Flatwoods Monster a 1950Psyop?

There can be few very people within the realms of cryptozoology and ufology that have never heard of the so-called Flatwoods Monster, or Braxton County Monster, of 1952 - a story that is told in-depth in Frank Feschino's 2004 book, The Braxton County Monster: the Cover-Up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed.

And as Feschino notes in his book: "On the night of September 12, 1952, a shocked American public sought answers when strange unidentified objects were seen flying through the sky over Washington, DC, and the eastern United States..."

He continued: "One of the strange objects crash-landed on a rural hilltop in Flatwoods, West Virginia..." Feschino also noted that a group of schoolboys were witness to the descent of the device and, with two adults, "...headed off to look for the object. Soon a twelve-foot tall being from the downed craft terrified these innocent people."

So, what was the monstrous entity? A cryptid? An alien? Some form of definitively Fortean beast? Or something else? Over the years, a whole range of theories have surfaced, and, as with so many such cases, the debate continues. ...

Call me crazy (and doubtless some will!), but I think the following data - which is directly relative to the use of superstitions and paranormal entities and ideas in warfare - may well have a bearing on the diabolical beast of Flatwoods.

A couple of days ago, I obtained a copy of an April 14, 1950 RAND publication titled The Exploitation of Superstitions for Purposes of Psychological Warfare, written by Jean M. Hungerford, for the the U.S. Air Force.

The 37-page document is a truly fascinating one and delves into some very strange areas. But, what really caught my eye, was a section of the document that quoted from a book titled Magic: Top Secret, which was written in 1949 by one Jasper Maskelyne, a fascinating character (as the name-link demonstrates) who was up his absolute neck in new and novel ways to fool the enemy.

Hungerford quotes the following from Maskelyne in her report, which concerns a truly alternative psychological warfare operation that occurred during the Second World War, and less than a decade before the Flatwoods Monster was seen:

"Our men...were able to use illusions of an amusing nature in the Italian mountains, especially when operating in small groups as advance patrols scouting out the way for our general moves forward. In one area, in particular, they used a device which was little more than a gigantic scarecrow, about twelve feet high, and able to stagger forward under its own power and emit frightful flashes and bangs. This thing scared several Italian Sicilian villages appearing in the dawn thumping its deafening way down their streets with great electric blue sparks jumping from it; and the inhabitants, who were mostly illiterate peasants, simply took to their heels for the next village, swearing that the Devil was marching ahead of the invading English." ...

There are a number of issues worth noting here. First, the height of the Flatwoods Monster and the British Army's devilish scarecrow were the same: 12-feet. In addition, the cover of Frank Feschino's book shows the Flatwoods Monster emitting lights. And the 12-foot scarecrow in Italy gave off "frightful flashes and bangs" and had "great electric blue sparks jumping from it."

Second, the RAND report that specifically refers to this Italian escapade - that Jasper Maskelyne described in his Magic: Top Secret book - was prepared for psychological warfare planners in the U.S. Air Force. And, in his book on the beast of Flatwoods, Feschino notes that the Air Force took careful interest in the Flatwoods affair and what was being reported on the affair by the media.

The RAND report was submitted to the Air Force in April 1950, and Flatwoods occurred in September 1952. Is it possible that in this two-year period USAF psychological warfare planners created their very own - albeit updated and modified - version of the British Army's 12-foot-tall flashing monster to try and gauge what its reaction might be when unleashed upon an unsuspecting populace?

There's also the settings, too: the British Army's operation was focused on little, isolated villages in Italy. And Flatwoods is a little, rural town in Braxton County, West Virginia that, even as late as 2000, had a population of less than 350.

Those who suspect the the Flatwoods Monster was some form of cryptozoological creature, Fortean entity, or alien being, may well scoff at my speculations and musings.

However, when we can say for sure that the British Army was using 12-foot, illuminated scarecrow-style critters for psychological warfare reasons in the Second World War, is it really a stretch to think that the USAF might have tried something similar in 1952 with their very own 12-foot-tall freak? ...

via Nick Redfern's "There's Something in the Woods...": Is This The Flatwoods Monster?.

New ultracapacitor recharges in under a millisecond

A new ultracapacitor or electric double-layer capacitor (DLC) design has been announced in the journal Science this week, and could pave the way for smaller and lighter portable electronics devices.

Ultracapacitors are capable of charging and discharging in only seconds and this gives them an advantage over batteries, which take much longer, and make them extremely useful in applications such as regenerative braking. However, for some applications even a few seconds is too long, and this is where a new nanoscale ultracapacitor comes in. Researchers in the US have built an ultracapacitor from nanometer-scale fins of graphene, and this design gives them a device that can charge/discharge in under 200 microseconds.

Ultracapacitors store charge in electric fields between conducting surfaces, so a larger surface area of conducting surfaces enables the device to hold more charge. A larger amount of stored charge enables ultracapacitors to work in devices needing more energy than ordinary capacitors can provide, and they can deliver the energy much faster than a battery.

