Missile maker Raytheon said its StormBreaker bomb has entered operational testing phase, bringing it a step closer to provide U.S. Air Force pilots the capability to strike maneuvering targets in adverse weather.  The bomb is fired from fighter jets thousands of feet up, and penetrates bad weather to attack moving and stationary targets on the ground.  It will be used first on the F-15E Strike Eagle, and is planned to be integrated onto the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter by 2022, Raytheon said. 

The StormBreaker tri-mode seeker uses imaging infrared, millimeter wave and semi-active laser, giving pilots the ability to destroy moving targets on the battlefield in adverse weather conditions from standoff ranges.  The weapon is capable of flying more than 45 miles to strike mobile targets, reducing the amount of time that aircrews spend flying dangerous missions.

Its small size enables the use of fewer aircraft to take out the same number of targets as previous, larger weapons that required multiple jets, according to Raytheon.  The bomb weighs just over 200 pounds.  It is 70 inches long and just seven inches in diameter.

'Operational testing is off to a good start and production deliveries are ahead of schedule.  That's good news as far as being able to deliver to the weapon,' says Raytheon programme director Cristy Stagg.

The StormBreaker bomb's tri-mode seeker can also peer through battlefield dust and debris, giving the warfighter a capability that's unaffected by conditions on the ground or in the air, it said.

The StormBreaker bomb's size has broader implications for the warfighter and taxpayers, as it means fewer attacks with less time spent flying dangerous missions.

The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy have begun StormBreaker bomb integration activities on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft.  Raytheon completed development and integration on the F-15E Strike Eagle in April 2018.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Your daily commute could become faster, quieter and airborne if plans for a new flying car inspired by bird's wings come to fruition.

Attempting to succeed where early pioneers like the Wright Brothers failed, experts are working on a design that is derived from the most evolved form of flight on earth: flapping.

In nature, flapping consists of a heaving and pitching motion, which is mechanically complex and would add considerable weight and complexity to any design.  One company has streamlined this process to design a transport system that can take off and land anywhere.

Design firm Volerian recently displayed its concept for a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle at the recent Farnborough International Airshow 2018.  Volerian says its propulsion system can be used in most situations where a propeller or fan would normally be used.  This applies to both conventional and VTOL propulsion and to large and small aircraft.  In addition the system can be used for domestic and industrial fan applications and may have uses for water based propulsion.

In a written statement, a company spokesman said: 'Volerian has created a propulsion system that is cheap to manufacture and is much quieter and safer than any fan or propeller technology.  As a result of this we are now able to make aircraft that can be used in any situation in which a car can be used and much more.'

The basis of Volerian’s propulsion system is an oscillating wing set into a specially shaped duct.  A stator wing is located downstream to further increase efficiency.  The flapping action of the wing creates a stream of thrust producing vortices known as a reverse Kármán vortex street.  The ducted wings are built up into an array that provides the area needed for thrust and control.  The array has a high ratio of lifting surface to thrust area which reduces the energy in a given length of wing thereby increasing safety and reducing the engineering requirements and noise.

In theory any wing length can be used, with the help of additional bearings.  An array can be adapted for different flight requirements, for example a very quiet, large thrust area with good short range qualities or a smaller thrust area for faster, longer range with the ability to take-off conventionally.

The simple two-dimensional geometry of the main aerodynamic shapes allows them to be produced in composite materials using pull extrusion manufacturing methods.  This will greatly reduce the cost of manufacturing the aircraft.

The wing motion is typically controlled by a cam connected to three wings to keep the motor loading constant.  Aircraft using a large array can simply change motor speed for control.

An array aligned with the direction of flight allows air to flow through the ducts.  This avoids the problems of flow separation that occur with conventional ducted fans.

All moving parts are still safely located within the ducts.  In the event of an unpowered descent the fluttering action of the wings, caused by air flowing up through the ducts, will create drag and cause the array to act like a parachute.

The pressure changes along the length of the wing are constant, unlike a propeller blade which changes as the angular velocity increases towards the blade tip, so there are less three dimensional effects at the wing tips.  This means the energy is more spread out which is beneficial for noise and efficiency.  End plates can also be used to further reduce the effect of wing tip vortices.

Turning vanes help adapt the array for faster, more efficient cruise and for control purposes.  In this case they also turn the airflow away from the cabin which helps reduce cabin noise.

The spars that connect the array also act as wings to take part of the load during flight.

