SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS THING FLYING?

The news appeared on November 25, 2011.

World Surveillance Group has announced that the Argus One UAV, equipped with a newly developed pod bay and integrated propulsion unit, has successfully completed a series of flight tests in preparation for upcoming flight tests and demonstrations at the Oklahoma Training Center - Unmanned Systems in Lawton, Oklahoma and the U.S. Department of Energy Nevada Test Site.

The flight tests were conducted under tower control at Easton Airport by WSGI's technical partner Eastcor Engineering ("ECE").(Source:WSG)

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TRUE 3D LASER PLASMA DISPLAY

Engineers from Burton Inc. in Japan have rolled out a "True 3D" display, which evolved from work begun five years previously by teams at Keio University and Japan's national institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). While most 3D displays available today involve a form of optical illusion that depends on the parallax or disparity inherent in human binocular vision, this new system, which can function in air or under water, needs no screen of any sort, and the effect is quite impressive.(Source: DigInfo)

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FASTER THAN LIGHT NEUTRINO DISPUTED

Subatomic particles called neutrinos cannot move faster than the speed of light, according to a new report. The findings challenge a result reported in September that, if true, would undermine a century of physics.

The team at the INFN-Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy said they had measured faster-than-light speeds in neutrinos sent from Cern, 730km away. Now a different team at the same lab reports findings that, they say, cast doubt on that surprising result.

The Icarus team at the Icarus experiment says that because the neutrinos sent from Cern do not appear to lose energy on their journey, they must not have exceeded the speed of light along the way.

The idea that nothing can move faster than the speed of light is a central tenet in modern physics, forming among many other things a critical part of Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity.(Source: BBC)

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WITH “CURIOSITY” NASA WILL SEARCH FOR MICROBIAL LIFE ON MARS

NASA began a historic voyage to Mars with the Nov. 26 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, which carries a car-sized rover named Curiosity. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas V rocket occurred at 10:02 a.m. EST (7:02 a.m. PST).

"We are very excited about sending the world's most advanced scientific laboratory to Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "MSL will tell us critical things we need to know about Mars, and while it advances science, we'll be working on the capabilities for a human mission to the Red Planet and to other destinations where we've never been."

The spacecraft, which will arrive at Mars in August 2012, is equipped with the most advanced rover ever to land on another planet. Named Curiosity, the rover will investigate whether the landing region has had environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life, and favorable for preserving clues about whether life existed.(Source: NASA)