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Homes were being evacuated early Monday morning after a train carrying hazardous materials derailed outside of Philadelphia. A 40-car CSX Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania just before 5 a.m. Monday, prompting emergency crews to respond to a suburban area of Whitemarsh Township. Between 15 and 20 of the derailed cars were carrying hazardous materials, prompting a Level 2 hazmat response, Fox 29 reported. Officials evacuated houses and businesses in the area of the derailment as a precaution early Monday morning, saying there was no known hazard to the public at this time. Photos of the derailment...

Jack Teixeira’s defense team said that their client no longer had access to classified material and the government was exaggerating the threat he posed. Jack Teixeira, the US airman accused of leaking top-secret Pentagon documents in an online chat forum, was slapped with additional federal charges on Thursday [June 15, 2023]. The charges are in addition to the two counts filed by prosecutors against Teixeira after his arrest in April.

The Biden White House is scrambling to conduct damage control as troves of classified materials about Russia and Ukraine were leaked online. Spokesperson John Kirby pleaded with the media not to cover these materials. That wasn’t heeded. But the overarching issue is mishandling classified materials and related leaks, which the liberal media tried to weaponize against Donald Trump when they raided Mar-a-Lago last summer. Then Joe Biden got caught leaving state secrets at multiple locations, including his Wilmington residence. The story met a quick death in the press and a slow-walking Department of Justice investigation that allegedly hung on the...

Visiting the Pantheon, one of Rome’s premier tourist sites, it’s hard not be humbled by the knowledge that this building has lasted 1900 years and still stands as the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, while modern concrete structures deteriorate. Take a look at the magnificence of the Pantheon.Photo credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 licensePhoto credit: Macrons CC BY-SA 4.0 licensePhoto credit: Anthony Majanlahti CC BY 2.0 licenseThe Romans’ concrete technology was lost for almost a millennium as the Dark Ages unfolded, and Europe regressed technologically and economically. The discovery of Roman manuscripts on making concrete in 1414 sparked gradual reintroduction of...

While China has been relentlessly pursuing self-reliance when it comes to raw materials -- especially strategic ones such as titanium, tungsten and cobalt, which are used in the defense industry -- the US for the past several decades has been selling off huge chunks of the strategic minerals stockpile to the extent that the National Defense Stockpile is reportedly reaching insolvency. By comparison, China, as of 2020, was the world's third-largest exporter of titanium, while the US was the number one destination for the Chinese titanium exports. It is China's growing influence in Africa, especially through its Belt and Road...

Retired CIA director Mike Hayden tweeted his agreement with a British journalist’s claim on Wednesday that the Republican Party is the most “nihilistic, dangerous and contemptible” political force he had seen in the world.On Wednesday, Financial Times columnist Edward Luce tweeted, “I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.”Hayden shared Luce’s tweet, adding, “I agree. And I was the CIA Director.”Hayden’s comment follows a swipe he took at former President Donald Trump last week following the FBI raid on...

The interface between the hydrogel (left-hand side) and the PDMS (on the right-hand side). Engineers have developed a new material that mimics human cartilage—the body's shock absorbing and lubrication system, and it could herald the development of a new generation of lightweight bearings. Cartilage is a soft fibrous tissue found around joints which provides protection from the compressive loading generated by walking, running or lifting. It also provides a protective, lubricating layer allowing bones to pass over one another in a frictionless way. For years, scientists have been trying to create a synthetic material with the properties of cartilage....

You might call it a giant leap for 3D bioprinting: Human heart cells have been 3D printed on the International Space Station (ISS) and are making their way back to Earth this week inside a SpaceX capsule. The 3D BioFabrication Facility (BFF) was developed by Techshot Inc., a commercial operator of microgravity research and manufacturing equipment, in partnership with nScrypt, a manufacturer of industrial 3D bioprinters and electronics printers. “Our BFF has the potential to transform human healthcare in ways not previously possible,” said Techshot President and CEO John Vellinger. ”We’re laying the foundation for an entire industry in space.”...

When you walk around a Maker Faire, you’re likely to see a wide variety of 3D printers, though if you look at the basic construction, you’ll find there are usually only two main types on people’s tables. There are cartesian (with a gantry at right angles) and delta (the ones with three arms holding the print head). Sure, there are a few others that appear from time to time, but these two dominate the landscape. Cel-Robox has teamed up with M-Solv to create a new entity called Q5D Technologies to push new manufacturing technologies, such as this one that caught...

