30,000 nano sponges per blood cell membrane, absorbs toxins and decoys the bacterial infection.
MIT TR || nano particle sponges up toxins
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Category Archives: Technology
Smart Rock(ets)
Classic shot of the classic, classy, grungy, so ugly it’s cute, A10 Warthog dropping a flare I think
What caught my eye:
While the APKWS, designed for maximum precision, has a Circular Error Probable (CEP) of about 2-meters, the round has exceeded this benchmark in testing and come within inches of targets at ranges up to 5 kilometers, according to BAE Systems officials.
Think about that … this is a WW II weapon and in the big picture inexpensive trending to dirt cheap. The guidance package-warhead replaces the dumb warhead, it has a trick laser based guidance system that is precise while leaving room for an effective warhead. The guidance system has an inertial reference platform and range finder…about the smarts and sensing of the original iPhone. In the future I see no reason it couldn’t have the ability to switch to pattern recognition guidance in the last few meters to go from inches to millimeters … At which point some targets don’t need an explosive ‘after.’
One Two Three Four, We Could Get A Nuclear War
One Two Three Four, We Could Get A Nuclear War.
ARES a AWST blog….
“money quotes:”
Watts argued that many countries are no longer pursuing nuclear weapons as a direct counter to U.S. nuclear power, but to compensate for relatively weak conventional forces. That includes Russia, where Watts cites president Vladimir Putin’s emphasis on the importance of nuclear weapons, and post-Cold-War doctrinal writings that talk about using limited nuclear attacks as “demonstration and de-escalation” strikes, to deter or terminate a large-scale nuclear war.
…it’s like a police department whose only force option is to blow up the entire block where the perpetrator lives.
Indeed, U.S. extended deterrence is something that not enough people think about when they advocate further cuts in U.S. nuclear forces. The American “umbrella” covers nations such as South Korea, Japan and Turkey, which have the industrial and technological capability to go nuclear very quickly if they feel that they can no longer rely on the U.S.
Watts warns, “limited use of low-yield nuclear weapons will become the new normal and give rise to a second nuclear age whose dangers and uncertainties will dwarf those of the first.”
Crap!
Soviet era rocket tech powers Anteres
File photo of the NK-33 engine firing on a test stand. Credit: Aerojet
From space flight now an article on Orbital Science’s Anteres launcher, specifically the rocket engines. It’s interesting that the Soviets were so good at some things and awful at others.
But then engineering is a very neutral endeavor and one that can adsorb your passion and develop your stoic nature…very good things in Stalinist Russia.
One should also remember that while ‘the west’ got the ‘brains’ of the Nazi German Rocket cadre (like Werner vonBraun) the Russian’s got the great majority, the working engineer types, who in the end have to slog through the agony of turning strokes of genius into real hardware, and it’s the slog that gets you deep capability not the strokes.
ars technica || Capacitive touch primer (NOT Wired as I first wrote…sorry about that)
Wood-eye, wooden head, now Woodskin
Cool stuff, you have to love wood, seems like another ideal bamboo application too. Wired || Design Firm Creates a Composite Wooden Material That Flexes Like Skin
Rocket Romance
ars technica article on the F1B engine the derivative of the Saturn 5 main engines competing for the strap on for the Senatorial Launch System… I don’t love the SLS but the F1B is exciting and worthy, I just wish it were part of a more commercially driven program.
2nd page has a great explanation of the difference between kerosene and liquid hydrogen as a fuel for first stage engines, fun for the rocket scientist in all of us…or at least me.
The thousand yard stare
Another ars technica article on the computer guided rifle. Though really cool tech and something I’d like to try out at the range, it’s a pretty creepy concept when thought about in a little detail (and its obvious that Lee Hutchinson the writer had some qualms.) But every advance in hunting tech has been seen that way … ‘hey Oog that clubs really unfair you ought to use rocks like the rest of the guys!’ … even the barely socially conscious among we advanced (maybe) apes know that killing should not be too easy.
These your Genes?
Good short article at ars Technica. Patenting natural genes, particularly human ones has always seemed wrong to me. Hopefully the SCoUS will agree with me and many others at last.
The Photo is just eye candy…
US Air Force = ‘hollow force’ ?
This article on the USAirForce in The American Interest is part of a series, incomplete as of this writing, on the US Armed Forces, and the road forward in this period of draw back and draw down. The ones on the Army and Marines are worthy and insightful but don’t get to the nitty gritty level required for me at least. While this AF article could be argued to be in the same vein I think it’s stronger and that may be because the technology and mission of the AF are very tightly interwoven making it simpler to see the overall threat.
The argument is that the AF has been all but static in the past 20+ years since Desert Storm. That a combination of victors-hubris along with techno-hubris and perhaps political ineptness have left us with a hollow force at the sharp end. The AF is arguably all over its technological mission in support of communication, reconnaissance, threat detection, navigation, etc, and has been shown to be king of battle in low intensity conflict (a turnaround of epic proportions from Vietnam.) But this camouflages the fact that if we had to do Desert Storm against a foe withe the modern equivalent of Saddam’s air defenses we would suffer vastly higher casualty rates, to the point of perhaps not being able to dominate the air space to anything like the same degree, perhaps pushing us back to an earlier era’s loss ratio’s.
There is a call to back the F35 and the NGB (next gen bomber) which I agree with since all other platforms are wearing and aging out (aging out happens as old tech ( particularly electronic and electromechanical) gets impossibly expensive to support because the devices and materials used are obsolete and no longer available sometimes even illegal due to toxicity or country of origin.)
I’m not bought in on the hollowness, yet. Yes the AF / DoD bolloxed the F35 and its now causing the above wear/age issue but does it matter? The first wave B2, B1 and cruise and strike missiles from B52’s etc would take down any known threat’s air defenses long enough for the channel to be cauterized by strike aircraft and special forces…which is what happened in DS. Yes some might have ability to hang tough with fighters, for a few hours, yes some might have backup lines and reserves, but having them and using them are two very different propositions once the AF is in their backfield.
What about a peer / near peer you ask? What peer / near peer I ask? Not NorK NorK, not Iran, not Russia or China either…a limited war against either is essentially the scenario above. Anything more in those two cases and sheer area would provide a huge force multiplier on their side. Thats ignoring the fact that both are serious nuclear powers and serious world diplomatic players who we are Never Going to War With directly until nuclear weapons are off the table…though of course you have to game the doomsday scenarios…but in those cases the war can never expected to be winnable or lovable in a conventional way.
This World and Others 