Blogs / 80beats

A Virginia physicist and entrepreneur pled guilty yesterday to violating arms control laws by selling information on rocket technology to China, which prosecutors say will aid China in its space program. The scientist, Quan-Sheng Shu, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Shanghai; he’s also an expert on cryogenics and liquid hydrogen rocket systems. According to the Justice Department, China intends to use the technology to send space stations and satellites into orbit, as well as provide support for manned space flight and future lunar missions from its new Hainan space facility [The Virginian-Pilot]. An FBI press release regarding Shu’s case notes that an arm of the People’s Liberation Army is involved in the Hainan project.

Shu, who is the president of a high-tech company called AMAC International Inc., pled guilty to two counts of violating the federal Arms Control Act and one count of bribing Chinese officials, and faces up to 25 years of jail time and fines of up to $2.5 million. Sentencing in the case is scheduled for April 6, 2009.

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Thousands of Gulf War veterans who complained of memory and concentration problems, rashes, headaches, and muscle pain following their return from Kuwait and Iraq were suffering from a real illness and weren’t just feeling the aftereffects of combat stress, according to a new congressionally mandated report. The report broke with most earlier studies by concluding that two chemical exposures were direct causes of the disorder: the drug pyridostigmine bromide, given to troops to protect against nerve gas, and pesticides that were used — and often overused — to protect against sand flies and other pests [Los Angeles Times].

One-quarter of the 700,000 U.S. troops who took part in Operation Desert Storm have reported symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome, according to the report, which fails to identify any cure for the malady. It also notes that few veterans afflicted with Gulf War illness have recovered over time [CNN]. The report calls for at least $60 million in new federally funded research on the syndrome and potential treatments.

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The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with the Navy over the Pacific Ocean’s whales, declaring that the Navy can continue its military exercises using high-powered sonar, despite environmentalists’ arguments that the sonar can harm whales’ ears or cause the panicked animals to beach themselves. The court ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that national security needs override these concerns. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, stating: “Of course, military interests do not always trump other considerations, and we have not held that they do. In this case, however, the proper determination of where the public interest lies does not strike us as a close question” [ABC News].

The lawsuit centered on 14 sonar exercises that the Navy wanted to conduct off the coast of Southern California to train seamen in detecting enemy submarines. In his opinion, Roberts stressed the military threat posed by modern subs. “Modern diesel-electric submarines . . . can operate almost silently, making them extremely difficult to detect and track.” America’s potential adversaries have at least 300 of these subs, he said. “The president — the commander in chief — has determined that the training with active sonar is ‘essential to the national security’” [Los Angeles Times].

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It’s a device that could change energy options around the planet: A company called Hyperion Power Generation claims that its miniature nuclear reactors could power anything from water purifiers in developing world villages to oil extraction sites in the remote Arctic tundra to army outposts in the desert.

One reactor, which would cost about $25 million, would produce 25 megawatts of energy, enough to provide electricity for 20,000 average American-sized homes or a major industrial project. Daisy-chained, these micro-reactors, each one about twice the size of an average man, can supply enough electricity to power an entire small city or suburb [The Cutting Edge News]. The company says that its nuclear system is safe and clean, as it produces no greenhouse gases, and claims the reactors will be ready for mass production in five years.

Hyperion’s chief executive, John Deal, says the company already has more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. “It’s leapfrog technology,” he said…. The first confirmed order came from TES, a Czech infrastructure company specialising in water plants and power plants. “They ordered six units and optioned a further 12. We are very sure of their capability to purchase,” said Deal. The first one, he said, would be installed in Romania. “We now have a six-year waiting list. We are in talks with developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas” [The Guardian].

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Encryption systems that rely on the “spooky” properties of quantum mechanics have long been hyped as the ultimate in spy- and hack-proof communication, and recently governments and large companies have begun sampling early examples of the technology. Now, scientists in Vienna have demonstrated a commercial telecommunications network protected by quantum cryptography, and say the system could be generally available in less than 10 years.