A team of researchers led by John Miller, president of JME, an electrochemical capacitor company based in Shaker Heights, Ohio has been able to increase the speed of the ultracapacitor by redesigning the electrodes to give more surface area. The new electrode, developed by Ron Outlaw, a team member from the College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia, consists of sheets of graphene sticking up vertically from a graphite base. The graphene sheets are made of carbon one atom thick, and grown by a plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition process. The graphite base is 10 nanometers thick. Miller described the design as resembling "rows of 600-nanometer tall potato chips standing on edge."

via New ultracapacitor recharges in under a millisecond.

Your android will love this.

Reverse Combustion: Can CO2 Be Turned Back into Fuel?

In the 1990s a graduate student named Lin Chao at Princeton University decided to bubble carbon dioxide into an electrochemical cell. Using cathodes made from the element palladium and a catalyst known as pyridinium—a garden variety organic chemical that is a by-product of oil refining—he discovered that applying an electric current would assemble methanol from the CO2. He published his findings in 1994—and no one cared.

But by 2003, Chao's successor in the Princeton lab of chemist Andrew Bocarsly was deeply interested in finding a solution to the growing problem of the CO2 pollution causing global climate change. Graduate student Emily Barton picked up where he left off and, using an electrochemical cell that employs a semiconducting material used in photovoltaic solar cells for one of its electrodes, succeeded in tapping sunlight to transform CO2 into the basic fuel.

...

Turning CO2 into fuels is exactly what photosynthetic organisms have been doing for billions of years, although their fuels tend to be foods, like sugars. Now humans are trying to store the energy in sunlight by making a liquid fuel from CO2 and hydrogen—a prospect that could recycle CO2 emissions and slow down the rapid buildup of such greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. "You take electricity and combine CO2 with hydrogen to make gasoline," explained Arun Majumdar, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA–e) that is pursuing such technology, at a conference in March. "This is like killing four birds with one stone"—namely, energy security, climate change, the federal deficit and, potentially, unemployment.

"When these new technologies get commercialized, those jobs always end up in the U.S.," argues chemical engineer Alan Weimer of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who is working on such solar-fuel generators. Adds chemist Michael Berman of the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, which is funding research into the possibilities of solar fuels, including Bocarsly's work: "The country, and the Air Force, need secure and sustainable sources of energy…. Since the sun provides enough energy for our needs, our goal is to make a fuel using CO2 and sunlight—and maybe water—as feedstocks to produce the chemical fuel that can store the sun's energy in a form that we can use where and when we need."

via Reverse Combustion: Can CO2 Be Turned Back into Fuel? [Video]: Scientific American.

Another reason to buy palladium. ;-)

Spectacular view of thousands of Devil Rays massed off the Californian coast scoops top photography prize

Packed fin to gill as they swim in tight formation, this incredible picture of rays swimming through the ocean in a colossal school has scooped a top photography prize,

The thousands-strong group of Munkiana Devil Rays were spotted in Baja California Sur, Mexico, by German conservation photographer Florian Schulz.

The remarkable photo won the Environmental Photographer of the Year 2010 awards.

Schulz, who went on to become the overall winner after topping the Underwater World pool, described how he was able to capture his jaw-dropping image named Flight of the Rays.

Schulz said: 'During an aerial expedition I came across something I had never seen before. Not even my pilot, who has surveyed this area for 20 years, had seen anything like it.

'As we got closer we started to discover its nature: an unprecedented congregation of rays. The group was as thick as it was wide, all heading towards the same direction.

'I have asked around why this took place but no one has been able to explain it to me.

'After such a unique sighting, I realise there are so many marvels in the oceans that we are yet to understand. Our knowledge of the oceans is so limited. I just hope that we are in time to rescue it before it collapses from pollution and over fishing.'

via Spectacular view of thousands of Devil Rays as they mass off the Californian coast scoops top photography prize | Mail Online.

Acute pain is eased with the touch of a hand, study shows

There may be a very good reason that people naturally clutch their hand after receiving an injury. A new report published online Sept. 23 in Current Biology shows that self-touch offers significant relief for acute pain under experimental conditions. The researchers suggest that the relief comes from a change in the brain's representation of the rest of the body.

"Pain is quite an important, but also complicated, experience and can be caused in many different ways," said Patrick Haggard of University College London. "We show that levels of acute pain depend not just on the signals sent to the brain, but also on how the brain integrates these signals into a coherent representation of the body as a whole."

Haggard and his colleague Marjolein Kammers, also of University College London, made the discovery by studying the effects of self-touch in people who were made to feel pain using an experimental condition known as the thermal grill illusion (TGI). "The TGI is one of the best-established laboratory methods for studying pain perception," Haggard explained. "In our version, the index and ring fingers are placed in warm water and the middle finger in cold water. This generates a paradoxical feeling that the middle finger is painfully hot." That's ideal because it allows scientists to study the experience of pain without actually causing any injury to those who participate in the studies.