If Elon Musk’s Boring Company succeeds, the fantasy of slipping into a pod and being whisked from Washington, D.C. to New York City in less than 30 minutes may become a reality. As startling as that might be, such transformational projects are nothing new. Think of how Americans of a half-century ago felt once the national interstate highway system was complete and a cross-country road trip shortened from two weeks to five days. Infrastructure improvements in the U.S. – such as the interstate system, built in the 1950s and 1960s, the first transcontinental railway in the 1860s, and the Erie...

Simple processes can make wood tough, impact-resistant—or even transparent Some varieties of wood, such as oak and maple, are renowned for their strength. But scientists say a simple and inexpensive new process can transform any type of wood into a material stronger than steel, and even some high-tech titanium alloys. Besides taking a star turn in buildings and vehicles, the substance could even be used to make bullet-resistant armor plates. Wood is abundant and relatively low-cost—it literally grows on trees. And although it has been used for millennia to build everything from furniture to homes and larger structures, untreated wood...

Remote-controlled robots will journey to the bottom of the ocean in search of copper, nickel, cobalt, gold, and platinum as global demand for minerals surges. The world's first deep-sea mining operation will kick off in early 2019 when a Canadian firm, Nautilus Minerals Inc., lowers a trio of massive remote-controlled mining robots to the floor of the Bismarck Sea off the coast of Papua New Guinea in pursuit of rich copper and gold reserves. The machines, each the size of a small house, are equipped with rock-crushing teeth resembling the large incisors of a dinosaur. The robots will lumber across...

Justice Department officials delivered materials to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Friday in connection to President Trump's claim that the Obama administration had his campaign headquarters wiretapped. "The Department of Justice has complied with the request from leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and Judiciary Committees seeking information related to surveillance during the 2016 election," Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores told CNN.

A young Emirati and a UAE based American nuclear chemist have developed what they claim is 'the next big thing in technology.' Mohammed Al Fahim, 29, and Dr. Lary A Burchfield, 65 - both working for the Nawah Energy Corporation - claimed their new theory of combining graphite with diamond has led to the discovery of a new molecule that acts like a semi-conductor. "Building a computer out of this will make the machine a millions times more powerful. Hence the discovery has the potential to change human lives," said Dr. Burchfield, Head of Environmental Radiochemistry Lab, at Nawah. He...

"The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (AFRCO) are investigating an experimental propulsion system on the X-37B on Mission 4," Capt. Chris Hoyler, an Air Force spokesman, told Space.com via email. "AFRCO will also host a number of advance materials onboard the X-37B for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to study the durability of various materials in the space environment," Hoyler added ... The Air Force owns two X-37B space planes, both of which were built by Boeing's Phantom Works division. The solar-powered spacecraft are about...

It seems that on a monthly basis, there is a new development in the speed and quality of graphene production, be it with copper substrates, or using it to create the strongest material known to humankind. Yet despite these regular developments, little progress has been made in producing the so-called wonder material faster and cheaper to the point that it can be mass-produced. However, the latest development from Kansas State University (KSU) is certainly taking graphene to a new, explosive level of development. Unlike current production methods that rely on large industrial-scale equipment, the KSU team led by Prof Chris...

Once again, graphene has proven itself to be a rather special material: an international research team led by Professor Fritz Aumayr from the Institute of Applied Physics at TU Wien was able to demonstrate that the electrons in graphene are extremely mobile and react very quickly. Impacting xenon ions with a particularly high electric charge on a graphene film causes a large number of electrons to be torn away from the graphene in a very precise spot. However, the material was able to replace the electrons within some femtoseconds. This resulted in extremely high currents, which would not be maintained...

Through studying the geometry of strong structures, MIT researchers are now one step closer to 3D printing graphene. By comparison, 2D graphene is better at conducting electricity than copper wires, ten times stronger than steel, and lighter and certainly more transparent than both of them. The problem is that these properties as are all theoretical and scaling the nanomaterial has proved challenging. Furthermore, in order to compete with copper and steel, graphene has to be 3D. 3D graphene – here’s the deal The challenges of making a 3D structure out of a 2D material is that the material’s atomic structure,...

He has said that the wall would be built from precast concrete and steel and that it could be 50 feet tall, if not higher. After calling for it to extend across the entire 2,000-mile southern border, he more recently said half that length could be sufficient because of natural barriers. He has pegged the cost at $4 billion to $12 billion, most recently settling on around $10b. Some see that as low. “There’s a lot of logistics involved in this, and I don’t know how thoroughly they’ve thought it out,” said Todd Sternfeld, chief executive of Superior Concrete, a...

Jeffrey Grossman thinks we've been looking at coal all wrong. Instead of just setting it afire, thus ignoring the molecular complexity of this highly varied material, he says, we should be harnessing the real value of that diversity and complex chemistry. Coal could become the basis for solar panels, batteries, or electronic devices, he and his research team say. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-04-electronics-coal.html#jCp