• DARPA wants shrink-blade helicopters

    DARPA is looking at a helicopter — or “morphcopter” — with shrinking blades; adjustable shrinking blades would offer performance benefits and options such as whisper mode for easier operations in confined spaces

  • U.K. companies invest in R&D

    Survey of R&D spending by the 850 U.K. companies most active in R&D and the 1,400 most active companies globally show that U.K. companies increased their R&D budgets by 6 percent (the top 88 companies increased their budgets by 10.3 percent); global competitors average a 9.5 percent increase

  • A simpler route to invisibility

    Two years ago Duke University researchers built an invisibility cloak — a device that can make objects vanish from sight, at least when viewed using a narrow band of microwave frequencies; researchers now show how to create cloaks that work across a wider range of frequencies

  • Reasons for optimism over US particle physics

    A panel of experts advising the U.S. Department of Energy says that recent cuts in funding for particle physics research may not do as much harm to U.S. basic research as scientists initially thought

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  • DARPA: Hits, misses, and projects to watch

    Over the years DARPA has funded thousands of research projects; some were hugely successful, others were howlers; all evinced an intellectual restlessness, deep curiosity, and a willingness to fail while trying - all characteristics not typically associated with a government agency

  • DARPA celebrates 50 year anniversary

    DARPA was created in 1958 following the Soviet surprise launch of Sputnik; President Dwight Eisenhower defined the new agency’s mission in three words: “prevent technological surprises”; according to current DARPA director Tony Tether, over the years DARPA has modified its mission by adding to “prevent technological surprises” an important component: “create them”

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  • Flying saucers, tiny helicopters compete in British war game

    The U.K. Ministry of defense held its first Grand Challenge technology competition last week; six finalists receive $600,000 each to develop their concepts into machines; finalists will meet for mock battle in August

  • On needles and haysacks: New way to deal with large datasets

    The ability to gather vast amounts of data and create huge datasets has created a problem: Data has outgrown data analysis; for more than eighty years one of the most common methods of statistical prediction has been maximum likelihood estimation (MLE); Brown University researchers offer a better way to deal with the enormous statistical uncertainty created by large datasets

  • New London center to develop stronger ceramic materials

    Imperial College London launches Structural Ceramic Center; center will research and develop dramatically stronger and more durable structural ceramics made of inorganic materials such as oxides, carbides, and nitrides; new materials will be used in vehicle and body armor, reusable space craft, and pebble beds in nuclear reactors