Cutting Edge

A Chinese Long March-2F rocket successfully boosted an unmanned Shenzhou capsule into orbit today for an automated rendezvous and docking with a prototype space station module, a key milestone in China's drive to build an operational station later this decade.

The towering Long March, equipped with four liquid-fueled strap-on boosters, ignited with a flash at 5:58 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) and quickly climbed away from its pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in north central China.

The launch was carried live by Chinese television and nine minutes after takeoff, a camera mounted on the spacecraft showed the … Read more

Here's some bone-chilling news: The chance of breaking a bone increases significantly after age 50, especially for women. We know bones lose mass as they age. However, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory says what makes them become brittle is more complicated than that.

Robert Ritchie, a materials scientist at the lab, is trying to figure out why bones break so easily in older adults. While a lot of work has been done looking at the loss of quantity of bone, Ritchie and his team are focusing on another issue: quality. Specifically, how bones deteriorate. SmartPlanet interviewed Ritchie … Read more

Science fact often follows science fiction. Hence, the U.S. Army is funding development of a Terminator-style robot soldier.

Boston Dynamics has released new video of its Petman robot and its resemblance to the T-800 is uncanny.

The vid below shows the anthropomorphic bot (aka the Protection Ensemble Test Mannequin) walking on a treadmill, doing squats, and pumping out push-ups without breaking a sweat. All it needs is a metal skull head and a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range.

The maker of the notorious BigDog and AlphaDog quadruped bots says Petman is just "an anthropomorphic robot for testing chemical protection clothing used by the U.S. Army."

The droid, scheduled for delivery next year, is supposed to go through various maneuvers wearing a suit and taking heavy doses of chemical warfare agents. Roughly 6 feet tall, it will also mimic human physiology, generating heat and sweating for added realism. … Read more

China is stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing efforts and using domestic chips for its latest supercomputer. It's going to be interesting to see how fast China can close in on U.S. supercomputer processor makers Intel, AMD, and Nvidia.

The New York Times reported that a supercomputer called Sunway BlueLight MPP, was installed in September at the National Supercomputer Center in Jinan, China. The details emerged at a technical meeting. The real catch is that China used 8,700 ShenWei SW1600 chips.

Those semiconductors are homegrown and indicate that China is aiming to be a major chip player. The … Read more

At UC Berkeley's Geospatial Innovation Facility software developers are building a Web-based mapping tool to help scientists prepare for the changing climate conditions in California.

The team has culled data from various climate research organizations to project what different climates might look like over a 150-year period. SmartPlanet visited the lab to see a demo of how the tool works.

This video first appeared at SmartPlanet under the headline "Mapping tool models climate change in California."

After years of waiting, Boeing's 787 Dreamliner is finally flying passengers.

With an All Nippon Airways charter flight yesterday from Tokyo to Hong Kong the Dreamliner commercial era began, and not a moment too soon.

As anyone who follows aviation knows, the new airplane is one of the most anticipated in history, largely because it is made from composite materials and promises airline customers better fuel efficiency than almost any other plane in the sky. But while excitement for the aircraft is high, there is also a lot of eyes on it because of the fact that it has … Read more

The buy one, give one model is branching out. SmartPlanet's Sumi Das shares how shoemaker Freewaters is improving drinking water standards in Africa.

This video first appeared on SmartPlanet under the headline "Flip-flops help fight water scarcity."

LONDON--Multitouch revolutionized user interfaces, and if Nokia researchers get their way, a mobile device that's sensitive to how it's being flexed could be the next revolution.

At the Nokia World show here, the Finnish mobile phone maker showed off its "Nokia kinetic device" with a flexible display. Gripped with two hands, it would scroll through music collections or photo albums when twisted. Bowing it inward or outward zoomed photos in and out or paused and played music, while tapping the corners panned through photos.

While it was a real computing device with a real OLED display, … Read more

TOKYO--Boeing's long-delayed 787 Dreamliner jet finally began commercial service here today, taking off from Tokyo's Narita airport at 12:42 p.m. on a charter flight to Hong Kong with some 230 passengers.

Operator All Nippon Airways (ANA) will have seven Dreamliners in its fleet by the end of December, ANA President Shinichiro Ito told those attending a press conference marking the event, which included a ceremonial breaking of a barrel of sake.

After receipt in September, ANA is the first airline to operate the plane, billed as the first to be made mostly of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic. ANA will start regular 787 services November 1, linking Tokyo with regional Japanese cities Okayama and Hiroshima, and long-haul Europe services with a flight to Frankfurt on January 21.

Boeing has called the much-ballyhooed Dreamliner "the first all-new airplane of the 21st century." It's supposed to use up to 20 percent less fuel than earlier generations of Boeing jets because about half of its main structure is made of composite materials. … Read more