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I suggested earlier today that the US military R&D spending was about 75% of all R&D spending worldwide. Leopold called me on it - and I have to admitt: it was BS. Apparently military R&D in the US is ~75% (82 billion $ in 2011) of the total non-health R&D. Unfortunately I could not find the source where I read the 75% figure initially to check their wording. Nonetheless: I think those 82 billion could be spent better (including giving them to me)...

Despite 50 years of research on high-power microwaves, the us military has yet to produce a usable weapon.

Very interesting article on use of neuro drugs in military ...

How a 1960s discovery in neuroscience spawned a military project

Interesting article

"Real leadership is about transforming the system, not just succeeding within or despite the system. Today, we know how to run organizations in ways that that lift up the human spirit, both for those doing the work and those for whom the work is done. So why don't we get on with it?"

Is it safe ? How far can we go for the sake of green energy ?

"WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a three-month investigation, a team of Northwestern University student reporters has found that the US nation's security establishment is not adequately prepared for many of the environmental changes that are coming faster than predicted and that threaten to reshape demands made on the military and intelligence community. This is despite the fact that the Defense Department has called climate change a potential "accelerant of instability." The Medill School of Journalism graduate student team began publication on January 10 of its findings on the national security implications of climate change with a series of print, video and interactive stories."

start of the end of the ESA space defence activities .. ?

Yesterday [11th May], the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held a Demo Day for the Department of Defense in the courtyard at the center of the Pentagon to give the defense community "an up-close look at the Agency's diverse portfolio of innovative technologies and military systems at various stages of development and readiness."

Powered by solar energy, Thales Alenia's Stratobus has an operation lifespan of five-years and only needs ground maintenance just a few days a year Can hover 12.4 miles (20km) in the air and reaches altitudes of 20,000 meters.

From Garretson ... À bit tendentious but nice read ...

actually its nice - perhaps without true patriotic/military backup lots of great things will never happen!

The more money they spend on this the less they spend on destruction and killing :-) so yes, most welcome ...

Not so good news ...

Have a look at the US budget and the incredible amount of money they are spending for military purposes. It's as simple as that.

presentation: http://youtu.be/4efE_gO9lFo

random idea: how about using this thing as the "pheromone" to be by released by robots in a swarm... Recognizing an area as being of interest, for some reason, would lead to more "pheromones" being released there. This would in turn attract other robots to the area, by virtue of having also maximization of connectivity to the rest of the swarm as part of the navigation algorithm.

If this works as they claim this would be really interesting. Still no clue how they might be able to make this work though! Anybody?

Short range chemical analysis methods exist already, but using new high power lasers one could extend the operation length to e.g aircraft.

Isabelle?

The optical setup is very simple and lightweight: a compact semi-conductor DFB laser source and an all optical fiber system for amplification and supercontinuum generation. Interesting for space applications!

We discussed this today during coffee. The inventor claims that he claims that a pressure differential can push hydrogen through a proton conductive membrane (thereby stripping off the electrons) which flow through an electric circuit and provide electric power. The type of membrane is fairly similar to that found in a hydrogen fuel cell. If the pressure differential is cause by selective heating this is in essence a heat engine that directly produces electricity. The inventor claims that this could be a high efficiency alternative to thermoelectric devices and could even outperform PV and Sterling engines with an efficiency close to that of fuel cells (e.g., ~60% @ dT=600K). I could not find any scientific publications as the inventor is not affiliated to any University - he has however an impressive number of patents from a very wide field (e.g., the "Super Soaker" squirt gun) and has worked on several NASA and US military projects. His current research seams to be funded by the latter as well. Here are some more links that I found: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/shooting-for-the-sun/308268/ http://www.johnsonems.com/?q=node/13 http://scholar.google.nl/scholar?q=%22lonnie+g+johnson%22+&btnG=&hl=nl&as_sdt=0%2C5