March 24, 2017
(The Next Big Future) The US Navy working on mostly automated 'Magic Carpet' aircraft carrier landings starting in 2019. When Magic Carpet software and systems are switched on, the US Navy pilot no longer directly controls the flaps, throttle, and so on. Instead, he or she chooses a path and the computer makes the fine adjustments to get and stay on it. Affecting one aspect of flight — angle, speed, alignment, and so on — still affects the others, but the pilot can focus on one at a time while the computer keeps the others under control. The pilot remains a crucial part of the system. (See Military War News and Discussion).
(Extreme Tech) It took a lot of clever engineering behind the scenes and some very public failures, but SpaceX has finally worked out the kinks of landing its Falcon 9 rockets after launch. It’s been recovering rockets so frequently that we don’t even cover all the landings anymore, but until now all those rockets have been sitting in a hangar someplace. SpaceX is finally set to reuse one of its reusable rockets. (See Space News and Discussion thread).
(Phys.Org) An international team of astronomers has identified a record breaking brown dwarf (a star too small for nuclear fusion) with the 'purest' composition and the highest mass yet known. (See Space News and Discussion thread)
(Sky News) A drug that reverses ageing could be on the market in three years, scientists claim. In early experiments, the drug nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) had a dramatic rejuvenating effect on ageing mice. (See Biology and Medicine News and Discussion thread).
(Climate Central) President Trump signed an executive order on Friday greenlighting the Keystone XL pipeline after it cleared State Department review to bring tar sands oil from Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The Trump administration’s approval represents an about face from President Obama’s stance on an issue that has pitted environmentalists and local communities against Transcanada, which plans to build the pipeline that will shuttle up to 800,000 barrels of oil a day. (See Energy and Environmental News and Discussion thread).
(BBC) Scientists have located an impact crater linked to powerful tsunamis that swept across part of ancient Mars. (See Ancient Mars thread in the History Forum)
Edit: MOSCOW (AP) — A woman has died in an enormous fire at a Ukrainian munitions dump in the country's Kharkiv region near the Russian border. The body of the 66-year old woman was found in a house that was hit by a shell near the depot in Balaklia, Ukraine's State Emergency Service minister Mykola Chechetkin told lawmakers Friday. (See Ukraine Watch Thread for related You Tube Video). Source:http://www.chron.com...ne-11024905.php
(Inverse) A mysterious self-driving car company has been quietly expanding in recent years in the world’s largest country. Now, Moscow-based Cognitive Technologies has hired a slew of new recruits and is ready to move to the U.S. in the coming months. (See Russian self-driving car company that focuses on bad weather and bad roads is coming to the U.S. thread).
March 25, 2017
(Next Big Future) Global Military lasers see robust growth and soon will be over 1 billion in research and sales. (See Military War News and Discussion).
(Next Big Future) BAE Systems have lifted the lid on some futuristic technologies that could be incorporated in military and civil aircraft of 2040 or even earlier. The Transformer is a flexible aircraft system that combines smaller jets for more efficient travel, before having them split apart to quickly adapt to any scenario. (See Military War News and Discussion).
(Next Big Future) Russia is designing submarine that will use composite materials for the hull and other parts and fire hypersonic Zircon missiles. Russia will start building multi-purpose nuclear-powered submarines of the fifth generation in 2020. Companies of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) are ready to start the work in 2020, when 885 Yasen project is completed. The Russian Husky submarine will be the follow up to the Yasen submarine. (See Military War News and Discussion).
(MIT Technology Review) Surging investment in machine learning is vaulting Google into the scientific stratosphere. (See AI Robotics News and Discussion).
(TechCrunch) The Tesla solar roof tiles the company unveiled last year, which look like regular roof tiles and yet have roughly equivalent efficiency of traditional solar power gathering cells, will be up for order starting in April, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk. (See Home Leisure News and Discussion thread).
(MSN) Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] suspended its pilot program for driverless cars on Saturday after a vehicle equipped with the nascent technology crashed on an Arizona roadway, the ride-hailing company and local police said. (See Autonomous Vehicles News and Discussion thread).
(New York Times) Paul Ryan emerges from the health care defeat badly damaged. (See Future of the U.S. House of Representatives thread).
Edit:
March 26, 2017
(BBC) Labour will not support any Brexit deal negotiated by the government unless it meets the party's "six tests", the shadow Brexit secretary has said. Any deal must include a strong relationship with the EU and the exact same benefits the UK has from the single market, Sir Keir Starmer said. (See Post-Brexit UK News and Discussion thread).
Edit: (MSN) WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has now laid out exactly what he wants in the "big, beautiful wall" that he's promised to build on the U.S.-Mexico border. But his effort to build a huge hurdle to those entering the U.S. illegally faces impediments of its own. (See Will the U.S. Continue to be a Nation of Immigrants thread).
Edit: (Truthout) In a striking new novel, John Feffer imagines a dystopian yet all too familiar future in which the world's superpowers have fractured, global temperatures have soared, the global economy has collapsed and violent nationalism prevails. (See the Splinterlands thread in the Fictional Future forum)
Edit: (Independent) White House officials and members of Donald Trump’s transition team are reportedly “purging” their electronic devices to avoid being compromised by subpoenas, it has been claimed. One legal expert told MSNBC - the channel that first reported the allegations based on testimony from an inside source - there could be “legal ramifications” for staff who destroyed crucial evidence relating to ongoing investigations. (President Trump News and Discussions thread).