Faster, more efficient cruise can be achieved using a deflected thrust system.  This gives the aircraft excellent short take-off and landing capabilities as well as VTOL.

Flaps are all fully immersed in the jet which prevents stall, enabling a very high lift coefficient and avoiding control problems arising from detached flow.  Aircraft using this system can take full advantage of the high propulsive efficiency of flapping wings.  The geometry was optimised using computer models.

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A new eye shade could help reset your internal body clock so you can fall asleep more easily at night.  The high-tech sleep mask uses light-flash technology, developed by researchers at Stanford University in California, to regulate your daily (circadian) rhythm by sending out light pulses as your sleep.

The makers of the Lumos Smart Sleep Mask say these pulses - similar to a camera flash - help stimulate light sensitive nerves in the brain that send signals to suppress or produce melatonin, the hormone that controls when you are awake and when you go to sleep.  They hope this technology will be a less expensive, and easier, treatment for people who can't sleep either due to insomnia or jet lag.

Our biological clocks are synchronized to light-dark changes and regulate multiple physiological processes including patterns of body temperature, brain activity and hormone production.

Light is the main cue that influences circadian rhythms.  When the sun rises, the brain sends signals to the pineal gland to suppress melatonin production.  But when the sun sets, the pineal gland receives signals to secrete melatonin to make you drowsy.  Night owls keep lights during the evening, therefore disrupting the signals that tell them it's time to go to sleep.  If your body doesn't receive these signals, however, your circadian rhythm can be completely thrown off.

Dr Robert Oexman, a sleep expert in Joplin, Missouri, told Daily Mail Online: 'Any time we affect our circadian rhythm, we impact our sleep, the health consequences are quite large.  It can raise the risk for everything from anxiety to depression, it can affect changes in glucose levels - raising the risk for type 2 diabetes - and it increases the risk of certain heart diseases and cancers.'

Recently, several sleep technologies have introduced light therapy as a way to help people get better shut-eye.

'Light therapy is simply resetting our circadian clock.  We introduce bright light in the morning and dim light in the evening,' Dr Oexman said.

The Lumos Smart Sleep Mask works by sending millisecond pulses of light - similar to that of a camera flash -, to stimulate nerves in the brain that are sensitive to light.

The team behind the mask says these light pulses can influence the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which is a region of the brain that coordinates circadian rhythms using many different signaling molecules.  Stimulating this part of the brain properly to get circadian rhythms synced back up can help to reset the sleep-wake clock.

The mask's makers also say it could help people suffering from jet lag, when the circadian clock is naturally thrown off due to a time zone switch.

'For jet lag, we can actually shift the sleep cycle three or four hours in a single night,' LumosTech CEO Vanessa Burs told Apex.  That means traveling from San Francisco to New York City would only require wearing the sleep mask for one night, or two nights if traveling from the Bay Area to a further destination such as London.

In reference to the San Francisco to New York City scenario, Burns said instead of the user forcing themselves to go to bed at 11 pm ET - even though it feels like 8 pm PT - the mask would help them actually feel like it was time to go to sleep.

The Lumos Smart Sleep Mask, set to go on sale in August for $175, isn't the only product on the market that can help you get some snooze.  A more expensive model known as the Dreamlight, marketed at $300, uses warm-orange colored light meant to trigger melatonin production to help you fall asleep while green lights are meant to gently wake you.  A less expensive version, the illumy smart sleep mask, which sells for $100, works similarly with red-toned light to help you drift often to sleep and blue-toned light to wake you up.

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You're not the only one who tends to crave takeout food late at night.

Researchers from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland collected Google search entries from across the globe and looked for commonalities, specifically looking at searches during two one-week periods in September 2016 and March 2017.  They found that 7 p.m. and 2 a.m. are the most common times for ordering out food, such as pizza or Chinese, in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and India.

The research, published on 25 July in the journal Royal Society Open Science, also theorizes that these behaviors may be a result of our early ancestors.  In what they call 'modern foraging,' they believe it's influenced by a biological rhythm created by natural selection.

The researchers explained in the study: 'Successful foraging behaviour has been favoured by natural selection, which shaped innate, species-specific decision rules that maximize energy gain.  Across the animal kingdom, predator–prey interactions have resulted in several decisions that attempt to optimize the energetic gain per unit of time.  Here, we propose that information seeking behaviour (ISB) for food-associated search terms via Internet is a novel, human-specific appetitive behaviour that reflects food-related motivation.'

