Dr Zahi Hawass and a huge team of experts have just finished laser scanning the Great Sphinx, and now the Pyramids of Giza are being surveyed using the latest laser technology. Dr Hawass, who reports on the project in his blog, has employed the services of the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences at the Mubarak Institute for the project, which saw Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara subjected to the same techniques in June by a Japanese group. The team hope to get the most accurate representation of the wonders to date, as Egypt attempts to model the pyramids and sphinx in a number of ultra-modern ways, such as Heritage Key’s very own King Tut Virtual. (more…)
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Los Alamos National Laboratory explosives expert David Moore is driven by the almost nightly news about explosions targeting U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His team is working to develop a laser that could spot explosives from a safe distance – one goal calls for detection from 55 yards. (more…)
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Scottish laser pioneers lead way in preserving world heritage treasures.
Mount Rushmore carvings will be first test of plan to guard historic sites from ravages of weather and pollution by creating accurate 3D models.
British scientists are to begin work on a revolutionary project to record three-dimensional models of world heritage sites so that they can be re-created if they fall victim to climate change, natural disaster, war or terrorism.
The team of six – from Historic Scotland and the Glasgow School of Art – will team up next month with an American company, CyArk, to shoot laser beams at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, creating a 3D model accurate to within 3mm, digitally preserving the carved faces of former presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln should archaeologists need to repair them.
Funding for the project was rushed through because of concerns over the deterioration of the granite rockface.
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A company appropriately named Catch the Wind has developed a system that could help optimise the power output from a wind turbine.
Catch the Wind’s so-called Vindicator laser-based system comprises a fibre-optic laser module, a processor, a control system interface and a remote lens assembly. The laser module and processor are housed in a separate assembly that may be located either within the wind turbine nacelle or with the remote lens assembly. (more…)
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Back in late May, Red Bull Cola was banned in parts of Germany because it contains about 0.13 micrograms of cocaine per can—enough Bolivian marching powder to… do absolutely nothing to you. Taiwan and Hong Kong also flagged their supplies for containing bits of coca leaves. Red Bull, of course, was hoping for this negative publicity.
Unfortunately for them, the hubbub didn’t create the huge market interest they were anticipating.
Next step in the effort to make their cola the choice of bad boys and girls?
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Darkfield Laser Tracking might sound like something the Death Star uses to find and kill pesky Rebel spaceships, but it is in fact much more mundane, albeit useful. The tech is in fact a new trick from Logitech to solve a problem that has plagued more stylish offices since the mouse-ball rolled out of town. (more…)
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The Airborne Laser may have lost favor in Washington, but it’s still going strong at Edwards Air Force Base.
Boeing, the prime contractor for the directed-energy weapons system, said Thursday that the ABL’s high-energy laser earlier this week was fired in flight for the first time–though not at an external target. Instead, in a flight over California, the laser beam traveled only as far as an on-board calorimeter, which measured the beam’s power. Boeing didn’t say what that measurement was, but the system is generally referred to as “megawatt-class.”
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The process of punching a well hasn’t changed in a century. The search for oil, gas, or water may extend more than 7 miles, but it’s still done with a tricone bit—three grinding cones angled inward and downward, with spinning teeth. This system is effective at crushing and shearing, but every time a bit wears out, engineers have to “trip” the drill: They bring the head to the surface, change it, and send it back down. A lot of drilling time is actually tripping time, which means a project’s cost goes up exponentially with depth. So researchers are developing replacement technologies to reach superheated water for geothermal power or stretch down to previously inaccessible fossil fuel. (more…)
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A group of researchers in Australia and Taiwan has developed a new way to analyze the health of human teeth using lasers. As described in the latest issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal, by measuring how the surface of a tooth responds to laser-generated ultrasound, they can evaluate the mineral content of tooth enamel — the semi-translucent outer layer of a tooth that protects the underlying dentin. This is the first time anyone has been able to non-destructively measure the elasticity of human teeth, creating a method that can be used to assess oral health and predict emerging dental problems, such as tooth decay and cavities. (more…)
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Like almost everyone else in the space vision business, the enthusiasts who foresee a “railway to space” are adjusting their high-flying dreams to fit down-to-earth realities.
“We don’t have all the questions, let alone all the answers,” Michael Laine, head of the LiftPort Group, told an audience of about 50 people on Saturday during the 2009 Space Elevator Conference on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Wash. (Microsoft is a partner in the msnbc.com joint venture.) (more…)
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