When TGI was induced in an individual's two hands and then the three fingers of one hand were touched to the same fingers on the other hand immediately afterwards, the painful heat experienced by the middle finger dropped by 64 percent compared to a condition without self-touch. That relief didn't come when only one hand was placed under TGI conditions. Partial self-touch in which only one or two fingers were pressed against each other didn't work either. Nor did it work to press the affected hand against an experimenter's hand that had also been warmed and cooled in the same way.

"In sum," the researchers wrote, "TGI was reduced only when thermosensory and tactile information from all three fingers was fully integrated. That is, TGI reduction required a highly coherent somatosensory pattern, including coherence between tactile and thermal patterns and coherence of stimuli between the two hands." ...

via Acute pain is eased with the touch of a hand, study shows.

Saturn's Northern Lights: Incredible new Nasa images show planet's glowing poles

A video and images are part of a new study that, for the first time, extracts information about Saturn’s aurora from the entire catalogue of images taken by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument (VIMS) aboard Cassini.

The new, false-colour images show Saturn's aurora glowing in green around the planet's south pole over a 20 hour period, about two days on Saturn.

‘Detailed studies like this of Saturn's aurora help us understand how they are generated on Earth and the nature of the interactions between the magnetosphere and the uppermost regions of Saturn's atmosphere,’ said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Auroras on Saturn occur in a process similar to Earth's northern and southern lights.

via Saturn's Northern Lights: Incredible new Nasa images show planet's glowing poles | Mail Online.

Scientists create living model of basic units of human brain

17 March 2009

Prof Mike Coleman and his team of researchers

Researchers in the School of Life & Health Sciences at Aston University in Birmingham, UK are developing a novel new way to model how the human brain works by creating a living representation of the brain.

They are using cells originally from a tumour which have been ‘reprogrammed’ to stop multiplying. Using the same natural molecule the body does to stimulate cellular development, the cells are turned into a co-culture of nerve cells and astrocytes - the most basic units of the human brain.

These co-cultures can be developed into tiny, connected balls of cells called neurospheres, which can process information, which, at a very simple level, is the basis of thought. The research process does not require animal testing and since 2007 has been generously supported by the Humane Research Trust.

In the future, the tiny three-dimensional cell clusters, which are essentially very small models of the human nervous system, could be used to develop new treatments for diseases including Alzheimer’s, Motor Neurone and Parkinson’s Disease. These progressive and debilitating neurodegenerative conditions are becoming more common as the population of the UK ages.

Professor Michael Coleman, who is leading the research team, said: ‘We are aiming to be able to study the human brain at the most basic level, using an actual living human cellular system. Cells have to be alive and operating efficiently to enable us to really understand how the brain works. In the longer term we hope that our procedure can be used to help us understand how conditions such as Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases develop. At the moment, most people are only too aware that current treatments for these conditions do not halt their progress and often have side-effects. We hope that our technique will provide scientists with a new and highly relevant human experimental model to help us understand the brain better and develop new drugs and treatments to tackle neurodegenerative disease ’

via Scientists create living model of basic units of human brain.

26 Mar 2009

Researchers at Aston University in Birmingham took cells from a cancerous tumour and "reprogrammed" them to create those identical to the human nervous system.

Scientists say that the development could mean that a breakthough in conditions such as dementia and Parkinson's Disease has been brought closer

via Telegraph

Friday, 24 September 2010

Researchers have developed an artificial bit of human brain to help them study Alzheimer's and other diseases, a huge improvement over animal models.Mike Coleman and his team from Aston University, Birmingham, have developed artificial brain tissue that responds to some chemicals like human brains do. Their findings were presented at the British Festival of Science in Birmingham.  ...

via CosmosMagazine

The British Science Festival  is one of Europe's largest science festivals, taking place each September. Each year the Festival travels to a different UK location, bringing you the latest in science, technology and engineering.

This year's Festival was held in Birmingham from 14-19 September. Many events will took place at Aston University campus and at various venues across Birmingham.

via BritishScience

How do you know you are not an artificial brain in a vat?

Engineers have been faking life since 1000 BC

Modern biomimesis makes solar cells grow like plants, molecules walk like people, and art run like centipedes. But it's a very old science. Take a look at ancient engineers who made lifelike machines fight, sing, flirt, and yes, poop.

Biomimesis is the science of imitating life. Today, scientists copy the mechanical functions of a body to make robots that can walk, and the functions of a brain to create artificial intelligence. This is one of the forefronts of modern technology, a kind of final frontier.

But it turns out that engineers and scientists have been settling that frontier for thousands of years. Mary Shelley assumed that the creation of life was going to happen through the science of biology. These people wanted to create it through mechanics.

One of the most famous of those scientists was Heron (or Hero) of Alexandria, who lived around 100 AD. Like many of the Greeks, he decided that he was going to be the father of something, and not one of those stupid, temporary ‘children' that everyone was talking about. Instead he decided to be the father of pneumatics, the science of using pressurized steam to cause motion. His notebooks contained sketches of fountains and siphons, but he really made his name with his so-called ‘miracles'. They were statues that used steam power to move, and they made a big splash in temples, where people gathered to watch scenes of legend re-enacted by living statues.