Interestingly, Google searches for pizza tended to increase toward the tail-end of the week, with more queries on Saturday than Monday.  Researchers noted that the pattern doesn't appear to be driven by cultural differences, or things like religious observances and holidays.

Instead, there were two times of the day that most attracted people toward takeout food, suggesting that it may have something to do with our body natural circadian rhythm.

Put simply, the 'twin peaks' may be divided by early and late risers.

The researchers explained: 'It is likely that two different human populations are responsible for the daily ‘early' and ‘late' evening ISB peaks.  We propose that the major factor that contributes to the bimodal evening peak is age-dependent (e.g. adolescent, early adulthood versus midlife and mature adulthood) and a minor role for human chronotypes (e.g. late versus early).'

However, they warn that the 2 a.m. peak could raise some concerns about obesity, as eating food late at night has been linked to weight gain.

It's more likely an indicator of night owls, or 'late chronotypes' - a behavior that often begins at the onset of puberty, they added.

People often return to being early risers, or 'early chronotypes,' in adulthood, researchers noted.

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A golf hunter has discovered Britain's largest ever nugget - which is as wide as a golf ball and estimated to be worth upwards of £50,000.  The precious metal collector found the 85.7g lump while lying face down in a Scottish river for hours using a snorkel.  Named the Douglas Nugget, it claimed to be the biggest gold nugget to have been unearthed in British waters for 500 years.

In 2016 a larger 97g nugget was found off Anglesey but experts concluded it was actually from Australia and went down when a ship sank in the Irish Sea.

The father who found it, who has asked not to be named, ran from the water clutching his gold and shouting 'bingo'.  He said: 'I was following a crack in the bedrock and found around 2g in fine gold.  This then led to a pocket, where I uncovered the nugget.  I called over my friend to have a look and we both assumed it to be around 5-7g in weight.  It wasn't until I removed it that we realised just how big it was.  I took off my glove and picked it up, jumped out of the water and screamed, 'Bingo!' to my friend.  We were both stunned and couldn't believe it.  I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime.'

The owner is currently unsure what to do with his nugget, but keeping it in a safety deposit box in the meantime - but there is a danger the Crown Estate could claim the cash if sold.

Gold expert Leon Kirk, from Gold Panning Supplies UK, said: 'This is a very exciting and unprecedented find.  But the nugget's rarity means it is very hard to put a price on it.  I would say it is worth at least £50,000 but, as it's rarer than a Aston Martin or a Faberge egg, a billionaire could easily come along and pay a lot more for it.  Historically, it is off the Richter scale.'

The Douglas Nugget, which weighs 85.7g, is believed to share a similar diameter to that of a 1.6 is golf ball.  It was discovered two years ago by a British father but he has kept it a secret until now.  The man - in his 40s - wishes to remain anonymous due to the magnitude of his find.

The nugget was discovered in a mystery river in Scotland and its exact whereabouts is being kept under wraps.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

A teacher with a knack for constructing solar ovens has discovered the hard way why you should never leave a parabolic mirror in your car on a sunny day.

Marc ‘Zeke’ Kossover, who works at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, shared images of the decimated interior of his Subaru Outback after the reflective material melted the molding.  While the damage looks severe, Kossover was quick to point out that it could have been far worse, noting he was lucky the car didn’t catch on fire.

Kossover shared his experience in a recent blog post, answering a question that many were likely wondering: how did this even happen?

According to the teacher, he’d constructed an impressive solar oven a few years back, using a meter-wide Direct TV dish and highly reflective Mylar.  Fast forward to this summer, when Kossover says he decided to ‘bring it to work for grins.’

The homemade solar oven gets so hot it can pasteurize a liter of water in 15 minutes, according to Kossover.  But, instead of showing it off to his colleagues, he forgot it in the back of his car on a sunny day.

Kossover explained: ‘I had a lot to carry into the Exploratorium, and the mirror wouldn’t fit on the cart.  I planned on coming back in a few minutes, but I got busy doing something else, and it slipped my mind.  Coming back in the afternoon, I sat in the driver seat and looked into the rear view mirror.  Uh oh.’

Images shared alongside the story show a scene that would be any car-owner’s nightmare.  Plastic molding along long the back window of Kossover’s car melted in ‘a fairly impressive way,’ creating long strips of unsightly dangling plastic.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

By Steve W. Martin is the Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, at Iowa State University.

