Wired Dangerroom - Lockheed Martin’s has a new improved combat version of the Human Universal Load Carrier exoskeleton. It could be headed to Afghanistan for combat trials within a few months.

Lockheed rep indicated today at a Special Forces trade show in Tampa. Asked if there were plans to deploy the HULC exoskeleton overseas following its next round of Army testing, Lockheed’s special operation program manager Keith Maxwell nodded yes and said, “after that.”

Maxwell was wearing what he described as a “smaller, lighter, more energy-efficient” version of the battery-powered external skeleton, complete with an unloaded machine gun on a pivoting mechanical arm. He asked us not to photograph the exoskeleton, but he was happy to discuss it.

In essence, HULC adds an artificial, external spine, hips, legs and the aforementioned pivoting arm to a soldier’s flesh and bones. The machine extremities, powered by a lithium-ion battery, redistribute and transfer up to 200 pounds of weight down and off the wearer’s body, allowing him to carry more, longer. “There’s a 10 percent metabolic cost for the benefit of a heavy load removed,” Maxwell says.

Add loads of food, water, batteries and other supplies, and you become a human pack mule for your squadmates. Swap them out for a heavy machine gun and you transform into what Maxwell calls a “one-man crew-served weapon.” Maxwell says he live-fired his machine gun just before the trade show and “felt the recoil eliminated down to one-third.”

As I have previously observed, with 200 pounds of carrying capacity 50 to 100 pounds could be used for a foldable offroad dirtbike that could go 60 to 80 mph. The soldier could hike in exoskeleton over any terrain and then switch to the bike if they needed to rapidly cover sffome distance. Being able to carry that much weight without tiring would allow for a lot of novel equipment packages and capabilities.
I think the greatest advantage will come not from mixing one exoskleton enabled soldier in with a regular squad but having a dedicated all exoskeleton platoon. If they all had the folding bikes they could have rapid strike deployment with 80 mph even after getting dropped from helicopters. They would have a lot of mission flexibility. If they were supporting tanks they would be able to move at the full attack speeds of the tanks while still be able to get into other terrain.
The exoskeleton squads would enable new strategies and tactics Read more »

Berkeley Science Review - advances in materials science and electrical engineering have paved the way for a new type of electronic device: one that can bend and fold just like a piece of paper. From flexible displays to disposable RFID tags, these new materials have enabled electronics to end up in places they never have before.

Although we may be far from wearing electronics as a fashion fad, the applications of such technologies range from dynamic displays woven right into our shirts to embedded mechanical and ambient atmospheric sensors to obtain and store data about human movement and biological signals. These smart devices could change the way we use clothing. Professor Arias is already in the process of modifying her wearable electronics to fit a multitude of uses. Her previous work focused on defense applications, and she has branched into developing flexible magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) coils and wearable medical sensors. While there are still challenges involving performance, stability, and scalability, in Professor Arias’ words, “This is just the beginning; wearable sensors that measure environmental and biological signals can open up many applications for people who play sports, are in the hospital, or just want to monitor their daily health.” Flexible electronics can even be art; in collaboration with Professor Elad Alon and John Wawrzynek at the Berkeley Wireless Research Center, Professor Arias is also working on creating electronic wallpaper that will, she notes, cover walls with “electronics instead of flowers.”

Read more »

Forbes - global consumption patterns (and hence growth and production) will increasingly be defined by the needs and wants of a new global middle class. In the past, global consumption (and hence production) was defined by America’s middle earners. We face a complex series of changes.

Nextbigfuture has covered the emergence of the global middle class for a number of years.

Smith Barney - Asian Affluence: The Emerging 21st Century Middle Class, June 2011 (27 pages)

Global spending by the global middle class will rise from $21 trillion in 2011 to $56 trillion in 2030. 80% of the demand growth will come from Asia.

1.8 billion global middle class in 2009. 3.2 billion estimated for 2020 and 4.9 billion in 2030.



Read more »

China is expected to Moderatly Stimulate Economy

1. China's economic growth is likely to rebound some time this year due to government stimulus policies and a restocking of inventories, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday.

"As the inventory cycle turns, and fiscal and monetary policy become more expansionary, growth should pick up in the course of 2012 and stabilize at over 9% in 2013," the OECD said in its May 2012 Economic Outlook.

In response to slowing growth, authorities in recent weeks have unveiled support measures, including a cut in the reserve requirement ratio of banks and rolling out subsidies for purchases of some household appliances.

"Going forward, monetary easing should support activity, especially in the housing area, where prices have become more affordable," the OECD said in its report. "Fiscal policy will also boost consumption, with increased outlays being directed to social spending."

The OECD added that China should accelerate some planned infrastructure projects if growth weakens further in the second quarter of this year.

Read more »

Iranian oil officials announced that the in-place reserves of a newly found oil field in the Caspian Sea are much bigger than early estimates. The National Iranian Oil Company has discovered oil reserves in its territorial waters in the Caspian Sea, which, according to preliminary estimates, amount to 8-10 billion barrels.

The reserves have been found at a depth of 2,460 meters. Early reports indicated that the newly-discovered oil field contains 8 to 10 billion barrels of oil.

Read more »

Russia-IC (2011 statements)- Officials from Russia’s Space Agency, Roscosmos, are reportedly in talks with Europe’s ESA and NASA over possibly establishing a collective an orbital station around the moon, or a manned lunar research base. According to Russian news site RIA Novosti, while the country intends on making the moon its focal point, Russia’s plans calls for more than merely putting boots on the lunar surface. Russia has been talking about lunar bases since at least 2007.

