5th generation fighter planes from Gizmodo on Vimeo I have written several pieces on the ongoing debate and upcoming decisions by the U.S. on the acquisition of additional F-22 Raptor combat aircraft and on both the U.S and other nations’ plans to join in or to continue to participate in the development and purchase of the upcoming F-35 Lightning II aircraft. Those debates continue. Recently, members...

Human stem cells undergo division. The global reaction to President Obama’s decision to increase the amount of federal of federal funding is pouring in – and it reveals something quite surprising: Continental European bans on stem cell research are more strict than they were in George W. Bush’s America; and with America set to go full-bore into stem-cell research, the pressure is growing elsewhere...

This is the kind of corporate transaction that could negatively impact the American brand name. Genentech is an amazing story and an amazing company, but I would like it to stay an amazing American-owned company. I’m happy for the business that they have such an offer, but here we are in an economic crisis, complaining about outsourcing jobs and manufacturing, as well as importing more than we export, and...

I love Grand Central! Leena Rao at Tech Crunch: The basic idea around GrandCentral is “one phone number for all your phones, for life.” Grand Central gives you one phone number that can access all your numbers, whether they be cell, home, mobile, and work numbers; the GrandCentral numbers stay the same, as many of these number change over the course of a user’s lifetime. Here’s our quick and dirty guide...

The video above is The Daily Show’s Samantha Bee visiting with Colin Angle, the CEO and co-founder of Roomba maker, iRobot. Angle says, “it’s inevitable that there will be armed robots.” His company is set to receive $286 million to build some. The other day I embedded video of the Boston Dynamics “Big Dog” war robot. As counterpoint, I quoted P. W. Singer from a January 22 Fresh...

Maybe… Stephen Wolfram is a brilliant but controversial figure. He earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Caltech in 1979 and, in 1988, launched Mathematica, a computational software program used widely in scientific, engineering, and mathematical fields and other areas of technical computing. In 2002, Wolfram published A New Kind of Science. Wolfram’s latest project is set to be unveiled in...

The video above is from the Army news channel “Live Fire” Benning Report on the Boston Dynamics “Big Dog” robot.  Host Amy Gunn of the Fort Benning Public Affairs Office breathlessly tells us that the robotics revolution is here: Since 9/11 the army has effectively employed thousands of flying robots like the Raven [link] and the Predator [link] and ground-based robots like the Talon...

Here’s the shortest blog I ever wrote. I have two words for President Obama rescinding Bush’s ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research today. It’s an expression in Latin. Laudate deum.

President Barack Obama Monday is expected to fulfill a campaign promise by rescinding federal funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. It’s expected to reopen a moral debate which could become more divisive than the ideological political confrontation over rescuing the economy. For me it’s a no-brainer. Diabetes has ravaged my body for a quarter century. Extended research jump started...

“We have a feeling like we’re about to set sail across an ocean to discover a new world. It’s sort of the same feeling Columbus or Magellan must have had.” So spoke NASA JPL project manager Jim Fanson this week as a Delta II rocket carried the Kepler spacecraft into orbit. For all of us who misspent much of our youth reading novels by Isaac Asimov and dreaming of worlds orbiting distant...

A roundup looks at the issue here.

It seems we had a “close encounter” of the potentially nasty kind this week. An asteroid of approximately forty yards diameter zoomed past the Earth this week, coming within 40,000 miles. It may sound like a long ways away, but this is roughly twice the orbit of our geosynchronous satellites and only one seventh of the distance to the moon. In cosmic terms, that’s about as close to a bulls-eye...

No, not that. This: A funky, psychedelic fish that bounces on the ocean floor like a rubber ball has been classified as a new species, a scientific journal reported…. The fish — which the University of Washington professor has named “psychedelica” — is a member of the antennariid genus, Histiophryne, and like other frogfish, has fins on both sides of its body that have evolved to be leg-like. Video...

First Al Gore invented the internet. Then President Barack Obama invented hope and change. And now he proudly claimed in his address to the joint session of Congress: I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it. None of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy. But this is America. We don’t do what’s easy. Apparently Americans invented everything, including...

When the Stimulus package included some “Buy America” language the world was outraged. Free Trade, Free Trade was the clear message. The omitted question is, “What do you mean by Free Trade?” In my opinion, to have truly Free and Fair Trade, the definition must have two parts: 1. Goods and services can be traded across borders without government impediment; and 2. The producers of those goods are subject...

Is a new offensive weapon slipping under the new and old media — and politicians’ — radar? The potential weapon: cyber-attacks. Top centrist writer John Avlon, writing on his blog in The Daily Beast: Kyrgyzstan. The name of the landlocked central Asian republic doesn’t roll off the tongue. But it might have just provided the first evidence of cyberattacks’ success in changing international...

Last month TMV launched a “bailout” (fundraiser) to try and raise $900 to cover some needed tech work and contribute to less than half the cost of a laptop, since much of what I write on this site is done via laptop while I travel and my five-year-old Dell was dying. The fundraiser has only raised a small part of what was needed (so it’ll resume Monday and be extended for a few more weeks in...

FOR GOD’S SAKE, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY – LET’S GET RID OF “QWERTY”!! by Marc Pascal Why do computers still have keyboards? They represent a quaint vestige of their predecessor typewriters that were invented 130 years ago. The “qwerty” keyboard was patented by Christopher Latham Sholes under U.S. Patent #207,559 issued on August 27, 1878. The original patent did not even include separate...

This report from the Government Accountability Office says it does. Steve Kolowich: The country’s 28 veterinary colleges combine to graduate 2,500 new professionals each year, the report says, but that limited corps of veterinarians is failing to meet the nationwide demand for animal-health specialists, especially those who “care for animals raised for food, serve in rural communities, and have training...

Next month NASA will launch the new Kepler Telescope and the goal is an ambitious one. We’re finally going to start the process of identifying stars with potentially Earth-like planets orbiting them. According to projections at a recent conference, they might not be as rare as once thought. There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard. Dr Alan Boss of the...

BBC: Russian and US satellites collide US and Russian communications satellites have collided in space in what is thought to be the biggest incident of its kind to date. The US commercial Iridium spacecraft hit a defunct Russian satellite at an altitude of about 800km (500 miles) over Siberia on Tuesday, Nasa said.

More here and here. Speculating about its impact on the smart meter industry here.

While many celebrate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, it’s easy to forget that another historical figure shares the same anniversary. It’s also the birthday of Charles Darwin. (Pictured here in one of his lesser known research projects, “The Development of Insect Colonies in Really Bushy, Unkempt Beards.”) The celebration at the Darwin home might be a bit more muted today were...

  Just for those of you in an area without clouds, a new comet is expected to grace the skies over the coming weeks. While it won’t be visible to the naked eye in suburban or urban areas, it will be seen in less crowded areas. It also can be seen in with binoculars or a small telescope.  So check it out.

I think that moving off of a petroleum based economy is the biggest challenge in the next 50 years and will determine whether we stagnate or are prosperous. Unfortunately, I think the issue has become politicized to such an extent that many people believe we have the technology now and it’s just a matter of willpower (and money). This is actually not the case. The New Scientist points out that renewable...