China has successfully tested a hypersonic aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons that evade existing anti-missile defence systems, according reports.

   

The next-generation weapon, known as Xingkong-2 or Starry Sky-2, will ride the shockwave generated by the initial launch, which is handled by a rocket, to travel at six times the speed of sound, or Mach 6 – around 4,563mph (7,344kmph).

Starry Sky-2 will purportedly be able to switch direction during its flight, making it harder to track and intercept.

   

When the aircraft fires its missiles, these will also travel at top speeds of 4,563mph (7,344kmph) and will easily defeat conventional anti-missile defence systems.

Scientists involved in the latest test flight have heralded it as a 'huge success', with experts saying the aircraft signals China is now neck-and-neck with Russia and the United States in the race to create hypersonic warheads.

China has long been suspected of building an arsenal of hypersonic weapons, but this new test flight is the first proof the technology is actively being developed.

The China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics (CAAA) said in a statement the latest test flight – carried out at an undisclosed location in northwest of the country – was a 'huge success', writes South China Morning Post.

The Starry Sky-2 aircraft was carried into space before separating from the launcher rocket and flying on its own power.

Known as a 'waverider', these hypersonic aircrafts uses the shockwaves from its own flight as a lifting surface to travel through the air at fast speeds.

In the latest tests, the aircraft was able to maintain speeds greater than five-and-a-half times the speed of sound for 400 seconds at an altitude of 30km (19 miles).

Local reports suggest it also achieved a top speed of Mach 6.

'The test … has laid a solid technological foundation for engineering applications of the waverider design,' the CAAA statement claimed.

Hypersonic weapons can defeat existing anti-missile defences as they are designed to switch direction during their flight.

These missiles do not follow a predictable ballistic arc like conventional projectiles, making them much harder to track and intercept.

According to the CAAA, the aircraft landed 'whole' in the designated target zone.

However, this technology is not ready to be rolled-out yet.

'I think there are still three to five years before this technology can be weaponised,' said Beijing-based military analyst, Zhou Chenming.

'As well as being fitted to missiles, it may also have other military applications, which are still being explored.'

Russia is widely-tipped to be developing a hypersonic weapon known as 'Zircon'.

The Zircon cruise missile purportedly travels between 3,800mph (6,115kph) and 4,600mph (7,400kph) – five to six times the speed of sound – putting Russia 'half a decade ahead of the US'.

According to Russian news agency Tass, it is set to go into production this year.

In June, it was also revealed a US hypersonic missile had taken a step closer to reality.

Defence firm Lockheed Martin revealed details of a $928 million (£661 million) contract to make a radical new weapon that will travel more than five times the speed of sound.

The aerospace firm is working on an air-launched weapon system, dubbed the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW), under a new deal with the US Air Force.

In the first phase, the team will finalise the system requirements before moving on to design, flight tests, and initial production and deployment. 

Work on the ultra-fast missile is taking place in Huntsville, Alabama, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and Orlando, Florida, according to Lockheed Martin.

Additional expertise in Denver, Colorado, and Sunnyvale, California will also be involved in the project.

The US Air Force will grant Lockheed Martin up to $928 million for development of the weapon through early operational capability.

'Our goal is rapid development and fielding of the HCSW system, and this contract is the first step in achieving that goal,' said John Snyder, vice president of Air Force Strategic Programs at Lockheed Martin.

'Design, development, production, integration and test experts from across Lockheed Martin will partner with the Air Force to achieve early operational capability and deliver the system to our warfighters.

'We are incredibly proud to be leading this effort.'

It was first revealed back in April that the Pentagon pushed through development of the highly maneuverable weapons, which are designed to outpace detection and defensive capabilities.

The move follows repeated warnings from senior officials about rapid advances by China and Russia, who have unveiled their own versions in recent months.

Arsenals of the ultra-fast intercontinental weapons could also be equipped with nuclear warheads with the capability of delivering devastating strikes across the planet.

In a statement, the Pentagon said Lockheed will receive up to $928 million to build a new, non-nuclear missile it is calling the 'hypersonic conventional strike weapon.'

'This contract provides for the design, development, engineering, systems integration, test, logistics planning, and aircraft integration support of all the elements of a hypersonic, conventional, air-launched, stand-off weapon,' the statement read.

Mike Griffin, the Pentagon's new defense undersecretary for research and engineering, said China had built 'a pretty mature system' for a hypersonic missile to strike from thousands of kilometres (miles) away.