Why do batteries die?  And, why can they only be recharged so many times before they won't hold a useful amount of charge?

My young son asked me about that years ago when his battery-powered toy car stopped moving, wondering about what he called an 'everlasting battery.'  And this same question has probably crossed the mind of every cellphone user trying to send one last text before the screen blinks off.

Research, like mine, continues around the world to make batteries that charge faster, last longer, and can be recharged and discharged many more times than today's.  But as much as you and I would like, it's impossible to make a truly everlasting battery.  I have taught thermodynamics for more than 30 years.  So far, there is nothing that suggests we can break the fundamental laws of science to get that elusive battery.

'Capacity fade' 

Battery scientists and engineers call the main problem 'capacity fade.' Regular people wonder about it with questions like 'Why won't my battery hold a charge?' and complaints like 'I just recharged this thing and it's already out again!'

It's a result of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that whenever some real process happens, it creates a certain amount of wasted energy along the way that can never be recovered.  Any time a battery is charged or discharged, there's a little bit of wasted energy – a little bit of wasted capacity in the battery that cannot be recovered.

To envision how this works, think about battery use like transferring water between two cups.  Using a battery is like emptying the water from one cup into the other, and charging the battery involves pouring the water back into the first cup.  Even if you do it one or two times without spilling a drop, there's always just a little tiny bit left in each cup that you can't pour out.

Now imagine pouring back and forth hundreds or even thousands of times over a period of two or three years (for a cellphone battery) or 10 to 20 years (for an electric car).

Energy waste grows over time 

Over time, all the thousands of little and big things that go wrong add up to quite a bit of water going missing.  Even spilling a barely visible drop – say one-tenth of a millilitre – adds up to an entire litre if it happens 10,000 times.

That doesn't even include the possibility of one cup failing in some way that loses even more water – like springing a leak or heating up and causing evaporation.

Just as water inevitably goes missing when pouring from one cup to another, more energy is required to charge the battery than it actually stores, and less energy comes out than is stored in it.  The proportion of wasted energy to stored energy grows over time.  In fact, the more you use a battery, the more energy gets wasted, and the sooner the battery will reach a point where it's dead and can't usefully be recharged.

I and others are studying ways to have those discharging-recharging cycles run more smoothly to reduce the amount of waste, but the second law of thermodynamics will always make sure that there's no way to get rid of it entirely.

This article was originally published in The Conversation 

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The sky is no longer the limit for lovers looking for unusual ways to commemorate their nuptials, with a Japanese company now offering to blast commemorative wedding plaques into space.

Warpspace, a start-up based in Tsukuba City outside Tokyo, is introducing the new service in partnership with a local hotel popular for wedding banquets.

For about 30,000 yen ($270), newly-weds marrying at the hotel will be able to emboss their names and design elements on 16-by-eight-millimetre (one-fifth of a square inch) titanium plates that will be loaded onto a tiny satellite.  The satellite will be taken up to the International Space Station on a supply ship, and then released by astronauts.

Customers will receive photos of the craft carrying their plaques as it swirls among the stars, Warpspace chief executive Toshihiro Kameda told AFP.

Kameda said: 'Space trips are not common yet but couples can send up plaques that carry their affections.  I want them to spread their happiness across the sky.'

The company aims to make space more accessible to ordinary people, he said.  'We want to make space enjoyable and usable.'

The satellite launch is not expected until next year, but the company will soon start taking orders from couples tying the knot.  And while love may last forever, the commemorative plaques won't.  The satellite is expected to stay in space for one to two years, and will eventually burn up in the earth's atmosphere when it comes down.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

If you've ever wished for an extra arm to carry out a complex task, researchers may have the answer.  Researchers in Japan have taught volunteers to use a mind controlled robotic arm to help them out in doing two things at the same time.  They say the system could revolutionise factory and construction work.

Engineers from Kyoto's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute showed some people can be taught to control a third robotic arm with their brains, even using the limb to multitask.

'Participants in a new study were able to complete two different tasks in the same time interval by using their own limbs in concert with a mind-controlled robotic limb separate from their bodies,' the researchers wrote in the journal Science robotics.

The robotic limbs, referred to as supernumerary robotic limbs (SRLs), work alongside the person's natural ones.  The robotic arm was placed next to the participants, who wore two electrodes on the outside of their head to capture brain activity.  The arm was then calibrated to pick up on the differences in brain patterns when participants imagined the arm grasping and releasing a bottle.

