Month: April 2017

Enlarge (credit: Bullion Vault)

Inertial confinement fusion has mostly been the playground of the US. Since the basic idea is that you need a big-ass laser^TM that heats and compresses a nuclear fuel, you need to be rich enough to afford the laser system. Not long ago, China joined that club with a laser that was designed to deliver 100 kilojoules per pulse. Although this is still a generation behind the 1.8MJ at the National Ignition Facility in the US, the researchers in China are focusing on innovative ways to achieve high compression.

The key to inertial confinement fusion is that the laser crushes a pellet of nuclear fuel, increasing the pressure and temperature to the point where fusion can occur. This works if you can get a set of laser beams that illuminate the pellet from all sides at once, delivering an even and clean crushing force.

But, what would happen if, instead of applying the force from the outside, the force was applied from the inside and directed outwards?

(credit: Kenyaboy7)

A protein found in the plasma of human umbilical cord blood perked up the memories of elderly mice, researchers reported Wednesday in Nature.

Researchers at Stanford had first noted that injecting middle-aged mice with plasma from human cord blood could boost activity in their hippocampi, an area of the brain critical for creating and banking memories. The mice also got better at memory tests. After some analysis, the researchers focused in on one plasma protein called TIMP2. With injections of just that protein, the senior rodents again improved on memory and learning tests (though not quite to the extent that mice given whole plasma did). Still, they became faster at navigating a maze and  restored nesting skills they lost with age, and they could better remember a chamber where their feet get zapped with a slight electrical shock.

TIMP2 is an intriguing find in the pursuit of anti-aging therapies; TIMP2 levels in the blood of mice and men start high in life but then wane in later years. And the researcher found that blocking TIMP2 in young mice seemed to prematurely age their memories.

Xinhua

On Thursday, a Chinese Long March 7 rocket successfully lifted off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, carrying the Tainzhou-1 spacecraft. This large, 10.6-meter-long cargo vehicle is the first of a new line of spacecraft that China intends to use to eventually service a large space station akin to the International Space Station.

During the next two months, the spacecraft will make three docking attempts with the Tiangong-2 space station, a smaller prototype for a larger station China intends to build during the coming decade. After these three proof-of-concept dockings, which will occur from different directions, the Tianzhou-1 will separate from the station and perform several months of experiments before burning up in Earth's atmosphere.

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Sky has teamed up with London's Natural History Museum to help fulfil the lifelong dream of many a natural history fan: to hang out with, and be educated by, the legendary documentary maker Sir David Attenborough.

Sky is creating a virtual reality version of Attenborough as part of a "three-dimensional hologram" experience dubbed Hold the World. It will take visitors on a one-on-one tour behind the otherwise inaccessible glass cases of the Natural History Museum, allowing them to go "hands-on" with the artefacts inside. Meanwhile, Attenborough will offer insights into the collection, which includes fossils, bones, and skulls.

Unfortunately for HTC Vive fans, Hold the World will only be released on Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, and iOS. Press shots show Attenborough monkeying around with an Oculus Rift VR headset, complete with Oculus Touch controllers, which shows that no matter how brilliant, respected, or intelligent you are, wearing a VR headset is guaranteed to make you look a bit derpy.

AeroMobil

The flying car—or lack thereof—has become 21st-century shorthand for complaints about the future and questionable technological progress. Futurists in the 1950s and 1960s promised us cities in space, shiny silver jumpsuits, and an end to gridlock as Joe Smith ditched the clogged freeways and took his commute to the air. Obviously, that didn't happen, but AeroMobil still believes in that dream and thinks that technologies like lightweight materials and better engines have now gotten to the point where it can make the idea work. On Thursday it unveiled the latest version of its flying car at the Top Marques show in Monaco.

It's the fourth evolution of a flying car from the AeroMobil team, but the first designed to satisfy European and federal road vehicle and aircraft regulations. "Technology didn't exist when we tried [our] first attempts," said Douglas MacAndrew, AeroMobil's Chief Technical Officer. "Now we can deliver very lightweight structures and very high power engines. Because of those and the market, drivers wanting to have access to freedom of movement, that has driven AeroMobil to come into existence. We've spent two years [since the debut of Flying Car version 3.0] trying to deliver it as a consistent and legal product."