'We will, with today's defensive systems, not see these things coming,' Mr Griffin said.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

It's hard to spot a moment of relief for our self-esteem.  Each generation seems to have an existential battle on their hands - whether it's the angst of teens, the 'quarter life crisis', the panic of the 30th birthday, the mid-life crisis or the 'loneliness epidemic' commonly associated with old age.

But a study by the University of Bern in Switzerland has identified when adults are happiest in their own skin: at 60.  The researchers say their meta-analysis is the first to show that while self-esteem is a highly personal battle, it does appear to follow a general pattern in all people - a theory that has been gaining traction in the last couple of decades.

Self-esteem, they acknowledge, is 'by no means an immutable characteristic of individuals'.  It fluctuates significantly in everyone, derailed or stabilized by all kinds of things, from interactions and relationships to achievements and losses, weight gain, weight loss, medical issues - to name a few.

Until the 1980s, psychologists generally agreed that adults don't experience any significant changes in self-esteem.  However, in the last 40 years, that idea has been called into question.  It was already widely accepted that, over time, our sense of control - both physical and emotional - strengthened over time, peaked around 60, then weakened.

Psychologists who study the Big Five personality traits have found the same: our openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness strengthen over time, then wane, as our neuroticism does the opposite.  While those things may sound obviously linked to self-esteem, studies confirming that have been few and far between.

In particular: studies started to show an arc-like pattern to self-esteem, but had not studied broad enough populations to pinpoint a general 'peak'.  To map out the pattern of self-esteem, researchers analyzed data from almost 200 previously published research articles, which included 165,000 people aged four to 94.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

A 'war drone' that can be fitted with everything from machine guns to explosives and rocket grenades has been revealed.

The founder of Ukrainian firm called Matrix UAV, Yuriy Kasyanov, posted a video of the prototype drone to his Facebook page.   'Armed with a grenade launcher, the unit is designed to inflict sudden, precise strikes on armored vehicles, fire points, air defense equipment, and enemy headquarters at a distance of up to 10 kilometers' Kasyanov says in the post.

He claims the Demon could also carry out kamikaze strikes up to 12 miles away, diving directly onto its target with a 7-kilogram bomb.  For more remote attacks, Kasyanov says a 4-kilogram payload could be carried 56 miles.

In the Facebook comments he also claims the firm had successfully test fired the drone without losing control - although no video of this has been posted.

The first prototype of the Demon UAV is fitted with the RPG-26 grenade launcher.  It can also carry small arms and a bomb load weighing up to 5 kilogram.  The drone will be controlled by an operator.

The threat of drone attacks has heightened in recent weeks after an alleged 'drone attack' against the president of Venezuela.- although many claim it  was faked after TV cameras failed to capture the 'missiles' and firefighters said the incident was actually a gas tank explosion.

Nicolas Maduro started rounding up his political opponents after blaming them for what he called an assassination attempt on 18 August.  Maduro had been addressing a military parade in Caracas on live TV, when he suddenly halted and looked to the sky after hearing an explosion.  He and his wife Cilia Flores were swamped with aides carrying bulletproof shields but both escaped uninjured.

Maduro claimed a 'flying device' exploded before his eyes and quickly blamed his 'ultra-right' opponents, but no drones were seen on television footage, which cut out after the incident.  No footage of drones emerged on social media either.  Then, three fire officials at the scene disputed the government's version of events, claiming the attack was actually a gas tank explosion inside the Residencias Don Eduardo apartment building.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

They are seen as boring and impersonal presents, given as the last resort after running out of ideas.  But putting a ten pound note in an envelope or buying someone an interesting book is actually likely to make them pretty happy.  A study has found gifts like books and money may not have the 'wow' factor but provide more satisfaction long-term.

Researchers from the National University of Singapore and the University of Chicago conducted six experiments asking people about giving and receiving gifts.  They found gift-givers prefer those expected to produce smiles or gasps of joy, but people receiving them prefer gifts which will make them happy over the long-term.

Dr Adelle Yang, who led the study from the department of marketing at the National University of Singapore, said: 'Despite best intentions, gift-giving often goes wrong and recipients end up not being satisfied with what they are given.  Our research suggests that a key reason that gift-givers give unsatisfactory gifts is that they are keen to elicit bright smiles or squeals of delight with their gifts and that such reactions are frequently not paired with gifts that are deeply valued.'

