardiograms and cardiologist visits a year, saving some $9.4 billion.

XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System (i.e. The Smart Bullet)

The XM25, currently under development for the U.S. military by Alliant Tech systems, allows soldiers to measure the distance to a target using a laser range finder, dials in exactly where the bullet should explode (over or past walls, the corner of buildings) at precise distances. At a cost of $30/round, the bullets are equipped with microchips capable of registering distance according to the number of times they’ve rotated.

The Electric Eye

MIT researchers are developing a microchip that will enable a blind person to recognize faces and navigate a room without assistance, helping the blind to regain partial eyesight. The chip, which is encased in titanium to prevent water damage, will be implanted onto a patient’s eyeball. Users are required to wear special glasses fitted with a small camera that transmits images to the titanium-encased chip, which fires an electrode array under the retina that stimulates the optic nerve. The glasses will help to power the coils surrounding the eyeball.