According to Roscosmos chief, Vladimir Popovkin, that leaves only two options: “setup a base on the Moon, or launch a station to orbit around it. We don’t want the man to just step on the Moon,” Popovkin stated in an interview with Russian radio station Vesti FM.

Nature - At the Global Space Exploration Conference 2012, Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, said that Russia will pursue extensive, long-lived operations at the Moon’s surface. JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, issued a clear pronouncement about targeting the Moon. “We are looking at the Moon as our next target for human exploration,” said Yuichi Yamaura, an associate executive director at JAXA.

Japan has previously talked about a $2 billion robotic lunar base in 2020.

Russian researchers have planned on starting a 12-year-long moon exploration programme (2025-2036), which will have several stages with first being a placement of an orbital station on a near-moon orbit, and the last – construction of a permanent base on the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite.

Lunar orbital station can be built within two years of 2025 and 2026. The facility can shelter a crew of four cosmonauts. Later on a first-stage base will be built at the Moon’s surface, which is aimed at hosting two-week-long manned missions to the satellite.

A second-stage lunar base is scheduled to appear in 2035-2036 – this facility will help start using lunar resources and prepare for industrial use of natural treasures of Earth’s natural satellite.

Read more »

Washington State University researchers have developed a new technology that could triple the capacity of lithium-ion batteries, which as anyone who owns a cell phone or laptop knows, can be frustratingly limiting.

The researchers have filed patents on the nanoscale-based technology, which also allows the batteries to re-charge many more times and more quickly than current models. They expect to bring it to the market within a year.

In particular, the researchers have developed an anode made of tin, rather than the carbon used currently. Rechargeable lithium ion batteries are made up of two electrodes, the cathode and an anode. During charging, the lithium ions move from the cathode to the anode. The anode holds the lithium ions and stores the battery’s energy. When the battery is used, the ions move from the anode to the cathode, discharging electrons and creating an electric circuit.

The new tin anode has the potential to store almost three times the energy of graphite.

Read more »

Using an atomic force microscope as a “crane”, LMU (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) researchers have succeeded in bringing two biomolecules together to form an active complex – with nanometer precision and built-in quality control.

The business end of the atomic force microscope (AFM) is its needle-sharp tip. It can be used to pick single molecules from a substrate and move them to specific positions with the precision of a few nanometers. This “single-molecule cut-and-paste” procedure was developed by LMU physicist Professor Hermann Gaub, and he and his colleagues have now used it to assemble a functional molecular complex from inactive, single-molecule building blocks.

They built the complex from two short strands of RNA, picking one from a depot with the AFM, and placing it close to the second strand deposited elsewhere on the substrate. When the two RNA segments come into contact, they spontaneously form what is called an “aptamer”, a three-dimensional binding pocket for a target molecule – in this case the fluorescent dye malachite green. The binding interaction amplifies the fluorescence emitted by the target more than 1000-fold - and signals that the two parts of the aptamer have assembled correctly.

Mechanically assembled molecule


Nanoletters - Functional Assembly of Aptamer Binding Sites by Single-Molecule Cut-and-Paste


This is precursor work to more advanced mechanical nanotechnology where atoms are placed for atomically precise reactions. Here the placement is about one hundred times less precise than what is needed for atomically precise reactions.


Read more »

US Crude oil production has increased 90,000 barrels per day from the previous week and is up 395,000 bpd from the beginning of 2012.

US Crude oil production was at 6.239 million barrels per day.
US Oil Liquid Production was 10.79 million barrels per day.
US Crude oil production is up nearly 10% from the same 2011.



Read more »

BlackLight Power, Inc. (BLP) today announced a major breakthrough in clean energy technology, which experts agree holds tremendous promise for a wide range of commercial applications. The announcement comes on the heels of BlackLight’s recent completion of a $5 million round of financing to support commercial development of its new process for producing affordable, reliable energy from water vapor.

Back in 2008,Blacklight power claimed to have a 50kw prototype device.

Now in 2012, Dr. Mills says that BlackLight has achieved critical milestones in scaling its new technology with typical electrical gain of more than ten times that which initiates the process, operating over long duration at the 10 Watt (W) scale. A 100 W unit is planned for completion by the end of 2012, and a 1.5 kiloWatt (kW) pilot unit that can serve the residential power market, as an initial target commercial application, is expected to be operational by 2013. (One kW is equal to 1000 W, and 1.5 kW is the typical, average power consumption of a US home.)

In six separate, independent studies, leading scientists from academia and industry with PhDs from prestigious universities including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, confirm that BlackLight has achieved a technological breakthrough with its CIHT (Catalyst-Induced-Hydrino-Transition) clean energy generating process and cell. The Process is fueled by water vapor that is a gaseous component of air and present wherever there is any source of water. The CIHT cell harnesses this energy as electrical power output and is suitable for essentially all power applications including transportation applications and electrical power production completely autonomous of fuels and grid infrastructure at a small fraction of the current capital costs.

So far lower power levels are claimed now.

Nextbigfuture had a lot of coverage of Blacklight Power claims from 2008 to 2010

Blacklight Power was supposed to have large scale commercial power deployed 2 years ago.

Now they are shooting for 2013. They have raised $5 million for commercialization. Previously they had raised $70 million.


Read more »