One of the researchers who worked out the basic idea behind quantum cryptography 25 years ago, Gilles Brassard, was on hand in Vienna to explain the mechanism. “All quantum security schemes are based on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, on the fact that you cannot measure quantum information without disturbing it,” he explained. “Because of that, one can have a communications channel between two users on which it’s impossible to eavesdrop without creating a disturbance. An eavesdropper would create a mark on it. That was the key idea” [BBC News].

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Engineers have designed a robotic spy plane that is modeled on the pterodactyls that swooped through the sky between 228 million to 65 million years ago, while dinosaurs tromped over the land below. Perhaps unsurprisingly, researchers say that their prototype is the first aircraft inspired by a pterosaur (the broader scientific name for all winged lizards).

Paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee partnered with engineer Rick Lind to design their “Pterodrone;” the two men say the work was driven in part by their admiration for the vesatility of pterosaurs. With lightweight bones and an intricate system of collagen fibers that strengthened their wings, [pterosaurs] ranged from the size of a sparrow to the size of a Cessna plane. “These animals take the best parts of bats and birds. They had the maneuverability of a bat but could glide like an albatross. Nothing alive today compares to the performance and agility of these animals” Chatterjee said [AP].

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The Supreme Court heard arguments today on whether environmental laws can be used to prevent the U.S. Navy from conducting sonar exercises off the coast of California, where some researchers believe the sonar could harm whales and other marine mammals. Last March, a federal judge strictly limited the sonar practice, but the Navy appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

The lower court’s order disrupts the Navy’s war-game exercises, which are “critical to the nation’s security,” said U.S. Solicitor Gen. Gregory Garre. He also disputed claims that the piercing sound of the sonar causes severe harm to the whales. But Los Angeles lawyer Richard B. Kendall described the sonar as like the sound of “a jet engine in this room multiplied by 2,000 times.” He said beaked whales, in panic, dive deeply to escape the sound, and they sometimes suffer bleeding and even death when they try to resurface [Los Angeles Times].

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A biotech company is developing an “ultrasonic tourniquet” that could be used to quickly staunch bleeding for soldiers in the battlefield. The company, Siemans Healthcare, announced that it has won a contract with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which hopes to have a prototype of the device in hand within 18 months.

The hope is that the device, known as the Deep Bleeder Acoustic Coagulation cuff (or DBAC), will be able to non-invasively clot blood vessels and stop internal bleeding from combat limb injuries - the leading preventable cause of death of soldiers in action. Longer term, Siemens believes the technology will also find applications in civilian care [Medical Physics Web].

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In a development that may pave the way for the invention of an “artificial nose,” researchers have found a way to mass-produce the odor receptors found in human nostrils. An artificial nose could have military applications: DARPA has taken an interest in the research, which it believes could lead to the development of tools to replace drug- and bomb-sniffing dogs [io9]. But the technology could eventually be used in medical diagnostics as well, as diseases like skin and bladder cancer have distinctive odors.

Many researchers worldwide are working on “E-noses”, which detect the same molecules that make up the scents we recognise…. However, while many rely on sensors constructed from artificial materials, the US researchers are working on a sensor with the biology of the human nose at its centre [BBC News].

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A physicist in Virginia has been arrested and charged with violating arms control laws by selling rocket technology information to China, which helped the country’s burgeoning space program. He has also been charged with bribing a Chinese official to win a contract for a company he represented. Quan-Sheng Shu, 68, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Shanghai, was arrested Wednesday morning and made an initial appearance that afternoon in U.S. District Court in Norfolk…. Shu appeared to be shaking and bewildered at his court appearance [Virginian-Pilot]. If convicted, Shu faces up to 25 years of jail time.

The arrest came at an awkward moment for the Chinese government, which spent today celebrating the successful launch of the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft carrying a full crew of three astronauts, one of whom will perform China’s first space walk in the coming days. While the technological data that Shu allegedly sold wasn’t used in the rocket that launched the Shenzhou 7, the juxtaposition of events undercuts the message the Chinese government hoped to broadcast today: that the country has come into its own as a mature, space-faring nation, and that it needs no outside assistance to achieve its goals.

