22.02.11

On Its Way to Ultradestructive Megawatt Power, Navy's Death Ray Laser Breaks Another Record

The Navy's death ray weapon keeps burning through laser records, on its way to the ultimate goal of searing through 2,000 feet of steel per second.
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From NACHOS to MAHEM: Naming The World's Most Advanced Military Tech

What do you call an armor-penetrating munition? MAHEM. A smokescreen that instantly closes around a tank? DRAPES. A robot that scavenges and feeds itself? EATR, of course. At the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the military's mad-science research wing,
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The Navy's Megawatt Laser Weapon Takes a Big Leap Forward with Powerful New Electron Injector

It's unclear which is the bigger news coming out of the Office of Naval Research; the fact that the Navy's Free Electron Laser (FEL) program has demonstrated an
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DARPA's Smart BLADE Will Cut Enemy Communications on the Battlefield

Further solidifying its reputations for cutting edge battlefield tech and badass acronyms, DARPA has awarded BAE systems $8.4 million to develop its BLADE
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The Navy's Next-Gen Electromagnetic Catapult System Hurls its First Planes Skyward

The official performance results aren't available yet, but General Atomics confirmed this afternoon that it's next-gen aircraft carrier launch system successfully launched an F/A-18E Super Hornet on Saturday, not with steam but with its new
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DoD-Funded 'Project Squid Skin' Seeks To Build Ocean-Inspired Camouflage Out Of Metamaterials

Sea creatures like octopus, squid and cuttlefish are among nature's best camouflage artists, changing color to blend into their environments. This is partly because cephalopod skins have some primitive optical abilities - their skin has the same light-sensing proteins
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Air Force Unveils Fastest Defense Supercomputer, Made of 1,760 PlayStation 3s

The holidays may be driving video game console sales, but apparently so is the military. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has strung together 1,760 PlayStation 3 gaming systems to create what it's calling the fastest
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Adding Face Shields to Battle Helmets Could Drastically Reduce Brain Injuries from Explosions

Just as the AK-47 rifle shifted the balance of power on battlefields the world over during the second half of the last century, the improvised explosive device (IED) has defined 21st-century insurgent warfare, allowing relatively low-tech warriors to inflict major damage
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The Navy's Free Electron Laser System Will be More Than Just a Death Ray

But don't worry, it will still be partly a death ray The Navy has been seeking its "Holy Grail" free electron laser (FEL) weapon for a while now, but it would rather you think of it more as a multipurpose
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New Gamma-Ray Nuke Detector Could Sniff Out Dirty Bombs Without Opening Cargo Containers

Keeping tabs on nuclear material is both increasingly important and increasingly difficult these days, but researchers at the University of Maryland have devised a mechanism that may make it a lot easier to ensure unchecked radioactive materials don't make it illicitly
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Video: Military's New Water Guns Can Rip Through Steel, Disabling IEDs

Need to disarm an IED? Make sure you've got your Super Soaker handy. Sorry, make that your "Fluid Blade Disablement Tool." The Stingray, the military's newest bomb-fighting tech, is a small water gun developed
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Iran's Boat-Plane-Thing Would Strike Fear Into Other Flying Military Boats if Any Existed

Iran's Sacred Week of Defense (celebrating its eight-year resistance to the Iraqi invation of the 1980s) is never without a healthy dose of pomp and ceremony, but this week Iran's defense ministry took the usual military parade to the waterfront. Yesterday Iran unveiled
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New Nanospheres are the Stiffest Biological Materials Ever Created, Surpassing Kevlar

Protein tougher than metal could be used to print out body armor Printable body armor, better bulletproof glass, and tougher steel are just a few of the applications for a new materials technology developed by Israeli researchers. A team of scientists there have developed
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After $19 Billion Spent Over Six Years, Pentagon Realizes the Best Bomb Detector Is a Dog

The Pentagon's best (and best-funded) engineers have toiled for years, only to realize the supremacy of the canine schnoz After six years and nearly $19 billion in spending, the Pentagon task force assigned to create better ways to detect bombs has revealed
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ALTB FAIL: Airborne Laser Weapon Fails Second Test Firing in a Row