Looking at the scene, it's not difficult to know what's going to happen. Until the dragon lobby gains power, the man with the club is always going to wack the monster a good one. What was impressive about this figure is, if the man turned aside, a suction was created which allowed the dragon to ‘drink' any water that was presented to it. Then the man turned back and smacked it again. Life isn't fair, sometimes. ...

Dragons got a better press in China around a thousand years later, where they got to unleash hell on their human oppressors. Engineers actually managed to make a dragon-shaped rocket that spit fire on opposing forces.



That was a step back for the Chinese, who in 1000 BC had robots walking around. Yan Shi, an engineer, made a walking, singing, lecherous human figure and presented to the reigning king. It had to be taken apart when it supposedly started making advances on the king's ladies. Other inventions around the same time include a horse that moved on springs and birds that flew.

All well and good. Motion was an excellent thing, but people knew that mechanical parts moved. And singing was amazing, but most societies had wind instruments and could recognize them. That drinking statue was a

good bit, but there was one criteria for life that only people without indoor plumbing could really understand: does it poop?

In the seventeen hundreds, a proud Frenchman stepped forward and assured the masses that yes, yes it does. Jacques de Vaucanson was a well-known maker of automatons. He was also obsessed with anatomy, and wanted to make models of it that actually moved. In 1730s, he surpassed himself. He presented a duck which flapped its wings, moved around, wagged its tail, quacked, ate, and after eating did what all living beings do. People were amazed, and Vaucanson toured Europe, getting people to hand over a lot of money to see a duck crap.

Although sketches of Vaucanson's duck still survive, the actual model is gone. There is some dispute over how exactly the duck digested its food, but most people go with the simplest solution. In a time when there wasn't a large stretch of highway between people and their food, it wasn't hard for a rich guy to get hold of some duck poop. One of the internal compartments probably was storage for it. Still, the mechanical duck had hundreds of moving parts, and remains a high point of early biomimesis.via Engineers have been faking life since 1000 BC.

Stone Age Carving: Ancient Dildo?

Sex toys have come a long way since the Stone Age – but then again, perhaps not as much as we might think.

Last week, an excavation in Sweden turned up an object that bears the unmistakable look of a penis carved out of antler bone. Though scientists can't be sure exactly what this tool was used for, it's hard not to leap to conclusions. [See "Sex Myths and Taboos"]

"Your mind and my mind wanders away to make this interpretation about what it looks like – for you and me, it signals this erected-penis-like shape," said archaeologist Göran Gruber of the National Heritage Board in Sweden, who worked on the excavation. "But if that's the way the Stone Age people thought about it, I can't say."

The resemblance is uncanny.

"Without doubt anyone alive at the time of its making would have seen the penile similarities just as easily as we do today," wrote Swedish archaeologist Martin Rundkvist on his blog, Aardvarchaeology.

The discovery is so recent, Gruber said, there hasn't been enough time to submit the finding for publication in a scientific journal, though the researchers plan to. ...

The carved bone was unearthed at a Mesolithic site in Motala, Sweden, that is rich with ancient artifacts from between 4,000 to 6,000 B.C. The area's unique features may have allowed bone artifacts, which usually get destroyed over the millennia, to survive.

"It's an organic object, that's why it's special," Gruber told LiveScience. "Normally when we excavate early Mesolithic sites we never get the organic material. But this site where we're excavating now is along the shoreline. The preservation is very good here – it's been lying in the bottom sediments and clay layers of the river, and it's been well preserved there." ...

It's not the first time that such a phallic object has been found from the ancient world. Another item strongly resembling a penis was unearthed in Germany in 2005. That one is even older – dating from 28,000 years ago – and made of stone.

Yet the recent discovery was enough to shock the scientists working at the dig, which is led by National Heritage Board archaeologist Fredrik Molin.

"Nobody here, and nobody that we heard of or talked with, had ever seen something like this in northern European or Scandinavian sites," Gruber said.

via Stone Age Carving: Ancient Dildo? | Ancient Penis | Early Sex Artifacts | LiveScience.

South African Nanotech ‘Tea Bag’ To Filter Water for Pennies

Provide people cheap access to clean water and you could save billions of lives. South Africa may use tea bags to do just that. Researchers at Stellenbosch University’s Water Institute have developed a new water filtration system that uses activated carbon and nanofibers to quickly filter out pathogens. The carbon and nanofibers are placed in common tea bags and then fitted into a bottle. Fill the bottle with dubious water, install a filter, and drink. It’s that easy. According to SciDev Net, the ultimate price for these ‘tea bag’ nanfiber filters will be around half a cent (USD) each and be able to handle around 1 L before being replaced. A super cheap, portable, easy to use system to purify water? Sounds amazing. Watch developer (and SU dean) Eugene Cloete describe the project in the video below. You know a scientist believes in a product when he’s willing to test it on himself in front of a camera.

The nanofiber filter system is part of the Hope Project in South Africa, which hopes to improve the lives of millions of Africans by addressing major problems like poverty and health. Sounds a little like our own Singularity University. Providing potable water is an arduous task, as each region has its own variety of difficulties, be they availability, pollution, disease, or salinity. The on-the-spot purification system that Stellenbosch University has developed won’t solve all of these problems, but it does allow people to bring the means of filtering water everywhere.

