A little history is helpful. The drone as we know it today was the brainchild of John Stuart Foster Jr., a nuclear physicist, former head of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (then called the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory), and—in 1971, when the idea occurred to him—the director of defense research and engineering, the top scientific post in the Pentagon. Foster was a longtime model-airplane enthusiast, and one day he realized that his hobby could make for a new kind of weapon. His idea: take an unmanned, remote-controlled airplane, strap a camera to its belly, and fly it over enemy targets to snap pictures or shoot film; if possible, load it with a bomb and destroy the targets, too.

Two years later, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) built two prototypes based on Foster’s concept, dubbed Praeire and Calere. Weighing 75 pounds and powered by a modified lawn-mower engine, each vehicle could stay aloft for two hours while hoisting a 28-pound payload.

The opportunity to elevate oneself from lower to at least middle class - somewhere mid-trunk beneath social canopy, but still shadow - is offered as well as to "see the world" by all major branches of the services. The trick for that opportunity is to survive your deployment, and even your garrison service in the company of fellow members with limbs attached, perhaps some educational/vocational training and without sexual or other assault; harassment or PTSD. All branches are now embroiled in an in a record increase of sexual assault cases - on men as well as women - and the lack of accountability/prosecution by higher ups on perpetrators, the same higher-ups from the "good old boys" club often rendering ham-fist, half-witted pardons to assailants and no help of recovery for victims.

Childhood as I recall it, with imagination creating my own space battles, "rattle snake eggs" with rubber bands, paperclips and an envelop; origami figurines; rubber band guns with clothes pins, stick ball and snow ball fights now kowtow to $25 - 50 video game programs with more than a million players online. Babies and Toys-R-Us makes children a consumer commodity after clearing placenta. Hours are spent by young people to master the next level while education is transformed into meaningless "teach-to-the-test" Pavlov drivel: it makes for an orderly society [of sorts] without critical thinking subjects that will question authority; the enjoyment of creativity for its own sake or expressive insight. Thus, we breed bottom-line capitalists at best; sociopaths at worst.

It is an interesting title by Mike Wall (Space.com), and I like how he makes his case, but what would we be taking with us (in US) to space if successful? Will our drones/death stars follow; the arrogance of Manifest Destiny to the stars; will we cast the natives we find to their asteroid belt reservations; see the universe as "free-fire zone"? I recall some advice a noted martial artist friend gave another: "you fight like a bull. That's OK, until you run into a bigger bull." What if the bigger alien bull sees us as hostile, inconsequential...or, as food?

And even more soberly: With growing inequality, gynophobia, xenophobia, is the silence not golden from space, but the darker conclusion to the Drake Equation: the aliens did not survive themselves, let alone invaders? What if they concluded their third world war, and are fighting their fourth (if survived) fulfilling Einstein's surmise: "with sticks and stones"?

Maybe before warp drive, we need to tackle our materialism and conflict resolution skills.

Technology Review: The World as Free-Fire Zone

The international system of units (SI) is made up of seven base units, which are the metre, kilogram, second, kelvin, ampere, mole and candela. The ampere, volt and ohm are the three fundamental units of electricity.

Ideally, a new definition of the ampere would be based on an extremely accurate source of electric current, capable of delivering one electron at a time. A single-electron pump (SEP) could be ideal in this respect because it produces a flow of individual electrons by shuttling them into a quantum dot and emitting them precisely one at a time. A good SEP also pumps the electrons quickly, so a sufficiently large current is generated.

Until recently, two types of SEP were promising contenders: tunable barrier pumps made from semiconductors, which are fast, and so-called hybrid turnstiles made from superconductors, which can be mounted in parallel to make the output current larger. Although the most accurate, a third type of pump usually made from metallic islands is too slow for making a practical current standard, but the UK researchers have now improved its performance by making it from graphene, which is a semi-metal. Graphene is a sheet of carbon just one atom thick that has a honeycomb lattice structure.

"Our experiments have shown that graphene is ideal for pumping large currents and its 2D crystal structure is just what is needed to make electrons pass through the SEP quickly," team leader Malcolm Connolly told physicsworld.com. The electron flow can reach near-gigahertz frequencies, very close to what is needed to create a current standard, he added.

If it proves accurate enough, the SEP could also help close the "quantum metrological triangle", which relates current, voltage and resistance. Voltage can be measured using the AC Josephson effect, while resistance can be related through the quantum Hall effect. Both these relationships include the same two fundamental constants – Planck’s constant, h, and the charge on the electron, e. A metrological current pump would allow physicists to directly relate current to frequency, and thus test whether e and h are as universal as we think.

This disco ball is an extraordinary object. It is entirely passive, with no thrusters or electronic components. Instead, it is a tungsten sphere about the size of a football, weighing 400 kg and covered with 92 reflectors that allow it to be tracked using lasers on Earth. These reflectors also make it look like a disco ball.

The ball’s small size large mass make it the most perfect test particle ever placed in orbit, the first aerospace structure ever made from tungsten and the densest object orbiting anything anywhere in the Solar System.

The ball is known as the LAser RElativity Satellite or LARES. The Italians launched it in February last year and have been carefully measuring its orbital characteristics ever since.