The study found almost 40 per cent of men would choose a dozen roses over a bonsai tree to buy their partner for Valentine's Day.  But just 27.8 per cent of women preferred the bouquet to the house plant.

Men chose the present they thought would get the best reaction, but that was not as important to the people receiving it.

When the researchers asked 80 people for their favourite gifts, books and money came out among the top for satisfaction, despite causing little in the way of smiles or squeals.

Further analysis of 198 people and 600 Christmas gifts found tools like a cordless drill often get little reaction but provide high satisfaction.   Frivolous items like cupcakes, produce a good reaction, such as a big smile, but low satisfaction.

Another experiment found gift-givers preferred personalised mugs but people given them preferred less thoughtful ergonomic ones designed to be easy to use.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, found people are more likely to try to get a reaction from presents if they are present to see them being opened.  Almost half of gift-givers surveyed by researchers chose pretty wrapping paper over an upgrade to the present, a Bluetooth phone speaker, when expecting to see it unwrapped in person.  This fell to less than 28 per cent if the present was sent by post.

Dr Yang added: ''This research suggests gift-givers may be able to spot gifts that would be deemed satisfying by recipients but that their gift choices are often dominated by a wish to get positive reactions.  Unfortunately money and books tend not to evoke the bright smiles which come from gifts appealing directly to the senses, such as fresh flowers and nicely-decorated sweets.  But these flowers and sweets have less long-term appeal.'

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Checking your email can be tiresome on its own, but it's often made worse by people who use the same words or phrases over and over.

A new study from Adobe has nailed down exactly which phrases are annoying people the most.  Researchers surveyed more than 1,000 white-collar workers and discovered that the most-hated email phrase is 'Not sure if you saw my last email...'   That phrase provoked the ire of 25 per cent of respondents who participated in the survey, followed by 'Per my last email' at 13 per cent.  The third 'most annoying phrase people use via email for work' was 'per our conversation' at 11 per cent.

Aside from avoiding these phrases, Adobe also provided some helpful etiquette tips on how not to drive other email users' crazy.  About 45 per cent of users said they were most peeved by people who send emails too often, while 33 per cent of users said they were annoyed when they receive recommendations for products that don't match their interests.  Still, another 22 per cent said they didn't want to receive offers or coupons that have already expired.  Finally, 17 per cent of respondents said they hated when the sender spelled their name incorrectly.

Alongside those findings, researchers also discovered that email use is on the rise and that, across the US, people check their inbox about 2.5 hours each weekday.  That's an increase of 17 per cent year-over-year, according to Adobe.

What's more, people are checking their emails in more places than just the office.  About 60 per cent of people check their personal email while watching TV, while 40 per cent scroll through their inbox on the toilet and another 14 per cent check it while driving.

'Why is email so ingrained in our lives?  One reason may be that it’s so manageable—we can sort, file, filter, and generally get things done,' the firm explained.  'It’s also a known, safe quantity.  We’re familiar with how to make email work for us, and we feel confident about the privacy of our data.'

However, even though email is one of the most popular forms of communicating, it hasn't detracted from good old fashioned face-to-face conversations.   Adobe found that 31 per cent of respondents preferred talking in person with their work colleagues.

Emailing was also the top mode of communication for 31 per cent of respondents, followed by phone calls, instant messaging and file sharing services.

Bosses may want to take note that video conferencing came in last at just 3 per cent.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Researchers have unveiled a new map of the world that shows a truer representation of the continents’ sizes.

Cartographers throughout the centuries have come up with all sorts of ways to project Earth’s landmasses on a flat surface – a task that presents a number of challenges.

The familiar Mercator projection, for example, inaccurately portrays Africa as tiny relative to its northern neighbors, while equal-area maps tend to skew the continents’ shapes.

The new map, dubbed Equal Earth, aims to resolve many of these issues, maintaining the relative sizes of the different land areas without sacrificing a ‘visually pleasing and balanced’ presentation.

In a new paper, Bojan Šavriča, Tom Patterson, and Bernhard Jenny say Equal Earth builds off the ideas of the Robsinson projection, but captures the sizes of the continents more accurately.

There have been numerous other attempts at equal-area maps, the researchers explain.

Just last year, Boston Public Schools announced they’d be switching to the Gall-Peters projection of the entire world.

And, the Sinusoidal and Mollweide maps show an equal-area projection with the poles as points.

Compared to the maps we’ve come to be familiar with, however, these aren’t always so easy to look at.