The ‘tea bag’ filtering system works thanks to the nanofibers contained within. According to Engineering News, those fibers are bonded to thin films of biocides. As water passes through the bag, activated carbon removes various chemical compound and impurities while the biocides on the nanofibers quickly destroy microbes. Simply by passing through the filter diseased water can be made safe to drink.

South Africa’s Bureau of Standards is currently reviewing the nanofiber filter and accessing its viability. Once approved, the products could theoretically go into mass production. It’s unclear, however, how quickly the Hope Project could scale up manufacture of the filters. It’s final price will undoubtedly be low, but the actual half cent per bag estimate could change.

I should mention that there are many other water purification systems out there, each with their own promises and limitations. Current military grade water cleansing tablets cost around 30 cents (USD) and handle around 1 liter of water. Charitable projects, like the Life Straw, are seeking to get hundreds of liters through a device that costs a few dollars, and that might be able to handle water with high salt content. We’ll likely want a plethora of these water purification technologies, including Stellenbosch’s tea bag nanofiber filters, to succeed so that people in water scarce areas have a variety of cheap options to chose from....via South African Nanotech ‘Tea Bag’ To Filter Water for Pennies | Singularity Hub.

A natural disaster prediction come true?

A Manglorean academic's prediction of natural disaster following whale deaths at New Zealand on August 20, has come true.

Dr Arunachalam Kumar, professor at KS Hedge Medical Academy, had espoused the theory that the unexplained whale deaths are linked to natural disasters over the years and has been proved to be spot-on this time also.

After whale deaths of the New Zealand coast, he had received an e-mail query regarding the possible outcome of this event. He had said the incident was prelude to eruption of a volcano in Indonesia within seven days and an earthquake would follow within two weeks.

Both predictions, based on the observations of Dr Kumar on changes in whale behaviour, have turned out to be absolutely right. On August 29, Mt Sinabung, a long dormant volcano in Sumatra erupted suddenly, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people from its vicinity. On September 4, Christchurch, New Zealand, was rocked by one of the most powerful earthquakes in its history.

The doctor had in December 2004 predicted the coming of the titanic Asian tsunami a full three weeks before it struck, killing 150,000 people. ...

via A natural disaster prediction come true? - The Times of India.

Plague Researchers Race To Beat Bioterrorists

Given the many pressing concerns of the day, fear of plague probably isn't what causes most Americans to lose sleep. But for those whose responsibility it is to combat bioterrorism, plague is among the highest priorities.

Those charged with that mission include scientists like medical researcher Steve Smiley, whose lab at the Trudeau Institute is working to develop a vaccine that will protect the public against weaponized forms of plague.

The Institute, which is dedicated to studying how the immune system responds to infectious diseases, is at the forefront of an international effort to protect the public against an ominous foe, whose very name conjures up images of widespread suffering and death.

Caused by the organism Yersinia pestis, plague is a severe and potentially deadly bacterial infection most often spread by rodents. Although rare in the United States, there have been outbreaks of plague in California, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico.

Humans typically contract the disease from fleas that spread the bacteria from infected animals like rats, but plague can also spread from human to human, transported in the air through the coughs of the infected.

While plague is usually sensitive to antibiotics, the governments of the United States and Great Britain are concerned that weaponized plague would likely resist such treatment.

During the Middle Ages, resourceful armies hurled plague-infested bodies over castle walls to spread disease and fear, and it is widely believed this early form of biowarfare initiated the "Black Death," the plague pandemic which decimated a third of Europe's population. During World War II, the Japanese experimented with germ warfare by dropping plague-infested fleas on the Chinese.

And the former Soviet Union's biowarfare division produced bombs designed to release plague-causing bacteria into the air above American cities. A World Health Organization study concluded that the detonation of a plague "bio-bomb" over a city of five million could cause 150,000 cases of pneumonic plague, leading to 36,000 fatalities. ...

via Plague Researchers Race To Beat Bioterrorists.

'Flying Robot' Pilot Helps Find IEDs In Helmand

Talisman has been designed to provide an increased level of assurance along routes throughout the region. It consists of a suite of cutting-edge equipment, including armoured vehicles, optical cameras and remote-controlled vehicles.

This life-saving equipment is being used to support combat logistic patrols, which can comprise several hundred vehicles and trek through the country delivering vital supplies to bases for the troops on the front line. ...

Each Talisman system consists of:

+ a Mastiff 2 protected patrol vehicle + a Buffalo mine protected vehicle, with a rummaging arm + a JCB high mobility engineer excavator + a Micro Air Vehicle + a Talon tracked, remote-controlled robot.



via 'Flying Robot' Pilot Helps Find IEDs In Helmand.