To test their skills, participants had to perform two tasks simultaneously.  The first was to hold and release a bottle using the robotic arm, and the second was to use their two real arms to move a ball around on a tray.

The team found that eight out of the fifteen participants could reliably roll the ball to target points on the tray while grasping and releasing the bottle with the robotic arm, but the other seven struggled and were only successful about half the time.  The researchers believe this could reflect their ability to multitask.

Participants first had to learn to control a robotic arm using a brain-machine interface.

Fifteen participants were first tasked to grasp a bottle with the extra limb, and then were tasked with balancing a ball on a board with their own hands.  After 20 trials of the multitasking test, the participants reached an overall performance of 72.5%.

'Interestingly, there were two distinct groups: 'good' and 'bad' performers.  The two groups didn't differ by their ability to control the arm, but probably by their ability to concentrate on multiple tasks at once,' Shuichi Nishio at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute in Kyoto, Japan, told New Scientist.

The authors also believe practicing with the robotic arm could improve people's general ability to concentrate on multiple things at once.

'By operating this brain-machine interface, we have an idea that we may be able to train the brain itself,' said Nishio.

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Images of the sun ejecting vast plumes of plasma into space, stunning aurora captured on film, and exceptional close-ups of the moon are all vying to win the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.  The mesmerising shots shortlisted by judges at the Royal Observatory Greenwich showcase the beauty of the universe.

The winner of the prestigious contest will receive a £10,000 ($13,000) cash price and winners of all other categories, including the Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year, will receive a £1,500 ($1,900) windfall.  There are also £500 ($650) prizes for runners-up and £250 ($320) rewards for highly commended entries.  The competition, now in its tenth year, will announce its chosen winner on 23 October.

Among this year's entries is an image of a twisted tree in the Rocky mountains beautifully framing the star Polaris as a time-lapse captures star trails swirling around it.

Others show the Milky Way shining over the rocky Dolomites in Tre Cime and above the ancient bristlecone pine forest - which houses some of the oldest trees on Earth.

There are also plenty of photos of the aurora, the Orion Nebula, the moon, the planets of the solar system and even the International Space Station.

The winners from the competition's last nine years are to be shown in a new gallery at the National Maritime Museum, which opens on 24 October.

A wide-ranging panel of experts will debate and pick out the winners.  This year, artist Sarah Pickering is joining the judging panel, where she will be joined by renowned comedian and keen amateur astronomer Jon Culshaw, editor of BBC Sky at Night Magazine Chris Bramley, the Royal Observatory's Public Astronomer Dr Marek Kukula, and a host of other experts from the world of art and astronomy.

The competition will provide an overall winner, as well as individual winners in a variety of different categories, including Aurorae, Galaxies, Our Moon, Our Sun, People and Space, Planets, Comets and Asteroids, Skyscapes, Stars and Nebulae, Young Competition and Special Prizes.

The judges will also award two special prizes: The Sir Patrick Moore prize for Best Newcomer and the Robotic Scope Image of the Year.

Last year's overall winner, Artem Mironow of Russia, also won the Stars and Nebulae category with an image he took from Hakos Farm in Namibia over three nights.  The image captured a commonly-observed portion of sky called the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex.  Known as 'Rho Oph' for short or the Ophiuchus Molecular Cloud, it gets its name from a particular star in the region.  The nebula is about 14 light years across and is located roughly 460 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus (the 'Serpent- Bearer').  It is one of the closest star-forming regions to the Solar System.

Pete Lawrence, who judged the competition in 2017, said: 'This is a superb photograph and a deserved winner of its category and the competition.  The photographer has produced a beautiful balance between the blue reflection nebula in the lower left and the red emission nebula in the upper right.  A dark-looking dust cloud forces itself in front of them, dividing the scene in two.  The image is superbly processed, with the stars sharp from edge to edge.  The result is an image that has an elegant complexity to it – simply exquisite.'

Mr Mironov said part of the attraction of photographing space is the nearness to infinity he feels: 'The desire to see further and share what's seen is my inspiration to capture deep space objects.  Time is also a factor, here on Earth I take pictures of what is happening in the moment but in the photographs I'm capturing the cosmos as it was millions of years ago.'

The panel will announce this year's winners on October 23 2018.

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