The authors wrote: ‘We searched for alternative equal-area map projections for world maps, but could not find any that met all our aesthetic criteria.  Hence the idea was born to create a new projection that would have more “eye appeal” compared to existing equal-area projections and to give it the catchy name Equal Earth.’

The researchers settled on several criteria for their new map, including an equatorial aspect and north-up orientation.  They also used pseudocylindrical pole lines and meridians, so as to avoid the extreme and unsightly bulges seen in other maps.

The resulting Equal Earth map has a neat and familiar look – but, eagle-eyed will notice some differences from the standard projections.  Africa, for example, appears much larger than you may be used to seeing it.  The continents in the tropical and mid-latitude areas are also more elongated than those in the Robinson projection, the authors note, and areas along the poles seem flattened.

The researchers say this projection could be a practical alternative in areas where equal-area maps are used.  And, some experts are already on board.

‘It’s astonishing to me (though not having given it much thought frankly), that we are still designing new global map projections,’ tweeted climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, from NASA’s Goddard Space Institute.

‘Robinson is my current standard, but this new Equal Earth projection from @BojanSavric is a contender.’

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

 

People admire those who are selfless and considerate but don't want them as friends or romantic partners, scientists have found.

Researchers from the University of Oxford and Yale University found people want others to prioritise their company over anything else - no matter how amicable the distraction.  They found that people who choose to spend time with their mum are more appealing as prospective friends and romantic partners than people who opt to build homes for the needy.

'When helping strangers conflicts with helping family and kin, people prefer those who show favouritism, even if that results in doing less good overall,' said Yale's Molly Crockett, assistant professor of psychology and senior author of the study.

The researchers created scenarios designed to test a tough moral dilemma based on helping one person close to them or helping lots of strangers.  For example, they asked whether a grandmother who wins a substantial amount of money in the lottery should give it to her grandson to fix his car, or to a charity dedicated to combating malaria.

The researchers also asked if they would rather date a young woman who spends the day with her lonely mother or a young woman who volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, an organisation that builds homes for the poor and needy around the world.

Participants in the study viewed both choices as equally moral but when it came to looking for a spouse or a friend, they preferred those who helped their grandson or spent the day with mother.

'Friendship requires favoritism - the key thing about friendship is that you treat your friends in a way you don't treat other people,' said Oxford's Jim Everett, first author of the study, which was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

‘Who would want a friend who wouldn't help you when you needed it?’

This preference was reduced when participants were asked about qualities they wanted in a boss.

It then completely disappeared when people were asked about desired traits in a political leader as the role requires impartiality.

'A political leader who represented the interests of themselves or their family over the country would be disastrous,' Dr Everett said.

According to the researchers, these findings suggest a roadblock for 'effective altruists'.

These individuals argue people should donate money to a charity to help relieve poverty and disease in the developing world rather than to a local group that would help fewer people.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Waymo is beefing up its presence in China.  Alphabet Inc's self-driving unit has set up a subsidiary in Shanghai, according to a business registration filing, the latest sign that the U.S. internet giant is attempting to make new inroads into China.

Waymo established a wholly-owned company called Huimo Business Consulting Co on 22 May in Shanghai's free trade zone with registered capital of 3.5 million yuan ($509,165), according to China's National Enterprise Information Publicity System.  Its scope includes business and logistics consultancy as well as services related to the design and testing of self-driving car parts, said the document, which also listed the firm's legal representative as Kevin Bradley Vosen.

Waymo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alphabet Inc's Google, which quit China's search engine market in 2010, has been actively seeking ways to re-enter the sector in the country where many of its products are blocked by regulators.

In August, Reuters reported that the company plans to launch a version of its search engine in China that will block some websites and search terms.

Google's Chief Executive Sundar Pichai has told staff that development is in an early stage.

Google has also joined an investment in Chinese live-stream mobile game platform Chushou and launched an artificial intelligence game on Tencent Holdings Ltd's social media app WeChat.

Waymo's move also comes as China makes a major push into autonomous smart vehicles to keep pace with the United States in a global race to develop self-driving vehicles.

Earlier this year, Beijing issued licenses to automakers allowing self-driving vehicles to be road-tested in Shanghai, including Shanghai-based SAIC Motor Corp Ltd and electric vehicle start-up NIO.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Scientists have long suspected that light has momentum, a property measured by the combination of mass and velocity.  But, photons – or particles of light – are said to be massless, and just how their momentum can exert force on matter has largely remained a mystery.  A new technique could finally help to solve the 150-year-old conundrum, using acoustic sensors to ‘listen’ to the elastic waves of laser pulses traveling across a mirror.

