San Jose,
CA—Presidential Science Advisor John Marberger told an audience at the
Photonics West trade show and conference here yesterday that a Manhattan Project
approach to fighting terrorism is not needed. Unlike the effort to develop the
atomic bomb, he noted "the context is different than when WW II started. Today
science is more mature...and nearly all technology needed is available." The
country will not have to develop new technology, he added, "but deploy it
effectively. We are in a technically mature era and we have a tremendous range
of capability to bring about increased security."
He said the attacks of September 11 and the anthrax contamination have cast light on our vulnerabilities, and cautioned that the relatively quick results in Afghanistan are "not a good measure" of the strength of our defenses elsewhere against terrorism. The nation has "just begun to fight" in regards to homeland defense, he noted.
Marberger added his Office of Science and Technology Policy is coordinating what has to be done to reduce vulnerability and prepare for future events. He also sees an increase in funding for medical research in areas related to bio-terrorism. This would include studying the effects of biological agents and tools to counter them.
In a related topic, he said the greatest payoff to the atom-by-atom understanding and control of matter that we have may be in health sciences—thus he expects to see the "substantial increases in budgets for the National Institutes of Health."
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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