Researchers from the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center recently patented a new type of bullet capable of self-destructing after traveling over a predetermined distance.
The idea behind the new and advanced projectile is that it might help limit the extent of collateral damage (read: innocents dying) during battle or in other operational settings and environments.
As for how it all works, the U.S. Army explains that when one of these limited-range projectiles is fired, a pyrotechnical material is ignited at the same time and reacts with a special coating on the bullet.
Lockheed Martin Corp., the world’s largest defense contractor, is putting more of its money behind quantum computing, even though the technology might still be decades away from military use.
The Bethesda, Md.-based company recently announced a partnership with the University of Maryland to develop a Quantum Engineering Center at the school’s College Park campus near Washington, D.C. A quantum computer uses atomic particles called qubits, or quantum bits, rather than binary digits to store information, making it theoretically faster at solving complex problems.
“Classical computing can only take us so far,” Ray Johnson, Lockheed’s senior vice president and chief technology officer, said in a news release.
“In the future, critical systems will become so complex that problems will take too long or become too expensive to solve using even our most powerful supercomputers,” he said. “We believe the next computational revolution will stem from applied quantum science—a discipline that connects physics, information science, and engineering.”
The release didn’t cite how much money Lockheed was contributing to the effort, which is the company’s second such agreement. Under a partnership with the University of Southern California, the contractor purchased a $10 million machine called D-Wave — billed as the world’s first quantum computer — for researchers at the school.
Research: Discard Soviet doctorate systems
Author:
Alexander Gorobets
Exert:
The research performance of most former Soviet states is still low compared with that of many Western countries. In my view, progress will be stifled as long as the archaic academic systems passed down from the former Soviet Union persist.
I have analysed the research performance of several of these nations on the basis of their per capita gross expenditure on research and development from 1998 to 2010 and their number of research publications from 1998 to 2012.