Honeywell is developing for the FCS program a  backpack-sized Miniature Air Vehicle (MAV) designed to gather and transmit battlefield Information in support of small units operations. The development of the MAV was part of an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) program developed for DARPA and has since transitioned into advanced development under the US Army Future Combat Systems' program. Once matured, the micro air vehicle will become become the smallest unmanned aerial element of the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems program, providing "hover and stare" capability at the platoon level. Class I is one of four UAV systems organic to platoon, company, battalion and brigade echelons that form the aerial component of the FCS networked system-of-systems, providing protection and information to soldiers on the ground.

The MAV ACTD is designed as a ducted fan air vehicle, and flies like a helicopter, using a propeller that draws in air through a duct to provide lift. The MAV's propeller is enclosed in the duct and is driven by a gasoline engine. A heavy fuel engine variant of the MAV will be available in 2006. The MAV is controlled using Honeywell's micro-electrical mechanical systems (MEMS) electronic sensor technology.  ...

On May 24, 2006 Boeing, the FCS program integrator awarded Honeywell a $61 million development contract to fully develop the Class I UAVS. First prototype deliveries and flight tests are scheduled for December 2008.. - defenseupdate


October 26, 2005 As the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have unfolded, one of the new stars in the theatre of battle has been the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). As each new conflict redefines war based on the technologies coming of age at that time, the Iraq campaign has seen the coming of age of the UAV in its many wonderous forms. It is the most-requested capability among combatant commanders and in the last 18 months, UAV numbers in Iraq have jumped from fewer than 100 to more than 400 and there are now nearly 600 UAVs in the Afghanistan and Iraq theatres. Even more interesting is the dizzying array of unmanned aircraft used in traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance UAV roles. Now we’re set to see UAVs get smaller – much smaller. The United States Future Combat Systems (FCS) program recently passed a significant milestone in its progress toward selecting a Class I Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system. The MAV has achieved a technology readiness level 6 and is now ready to begin transitioning the technology to the FCS program as an affordable backpackable systems suitable for dismounted soldier, Marine, and Special Forces missions. It will focus on the development of lift augmented ducted fan MAVs to accomplish unique military missions, particularly the hover and stare capability in restricted (e.g urban) environments to provide real-time combat information. - gizmag

North and South Korea on the brink of war, Russian diplomat warns

North and South Korea are on the brink of war, a top Russian diplomat has warned, calling for both countries to exercise restraint and sit down for talks.

In Moscow's bleakest assessment of the situation on the Korean peninsula yet, Russian deputy foreign minister Alexei Borodavkin said tensions between the two countries were running at their highest and most dangerous level in a decade.

"Tensions on the Korean Peninsula could not be any higher. The only next step is a conflict," he told foreign policy experts at a round table on the subject in Moscow.

His prediction came two months after North Korea vowed to wage "a sacred war" against South Korea and its biggest backer, the United States.

Tensions bubbled over in March after Washington and Seoul concluded that a North Korean submarine had sunk a South Korean naval vessel in the Yellow Sea. Mr Borodavkin called for the investigation into exactly who was responsible for the sinking of the vessel, the Cheonan, to be urgently closed in order to remove an obvious source of tension.

Describing the standoff between the two Koreas as a "hangover from the Cold War," Mr Borodavkin said Russia, which is one of the six countries involved in talks with North Korea over its nuclear programme, was doing all it could to try to prevent an outbreak of hostilities.

But he said responsibility for keeping peace in the volatile region was shared equally between North and South Korea. He condemned North Korea's nuclear testing programme but also criticised the way the United States and South Korea had increased their military manoeuvres in the wake of the sinking of the Cheonan.

via North and South Korea on the brink of war, Russian diplomat warns - Telegraph.

A toy for your Bug-Out Bag, the Nuk Alert

NukAlert Key Chain: You never know what you might run into during a collapse, especially if international tensions are involved. A meter which is always running and alerts you when approaching dangerous radioactivity could save your life. Though most highly volatile gamma radiation falls to safe levels after two weeks of initial exposure, you should still be concerned about consumption of affected substances. Irradiated water sources, for instance, are undetectable to the eye, and without a device like the NukAlert, you would never know what you were drinking. The device is very small, and is also designed to be immune against an Electromagnetic Pulse.

...

Bug-Out Tools: Here is a broad list of items every bug-out-bag should have, in no particular order…

Lighter
Magnesium Striker
Waterproof Matches
Canteen
Snare Wire
Fishing Kit
2 Compasses
Compact Binoculars
Topographical Map (know the terrain you are heading towards)
Camper Knife/Fork/Spoon Combo
Camp Knife (for work)
Combat Knife (for defense)
Leatherman Multi-tool
Wire Saw (get one with leather straps, not metal rings)
Folding Camper Saw (for bigger jobs)
550 Paracord
Plastic Zip Ties
Carabiners (numerous uses)
Small Sewing Kit (pack extra needles)
Snivel Kit (don’t forget Quick-Clot and poison oak/ivysoap)
Folding Shovel
Small Knife Sharpening Stone
Compact Mess Kit (get steel for durability and stay away from aluminum)
TOILET PAPER!!! (get a thick roll, cut out the cardboard center, and smash it down)
Poncho
2 Thick Emergency Thermal Blankets
Small Camp Stove (I recommend the Bushbuddy Stove)
Water Purification Tablets
Katadyn Water Filter
LED Flashlight (cover light with small piece of clear red plastic to reduce visibility)
Rechargeable Batteries
2 Pairs of Wool Socks (even if you bug-out in the Summer)
Solid Leather Boots (wear these, and make sure they’re worn in before an event occurs)
Small Survival Guide (helps you to remember possible strategies)
Wild E
Pen