The Missile Defense Agency's airborne laser weapon is supposed to save us all from imminent nuclear demise, but after yesterday's botched test firing - the second failure
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US Special Forces Set to Carry XM-25 Laser-Guided Smart-Bullet Weapon into Battle

US Army Special Forces soldiers will deploy with the XM-25 weapon this summer, so that they can shower enemies hidden inside buildings with lethal smart rounds. Veterans of the Afghanistan conflict who tried the weapon predicted it would be a "game changing" gun capable
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The Navy's Next-Gen Electromagnetic Catapult System Hurls its First Planes Skyward

The official performance results aren't available yet, but General Atomics confirmed this afternoon that it's next-gen aircraft carrier launch system successfully launched an F/A-18E Super Hornet on Saturday, not with steam but with its new
Read more...


In New Attempt to Build a Practical Military Laser Weapon, Lockheed Inverts a Prism

Lasers can be powerful weapons - they can take down an aircraft at long ranges and in unstable conditions,
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Marine animals put to work fighting terrorism

Capture a terrorist, eat a fish: it's all in a day's work for the US navy's latest terror-fighting weapon. Specially trained marine mammals were the star attraction in a Governor Schwarzenegger-initiated anti-terrorist training session held at ports throughout California this week. One
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US Air Force Tests Method for Using Light to Heal Battlefield Injuries

In the near future, wounds may be treated with a flash of light. A process called photochemical tissue bonding can replace conventional stitches, staples and glues in repairing skin wounds and even reconnecting nerves and blood vessels. Researchers
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Iran's Boat-Plane-Thing Would Strike Fear Into Other Flying Military Boats if Any Existed

Iran's Sacred Week of Defense (celebrating its eight-year resistance to the Iraqi invation of the 1980s) is never without a healthy dose of pomp and ceremony, but this week Iran's defense ministry took the usual military parade to the waterfront. Yesterday Iran unveiled
Read more...


Video: Apocalypse-Fearing Folk Can Seek Shelter in Futuristic US$10 Million Doomsday Bunker

A doomsday bunker envisioned by California company Vivos can offer you, your family, and 4,000 other people the chance to escape the end of the world in a network of 20 underground shelters. Surely even the sceptics can't resist the allure of scary music played over scenes of comfortable underground
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Electromagnetic Pulse Cannon Could Demo Car-Stopping Power Next Month

U.S. Marines could deploy the non-lethal weapon if it proves viable Stopping a speeding
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Boot Process Complete, Awaiting Command

Northrop Grumman has released a new photo of their carrier-based attack drone, the X-47B. It's due to make its first flight later this year as part
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Memristors to Be Used by US Military to Create Simulated Brains

DARPA's ardent desire to realise every sci-fi concept ever dreamed of continues with a biologically-inspired computer project which aims for feline brain functionality. But this time it's pinning its hopes on memristor devices which can simulate the behaviour of biological synapses in the brain. Memristors
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Seeking Troop Longevity, Indian Military Taps a Holy Man on a Supposed 70-Year Fast

India's Defense Research Development Organization thinks it may have found a new secret weapon: an 82-year-old holy man named Prahlad Jani. His tactical advantage: longevity. Jani claims via the UK's Telegraph
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After $19 Billion Spent Over Six Years, Pentagon Realizes the Best Bomb Detector Is a Dog

The Pentagon's best (and best-funded) engineers have toiled for years, only to realize the supremacy of the canine schnoz After six years and nearly $19 billion in spending, the Pentagon task force assigned to create better ways to detect bombs has revealed
Read more...


Tiny Armored Car Unveiled as India's Newest Anti-Terror Weapon

The tiny battery-operated vehicle can squeeze into service elevators and withstand grenade blasts India
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U.S. Wargamers Wrap Up Massive Cyberattack Drill: "We Are Not Prepared"

Washington insiders recently sweated out a real-time war game where a cyberattack crippled
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U.S. Spooks Want a System That Automatically Gauges Who Can Be Trusted

Just as DARPA pushes the wackier Pentagon ideas and ARPA-E backs next-gen energy projects,
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