These Hubble Deep Field images offered incredibly clear views of the cosmos in its infancy. What drew astronomers’ attention were the tiniest galaxies, covering only a few pixels on Hubble’s detector. Most of them do not have the grand spiral or elliptical shapes of large galaxies we see close to us today. Instead, they are irregular, scrappy collections of stars. The Hubble Deep Field confirmed a long-standing idea that the universe must have evolved in a series of building blocks, with small galaxies gradually merging and assembling into larger ones.

Last week, IBM announced that a version of the artificially intelligent software that gave Watson its smarts is to be rented out to companies as a customer service agent. It will be able to respond to questions posed by people, and sustain a basic conversation by keeping track of context and history if a person asks further questions. An “Ask Watson” button on websites or mobile apps will open a text-based dialogue with the retired Jeopardy champion on topics such as product buying decisions and troubleshooting guidance.

This new version of Watson, somewhat opaquely called “Watson Engagement Advisor,” will be the Jeopardy champ’s first truly public test. Over the past two years, IBM has engaged in several trials of Watson intended to test its worth in the workplace—for example, as an aide to medical staff or financial workers (see “Watson Goes to Work in the Hospital”)—but it has not released a general product based on the technology. Even so, several companies have committed to rolling out Watson-based conversation assistants, including the Australian bank ANZ, Royal Bank of Canada, Nielsen, and the publishing and research company IHS.

The planet's 6.8 billion people were living 50% beyond Earth's sustainable means in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available, according to the biannual "Living Planet" report by WWF, a conservation group previously known as the World Wildlife Fund.

"Even with modest U.N. projections for population growth, consumption and climate change, by 2030 humanity will need the capacity of two Earths to absorb CO2 waste and keep up with natural resource consumption," the report says, adding that four and a half planets would be needed if everyone used as many resources as the average American.1

People required 18.2 billion hectares (45 billion acres) of land by 2008, with 12 billion productive hectares available, WWF said today in its biennial Living Planet report. About 55 percent of land needed was for forest to absorb carbon dioxide emissions. The Earth takes one and a half years to regenerate natural resources used annually by human inhabitants, WWF said.

“We are living as if we have an extra planet at our disposal,” WWF International Director General Jim Leape said in the report. “We are using 50 percent more resources than the Earth can provide, and unless we change course that number will grow very fast. By 2030, even two planets will not be enough.”2

Tethers Unlimited was awarded $100,000 to develop the concept of space 3d printing further.

Robert Hoyt, CEO of Tethers Unlimited said, “We’d like someday to be able to have a spacecraft create itself entirely from scratch, but realistically that’s quite a ways out.” ”That’s still science fiction.”

Another private company called Made In Space has been studying the process of using additive manufacturing techniques. They have successfully printed tools in zero gravity. The next step, space.

“3D printing and in-space manufacturing will dramatically change the way we look at space exploration, commercialization, and mission design today.” said Aaron Kemmer, CEO and Co-Founder of MADE IN SPACE. “The possibilities range from building on-demand parts for human missions to building large space habitats that are optimized for space.”

Meet Scout, a device that can monitor and track your vital signs, temperature, ECG, heart rate, oximetry and stress by just holding the it up to your forehead for 10 seconds.

As simple as it sounds, to use the device you simply hold it against your forehead and wait. Results are synched from Scout to your smartphone, where you can track your health over time. On a basic level, you can see that your temperature or heart rate is elevated from the norm at any given time. On a larger level, you can also see potential problems headed your way by noticing abnormalities before they become physical issues.

Scout was created by Scanadu, a company based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. The company released a prototype of the device 6 months ago, and since that release has been working on perfecting the experience. Wednesday, it is re-releasing the product in the form of an IndieGoGo campaign, where the first 1000 backers can pick up their own — before they ship to the public — for $149. Additional IndieGoGo backers will be able to buy a Scout for $199.

As we pointed out, the mission of the NSF is to fund research in fundamental questions in science (typically called "basic" research). As such, the research isn't intended to have immediate commercial or military applications; those would come decades down the line, if ever. And it's generally considered impossible to predict which areas of research will eventually be viewed as groundbreaking at some point in the future.

Now, scientists who have served in the NSF are saying the same things. In a letter to Smith obtained by Science magazine, they point out that the draft bill "frankly requires the Director [of the NSF] to accurately predict the future." And they point to a technology that's currently having a huge commercial impact—the laser—that grew out of basic research using microwaves. In fact, in their view, "many basic research projects in every field supported by the NSF would likely not qualify for certification under this bill."

"There are also Idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other, which I call Idols of the Market Place, on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies." Sir Francis Bacon, Aphorism 43.

The phenomenon, a complex pattern of the energy states of electrons that resembles a butterfly, has appeared in physics textbooks as a theoretical concept of quantum mechanics for nearly 40 years. However, it had never been directly observed until now. Confirming its existence may open the door for researchers to uncover completely unknown electrical properties of materials.

“We are now standing at the edge of an entirely new frontier in terms of exploring properties of a system that have never before been realized,” said Professor Dean, who developed the material that allowed the observation. "The ability to generate this effect could possibly be exploited to design new electronic and optoelectronic devices."

"The human understanding is of no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called 'sciences as one would.' For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride, lest his mind should seem to be occupied with things mean and transitory; things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless in short are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections color and infect the understanding." The Interpretation of Nature, XLIX