This seems like an incredible amount of items to carry around on your back, but all of it should fit quite easily into your BOB if you use the space wisely, and the weight should not be an issue. Pack contents will also vary depending on personal survival strategies, but most of these tools should be present in your bag regardless of conditions. ...

via Neithercorp Press» Blog Archive » The Art Of The Bug-Out Bag.

Plan where you will go and how you will get there. Hint: Practice survival for 3 days camping out with only your BOB and you'll quickly discover what is missing... got food and water?

Record heat is spawning stronger hurricanes

The four major Atlantic hurricanes that spun toward the Caribbean in the past month were fueled by record warm seas and formed in an unprecedented 20 days. With 10 weeks left in the hurricane season, more may be coming.

The storms that were born off west Africa gathered strength by absorbing the ocean's heat and swelled into Category 4-level hurricanes on the 5-step Saffir-Simpson scale. While none hit land at full speed, each packed winds of at least 131 miles an hour, stronger than Hurricane Katrina's Category 3 winds when it devastated New Orleans at the end of August in 2005.

After Igor churned past Bermuda on Monday and cut power to two-thirds of the colony's residents, Tropical Storm Lisa formed Tuesday in the east Atlantic. While the six-month season is past its statistical peak, forecasters and insurers said warmer seas can lengthen the danger period to property, from beach homes in Florida and the Hamptons to rigs and refineries owned by Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips in the oil-rich Gulf.

"The hotter the water, the higher the octane level, and there is going to be far more Category 4 and 5 hurricanes," said Jim Rouiller, an Air Force meteorologist for 20 years who works for Planalytics Inc. in Berwyn, Pa.

The season may be busy for another month, said Simon Young, chief executive officer of the insurer Caribbean Risk Managers. "All the ingredients" were in place for major hurricanes to form this year, he said.

"The nightmare scenario for industry losses is a Miami hit, closely followed by a New York hurricane," Young said. "Gulf oil is a huge issue for the insurance industry. There's a feeling that if something big happens, there's going to be some hard times."The National Hurricane Center predicts 2010 will have as many as 20 storms of at least 39 mile-an-hour winds, meaning they'll be named, compared with 11 in a typical year. Lisa's formation Tuesday brought this year's tally to 12. The Miami center has identified five major hurricanes in 2010 compared with two in an average season when waters are cooler. ...

via Record heat is spawning stronger hurricanes | NOLA.com.

World's first ornithopter takes flight

A Canadian student inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's sketches says he has made the first sustained flight in a human-powered, wing-flapping aircraft.

Todd Reichert's ornithopter is an engineless plane that stays aloft by flapping its wings like a bird.

The craft, dubbed "Snowbird", flew 145m (476 feet) at the Great Lakes Gliding Club in Tottenham, Ontario.

The Federation Aeronautique Internationale is expected to confirm the record at its meeting in October.

Previous attempts

Mr Reichert, a PhD student at the University of Toronto, said the Snowbird "represents the completion of an age-old aeronautical dream".

"Throughout history, countless men and women have dreamt of flying like a bird under their own power, and hundreds, if not thousands have attempted to achieve it," he said in a statement.

"This represents one of the last of the aviation firsts."

Built from carbon fibres and balsa wood, Snowbird has a wing span of 32m (105 feet) - comparable to a Boeing 737.

But the aircraft weighs just 43kg (94 pounds).

To keep it light, lift-off mechanisms were not built in. Instead, a tow car helped lift it clear of the ground. But then Mr Reichert took over, using his feet to pump a bar that flaps the wings.

Snowbird flew for 19.3 seconds on its record-breaking flight, travelling at an average speed of 25.6 km/h (16.5 mph). The feat was accomplished on 2 August.

Others have claimed to have built machines that flew like birds. But those crafts are seen as having just glided after they took off.

The Canadian group says their ornithopter actually powered itself through the air, and that they have the telemetry data to prove it.

"Those past claims were never verified," said chief structural engineer Cameron Robertson. "We believe we are the first, because we know what it took to do it."

To achieve their dream, the team had to design a flapping wing with enough lift and thrust to overcome the aircraft's weight. And Mr Reichert also lost 8kg (18 pounds) of weight over the summer.

He said Snowbird "is not a practical method of transport". Rather, the aim of the project was to inspire others "to use the strength of their body and the creativity of their mind".

The Italian painter Leonardo Da Vinci made his famous sketches of the ornithopter around 1485.

But it was not until 1903 that the Wright brothers made the first powered flight, lasting 12 seconds and covering 37m (121 feet).

In 1977, the Gossamer Condor became the first human-powered aircraft capable of controlled and sustained flight after covering a 1.6km (one-mile) figure-of-eight course.

via BBC News - World's first ornithopter takes flight.

Cyborg professor looks to future of bionic technology

In 1998, Kevin Warwick became what some people call "the world's first cyborg." To be exact, Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at Reading University, had a radio frequency ID chip implanted in his arm. Years before RFID chips became common, this small implant allowed him to turn on lights by snapping his fingers, or open doors without touching them.

Once, after connecting his nerves to an array of electrodes in 2002, he let his wife use her brain waves to take control of his body. It was the first time the nervous systems of two humans had communicated electronically. "It was quite an intimate feeling," he says.

This isn't just for fun, Warwick tells Motherboard.tv, VBS' technology channel. He is certain that without upgrading, we humans will someday fall behind the advances of the robots we're building -- or worse. "Someday we'll switch on that machine, and we won't be able to switch it off," he says, sounding a note of alarm that clashes with the cheery visions of futurists like Ray Kurzweil. That might explain why he has very little technology at home, and counts "The Terminator" among his biggest influences.

Warwick doesn't want to turn into a robot: He wants to be a better human. Augmenting human ability, not turning into an automaton, is, after all, the premise of the "cyborg." One of the term's earliest uses, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in a 1960 New York Times article: "A cyborg is essentially a man-machine system in which the control mechanisms of the human portion are modified externally by drugs or regulatory devices so that the being can live in an environment different from the normal one."

Today, the argument for cybernetics may seem more imperative than ever. Already the latest bionic technologies are allowing deaf children to hear and disabled war veterans to run again. Technologists, meanwhile, see "augmented reality" applications for smartphones as doing something similar for our brains, fortifying them for life in a world overflowing with data.

For now, Warwick, who will be awarded the Ellison-Cliffe Medal from the Royal Society of Medicine in 2011, is using his research into brain interfaces and autonomous robots to provide better insight into how memories are formed, and learn how to better treat brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. "Technology, directly integrated with the brain, can help overcome some problems people have," says Warwick. Brain implants could keep people fit, making sure, for instance, "you don't eat that chocolate cake that you want."

But the possibilities may also be stranger than we have yet imagined. Someday, says Warwick, humans could become "a curiosity for the machines."

" 'Look at that -- that's where we were in historical times,' they will think to each other."

via Cyborg professor looks to future of bionic technology - CNN.com.

Photos: The freaky maw of Venus

When Pioneer Venus visited our sister planet in 1979, it found an atmospheric feature called a "dipole" near Venus' north pole -- a pair of eddies swirling and rotating around each other as Venus rotated. When ESA's Venus Express arrived in 2006, it observed the same sort of thing at Venus' south pole, and scientists wrote a lot about how Venus was symmetric from north to south and how the polar dipoles were atmospheric features that were stable over decades.

...it turns out it's not stable! Venus Express has been there for more than four years now, and as it's kept watching Venus' swirling atmospheric patterns, that "stable" southern dipole turned out not to be stable. At all. In a press release issued today, Venus scientist Giuseppi Piccioni remarks that the original observation of the southern dipole by Venus Express was "just a coincidence...the dipole in reality is not a stable feature on Venus, but just one shape among others."

via Venus: Not so neat and tidy as we thought - The Planetary Society Blog | The Planetary Society.

Don't fall in.

International Space Station undocking delayed

Three crew members have returned to the International Space Station after the Russian Soyuz capsule due to take them home failed to undock.

The two Russians and one American had been due to return to Earth when computers signalled a technical problem with the hermetic seals.

Their descent has now been postponed until Saturday.

Russia's space agency says checks show the station is sealed and it is unclear why a false signal was sent out.

"The preliminary analysis based on technical expertise shows that the on-board computer received a false signal that the hermetic seal was missing, after the door between the capsule and the space station was closed," Roscosmos chief Anatoly Perminov told reporters at mission control in Korolyov, near Moscow.

"We have carried out all necessary checks today on the hermetic sealing of the station and they show that the station is sealed.

"We need to figure out completely the reason for the false signal and fully guarantee that the moving processes of the operation are safe."

Nasa said the crew had found a small piece of damaged equipment and experts were trying to work out whether this was causing the problem.

Nasa will be watching developments particularly closely because next year its space shuttle will be taken out of service, the BBC's Richard Galpin reports from Moscow.

The only way to get Nasa astronauts to the International Space Station and back will be on board Russian Soyuz capsules, our correspondent says.

The new scheduled time for the spacecraft's descent is about 0520 GMT on Saturday, according to Roscosmos official Alexei Krasnov.

The three crew members due to return are Russia's Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Korniyenko, and Nasa's Tracy Caldwell Dyson.

All three arrived on the ISS on 4 April, travelling up on the same Soyuz capsule.

Mr Perminov said they were in good health.

"We could have done it [the undocking] today but we need extra time to avoid further risks," he added.

"There is no reason to rush. The most important thing is to guarantee the safety of the crew." ...

via BBC News - International Space Station undocking delayed.