German astronomer Johannes Kepler first suggested back in 1619 that pressure from sunlight could be responsible for the position of a comet’s tail, which always points away from the sun.  Then, more than 200 years later, James Clerk Maxwell predicted the radiation pressure was the result of momentum in the electromagnetic fields of light.  But, in the time since, scientists have struggled to explain how the phenomenon works.

‘Until now, we hadn’t determined how this momentum is converted into force or movement.  Because the amount of momentum carried by light is very small, we haven’t had equipment sensitive enough to solve this,’ said Kenneth Chau, an engineering professor at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus.

To get to the bottom of it, the researcher and colleagues from Slovenia and Brazil devised a new setup to measure the weak interactions between light photons.  The team built a mirror equipped with acoustic sensors and heat shielding to cut down on interference and background noise.  Then, they shot laser pulses at the surface, and used the sound sensors to detect elastic waves as they traveled.  The effect, the researchers note, is much like watching ripples across a pond.

Chau says: ‘We can’t directly measure photon momentum, so our approach was to detect its effect on a mirror by “listening” to the elastic waves that travelled through it.  We were able to trace the features of those waves back to the momentum residing in the light pulse itself, which opens the door to finally defining and modelling how light momentum exists inside materials.’

The new discovery could finally be a step in the direction of understanding light momentum, the researchers say.  And, understanding radiation pressure could have a number of applications.

Chau said: ‘Imagine traveling to distant stars on interstellar yachts powered by solar sails.  Or perhaps, here on Earth, developing optical tweezers that could assemble microscopic machines.  We’re not there yet, but the discovery in this work is an important step and I’m excited to see where it takes us next.’

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

The US Air Force's X-37B unmanned space plane is nearing one year in orbit as part of its fifth secretive mission.  The aircraft has now been up for 340 days as part of it's latest trip, called the Orbital Test Vehicle-5 (OTV-5), which started on 7 September 2017.  The craft was launched from Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Flordia.

Officials have revealed few details about the OTV-5 mission but there has been a suggestion it could be part of a push for a US Space Force.

The space plane is 8.8 metres long, 2.9 metres tall and weighs around 4,990 kilograms.  It is orbiting at around 320 kilometres high and is powered by solar cells with lithium-ion batteries.

Little is known about what it is carrying but on board OTV-5's payload is a US thermal spreader which will test the longevity of electronics and heat pipes in the space environment.

In June, President Donald Trump announced that he is directing the Pentagon to a new Space Force as an independent service branch aimed at ensuring American dominance in space.  The president framed space as a national security issue, saying he does not want 'China and Russia and other countries leading us'.

One expert has suggested that this aircraft could already be part of an early US Space Force.  'Ironically, the X-37B is exactly the type of program — toward giving the U.S. flexibility of operations in space — that seems to be prompting the current push for a Space Force, yet are already underway,' said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor in the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, writes  Space.com.

Four previous X-37B missions have been launched by United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets.   Each time the unmanned space plane has carried a mystery payload on long-duration flights in Earth orbit.    

Randy Walden, the director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office said at the launch last year: 'The many firsts on this mission mLog Outake the upcoming OTV launch a milestone for the program.'

'It is our goal to continue advancing the X-37B OTV so it can more fully support the growing space community.  The fifth OTV mission continues to advance the X-37B's performance and flexibility as a space technology demonstrator and host platform for experimental payloads, a spokesperson for the US Air Force said.

The previous OTV-4 mission was 718 days long.  The Boeing-built space plane blasted off in May 2015 from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas 5 rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing.  The X-37B, one of two in the Air Force fleet, conducted unspecified experiments during its lengthy orbit.  It was the fourth and lengthiest mission so far for the secretive program, managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

The Air Force said the orbiters 'perform risk reduction, experimentation and concept-of-operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies.'  However, the exact nature of the mission and its cost is classified.

The Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit group promoting the peaceful exploration of space, says the secrecy surrounding the X-37B suggests the presence of intelligence-related hardware being tested or evaluated aboard the craft.

The X-37B first flew in April 2010 and returned after eight months.  A second mission launched in March 2011 and lasted 15 months, while a third took flight in December 2012 and returned after 22 months.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk