A laser in the fabric printer burns shapes into material suspended by a vacuum (Photo: Disney Research)


We're used to 3D-printed objects being hard and unyielding, or perhaps a little rubbery. Thanks to work being done by scientists at Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University, however, we may soon be seeing things like soft and squishy 3D-printed teddy bears, made from layered pieces of fabric. What's more, those items could be electrically conductive.

The prototype fabric printer contains rolls of cloth, which are coated with a heat-activated adhesive on one side. Here's how the printing process works ...

The Vulcan rocket will use a reusable booster engine configuration

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) has entered the reusable launcher race with its Next Generation Launch System (NGLS), also known as the Vulcan rocket. This replacement for the current generation of launch systems will incorporate a rocket engine assembly that jettisons from the first stage and is snared in mid-air by a helicopter after reentering the Earth's atmosphere.

Unveiled at the 31st Space Symposium, the Vulcan was named by popular vote last month that garnered one million entries. According to ULA, the new launch system will be able to deliver payloads to low-Earth orbit and deep space at reduced cost.

At the heart of the Vulcan is ULA's Sensible, Modular, Autonomous Return Technology (SMART) initiative. Unlike the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is designed to fly back to the launch site, the SMART initiative involves developing an engine assembly that reuses the booster main engines. The assembly uses twin BE-4 engines burning methane and liquid oxygen, producing 1.1 million lb of thrust. The BE-4 was developed by Blue Origin, which is providing the engines to ULA in a partnership to replace the Russian-made RD-180.

In flight, the Vulcan lifts off like a conventional system, but after releasing its payload, the first-stage booster engine assembly detaches and re-enters atmosphere using an inflatable heat shield. After parachute deployment, the booster engine assembly is hooked and captured by a Chinook helicopter. The assembly is then recertified and reattached to a new Vulcan first stage. ULA says that this results in a 90 percent savings in propulsion costs because the engine assembly makes up 25 percent of the booster weight and 65 percent of the booster cost.

The American-made Vulcan is based on the Atlas and Delta launch vehicles and will use ULA's Centaur second stage with either a 4- or 5-m (13/16 ft) payload fairing and four to strap-on solid boosters on the first stage. In the Stage Two version, the Centaur will be replaced by a new, more powerful Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage (ACES); giving the Vulcan the lift capability of the Delta IV Heavy rocket. ULA says that the ACES can make almost unlimited burns, so its on-orbit time extends from hours to weeks

"More capabilities in space mean more capabilities here on Earth," says Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance. "Because the Next Generation Launch System will be the highest-performing, most cost-efficient rocket on the market, it will open up new opportunities for the nation’s use of space. Whether it is scientific missions, medical advancements, national security or new economic opportunities for businesses, ULA’s new Vulcan rocket is a game-changer in terms of creating endless possibilities in space."

The video below introduces the Vulcan.

Source: 2045.com

Right now, as I write, my arm hurts. I just want to take it off. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, just some tendonitis and tennis elbow, due to overuse. But had I been a car, I hope my owner would have changed that faulty part a long time ago. Also, trying to figure out what to do with the arm that isn’t hugging my girlfriend when we try to fall asleep, has perpetually made me wish I could take my arm off and put it next to the bed. I just want a smarter arm.

Of course, considering the horrifying trauma of losing a limb in an accident, to disease, or sacrificing it on the battlefield, one could argue that wishing one’s arm away is equally ungrateful and disrespectful. Yet if things turn out the way some researchers are predicting, giving up an arm voluntarily may not be quite as socially unacceptable in the future. In fact, it may well be worth the initial investment of dollars and human flesh and bone.

Humans have long been obsessed with reversing ageing. Source: Supplied

IT is likely the first person who will live to be 1,000 years old is already alive today.

This is according to a growing regiment of researchers who believe a biological revolution enabling humans to experience everlasting youthfulness is just around the corner.

At the epicentre of the research is Aubrey de Grey — a Cambridge gerontologist and co-founder or the California-based Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) Research Foundation.

Yesterday's failed attempt by SpaceX to land Falcon9 on a sea barge marked another setback in the company's attempt to build a reusable rocket. But a newly released video shows just how close the rocket came to making a successful landing. They're definitely getting closer.

The video shows the rocket descending quite quickly, and just as it's about to land it starts to go astray. A last second adjustment almost seems to work, but then everything goes to hell.

Hoping for success on the next attempt!

Source: 2045.com

When most people hear the phrases “additive manufacturing” or “3D printing”, they usually picture the technology being put to use in large factories, creating prototypes, or in someone’s garage who’s making little plastic trinkets. However, as of late, 3D printing has been gaining ground within the medical field, as doctors and surgeons are really beginning to understand the potential that it has in creating prostheses.

For one 27-year-old Chinese woman, named Li Jieyang, 3D printing literally saved her left arm. It all started one day last year when Li began suffering from pain in her shoulder. She brushed it off as a simple sprain, even though the swelling and inflamation just continued to worsen.

The 2011 MasterChef champion Tim Anderson has a new apprentice--a robo-chef.

“It’s the ultimate sous-chef,” Anderson told BBC News. “You tell it to do something--whether it’s a bit of prep or completing a whole dish from start to finish--and it will do it.”

We’re already giving robots weapons, so why not let them take over our homes too? The London-based company Moley Robotics is demonstrating their new robot chef prototype at Hannover Messe, an annual trade fair for the industrial technology. The robot’s first dish will be crab bisque.

According to the company, the mechanical chef, which incorporates 20 motors, 24 joints and 129 sensors, learns how to cook by watching a plain old human chef, whose movements are turned into commands that drive the robot hands. Moley hopes to eventually create a product that can do everything from preparing the ingredients to cleaning up the kitchen, and include a built-in refrigerator and dishwasher.

When I watched the trailer for Ex Machina, I was excited. It wasn’t just the uncanny and attractive robot Ava, either. There were androids, AI, Turing tests! This looked like the scifi movie of my dreams. But when I saw Ex Machina recently, I was terrified. Because it told the truth about what AI might become.

From this point forward, this post is chockfull of spoilers. You have been warned!

I should’ve expected as much. After all, the trailer hardly hides the fact that something goes very wrong in Ex Machina’s isolated artificial intelligence lab. It’s also the kind of plot twist we’re primed for in a world where some of the smartest people on the planet are warning us that computer scientists’ grand ambition to build a true AI is just plain dangerous. Of course the robot was going to turn into a psycho killer, leaving broken mirrors smeared with blood and bodies on the floor. (Sorry, I told you there would be spoilers.)

This is the radio-frequency anechoic chamber used for the experiment. Credit: ITMO University

Physicists from ITMO University, Ioffe Institute and Australian National University managed to make homogenous cylindrical objects completely invisible in the microwave range. Contrary to the now prevailing notion of invisibility that relies on metamaterial coatings, the scientists achieved the result using a homogenous object without any additional coating layers. The method is based on a new understanding of electromagnetic wave scattering. The results of the study were published in Scientific Reports.

The scientists studied light scattering from a glass cylinder filled with water. In essence, such an experiment represents a two-dimensional analog of a classical problem of scattering from a homogeneous sphere (Mie scattering), the solution to which is known for almost a century. However, this classical problem contains unusual physics that manifests itself when materials with high values of refractive index are involved. In the study, the scientists used ordinary water whose refractive index can be regulated by changing temperature.

An artificial muscle developed by Lenore Rasmussen (pictured) will be tested aboard the ISS (Photo: Elle Starkman/PPPL Office of Communications)

When the Dragon spacecraft is propelled into space atop a Falcon 9 rocket this week on a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS), it will be carrying an artificial muscle material developed by Lenore Rasmussen and her company RasLabs. In addition to better prosthetic devices, it is hoped the material could find applications in robots on deep space missions.

The Synthetic Muscle is a gel-like material known as an electroactive polymer (EAP), which means it changes size or shape in response to an electric field. Its ability to contract or expand at low voltages gives it the potential to mimic human muscle movement and find applications in prosthetics and robotics.