Tech Tuesday – I Really Should Be Gardening Edition

TT01: US Navy – Pew Pew Pew, Electric Boogaloo.  I’m not sure is this is an electro-laser, which uses a laser to create a conductive pathway for electricity to flow, or an electric powered laser that is using some kind of beefy laser diode.  I’m inclined to think it’s a laser diode, but I’m just not sure.

TT02: Israel – Pew Pew Pew, Hebrew Boogaloo.  Testing out the Iron Bean system that should work with the Iron Dome system.

TT03 – Zapping tumors with ultrasound.  Destroys the tumor to the point that the body can clean up the rest.

TT04 – NASA has a new alloy for space craft.  One of the things I’ve been noticing about a lot of the new alloys is that they aren’t made using traditional alloy production and metal forming, but additive processes.  The foundries of old can’t make these alloys.  I’ll be interested to see what new foundries will look like.

TT05 – The hydrogen powered hypersonic launch system.  You say tomato, I say “Ground based planetary defense cannon.”.

TT06 – A new approach to small VTOL aircraft.  Instead of using  traditional air-screw propellers, it uses Voith-Schneider props, which are wings arranged around a drum.  The key thing is that the airfoils angle of attack can be adjusted as the airfoils move around the drum, so they are always producing lift in the direction desired.

TT07 – A thermovoltaic cell, courtesy of MIT.  It’s like a photovoltaic cell, but it works (I think, if I am reading this right) with the photons produced by hot things, rather than just the photons of visible light.

TT08 – This is disturbing, we seem to be running out of useful nitrogen.  It’s not the free nitrogen in the air, but the stuff that is fixed in the ground, that plants use.

TT09 – One thing I love about the quest for fusion power is just how many different approaches to the problem are on the table.  Like using collapsing bubbles to overcome the nuclear forces and get things to fuse.

TT10 – Nebraska has a new transistor that can reduce the energy needed for computers.

TT11 – A battery that can hold a charge for 18 years.  Duracell, eat your heart out.

TT12 – Remember the asteroid with some ridiculous amount of valuable metals?  Psyche 16?  NASA has a probe in the works.

TTX : The Sad Story of the Sea Dart.  The supersonic seaplane that couldn’t.