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At a tense congressional hearing yesterday, FBI Director Robert Mueller announced that an independent panel will review the scientific evidence that the FBI says proves government scientist Bruce Ivins’ guilt in the anthrax mailings of 2001. As Ivins killed himself in August before he could be indicted, the FBI has been forced to present much of its evidence to the public and has received criticism from some scientific experts and lawmakers who say the FBI hasn’t proved its case.

At the hearing, Senator Pat Leahy (who was a target of the anthrax attacks) told Mueller categorically that he simply does not believe that Ivins was the prime culprit if he was a participant at all, and said he is absolutely convinced that there were others involved in the preparation and mailing of the anthrax [Salon blog]. Leahy argued that the biodefense facility where Ivins worked, Ft. Detrick, didn’t have the capacity to produce the strain of anthrax found in the letter that was sent to him.

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Military contractors have successfully fired a high-energy laser attached to a modified commercial aircraft, in a ground test that is a step towards testing the airborne laser system in flight. Boeing and Northrop Grumman are working on the system, which is intended to shoot down ballistic missiles.

The laser is in the back half of a Boeing 747-400F jumbo jet. Subsequent tests will increase duration and power before the beam is sent through a fire control system to a turret mounted in the nose of the aircraft [AP]. A long series of ground tests and flight tests will build up to an attempt to intercept and destroy a ballistic missile in flight; that test is scheduled for August 2009. The Defense Department has already spent $4 billion on the airborne laser system, and the final price tag is expected to reach $5 billion.

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It may not be a big market, but it’s presumably a lucrative one: To meet the needs of consumers who are in the business of transmitting classified national secrets, physicists are working on an absolutely secure communication system that uses the strange laws of quantum mechanics to encode information. The latest experiments in this field, called quantum cryptography, produced a system that researchers say would theoretically work to transmit information around the globe.

The system relies on a concept known as quantum entanglement to establish hack-proof communication. Entanglement allows two particles to be quantum-mechanically connected even when they are physically separated. Although the specific condition of either particle cannot be precisely known, taking measurements of one will instantly tell you something about the other. The trick can’t be used to actually send information, because each particle’s condition is random until it is measured. But entanglement can be used for encrypting data if a sender and a receiver make measurements on a number of entangled particles and then compare their results [Nature News].

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An unmanned, solar-powered plane has unofficially broken the record for the longest uninterrupted flight, staying aloft for 82 hours and 37 minutes; it flew through the nights by drawing energy from batteries that it recharged during the day. Engineers for the high-tech aircraft, the Zephyr, say that the three-day flight is just the beginning of what it can do. [T]he aircraft’s designers, at the defence firm QinetiQ, in the UK, think the plane could fly indefinitely. “We think the aircraft, in future, will be capable of weeks or months duration,” said Paul Davey [Guardian].

The flight was a demonstration for the U.S. military, which is interested in using the craft for reconnaissance and battlefield communications. But the Zephyr didn’t officially break the record for the longest flight because representatives from the world air sports federation weren’t on hand to observe the feat. The flight beats the current official world record [for an uncrewed flight] of 30 hours, 24 minutes set by the US robot plane Global Hawk in 2001 [Telegraph].

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Last weekend, teams of robots maneuvered through an urban warfare training course in southwest England, dodging sniper fire and swerving around roadside bombs. But this wasn’t a new television show featuring battling bots; the robots were competing in the the U.K. Ministry of Defence’s Grand Challenge, which spurred competitors to build autonomous spy robots.

The ministry is eager to develop uncrewed surveillance vehicles that can help the military identify enemy positions in a town or city before sending in troops. The MoD earmarked £4.5m to stage the contest and develop the technologies for the battlefield…. If future work goes well, the technology could be at the disposal of the army within 18 months [The Guardian].

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