Now I have added a Facebook and LInkedin page for Feral Jundi. I think that is about all I will do. Oh, and on the Facebook page, I made a Feral Jundi application for the blog. It is pretty cool, and anyone can download it on their Facebook page if they want.
Oh, and I also added those to the button list to the right of this post. Just click on any of those buttons, and it will take you right to a Feral Jundi page. –Head Jundi
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Interesting stuff. We’ll see how this develops over the years, and I could see some really interesting applications of technologies like this in the security industry. Imagine having a uniform that you could wear, that would be made of this kind of material? Although I imagine it would be some heavy material to wear as a uniform. But for vehicles and equipment, this could be pretty cool. –Head Jundi
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Invisibility cloak one step closer, scientists say
Sun Aug 10, 2008 6:54pm EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have created two new types of materials that can bend light the wrong way, creating the first step toward an invisibility cloaking device.
One approach uses a type of fishnet of metal layers to reverse the direction of light, while another uses tiny silver wires, both at the nanoscale level.
Both are so-called metamaterials — artificially engineered structures that have properties not seen in nature, such as negative refractive index.
The two teams were working separately under the direction of Xiang Zhang of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center at the University of California, Berkeley with U.S. government funding. One team reported its findings in the journal Science and the other in the journal Nature.
I love stuff like this. Wether or not it delivers the goods, who knows? But I really think a device like this could make the job of the troops out in the field a little bit easier. I do have some reservations about totally depending on such a device, but if used in conjunction with other evidence collected, these kinds of technologies can help in separating the bad guys from the good guys.
This would have been great at the various ECP’s I have had to run. But contractors being authorized to use such a tool might be a little sticky. There are certain situations though, where something like this could be nice. Like screening your guard force for one. I have been on sites where new guards are streaming into the base on a daily basis. Things like biometrics and this device could help to keep tabs on screening your guard force. But yet again, it always boils down to cost, and the various companies out there can be pretty stingy.
At this time, I have not heard of any companies using the PCASS. Although it would not surprise me that there are a few playing around with such a device. –Head Jundi
The PCASS in action.
New U.S. weapon: Hand-held lie detector
U.S. troops in Afghanistan first to get new device; ‘red’ means you’re lying
By Bill Dedman
Investigative reporter
updated 3:00 a.m. PT, Wed., April. 9, 2008
FORT JACKSON, S.C. – The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph.
The Defense Department says the portable device isn’t perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing. The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well. “We’re not promising perfection — we’ve been very careful in that,” said Donald Krapohl, special assistant to the director at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment, the midwife for the new device. “What we are promising is that, if it’s properly used, it will improve over what they are currently doing.”
But the lead author of a national study of the polygraph says that American military men and women will be put at risk by an untested technology. “I don’t understand how anybody could think that this is ready for deployment,” said statistics professor Stephen E. Fienberg, who headed a 2003 study by the National Academy of Sciences that found insufficient scientific evidence to support using polygraphs for national security. “Sending these instruments into the field in Iraq and Afghanistan without serious scientific assessment, and for use by untrained personnel, is a mockery of what we advocated in our report.”
Now mount a M 240 to this thing, and you have a party. Could you imagine going down the streets in Baghdad with this thing, and especially if it was faster, quiet, and well armored? LOL!! -Head Jundi
Very cool news. A portable refinery would be very nice in Iraq and elswhere. Imagine being able to convert the trash and any locally bought oil, into fuel for the rigs on your site? Kind of cool, and might actually save a little money and some lives, if they can reduce fuel convoys with this. Something to watch I guess. -Head Jundi
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Tactical biorefineries go to Iraq
By David Ehrlich
Published April 29, 2008 – 7:46am
Transporting fuel to military base camps is a dangerous job for soldiers, but a new biorefinery from the U.S. Army’s research and development center could cut down on the need for some of those fuel convoys, which are often targets in war zones.
The Army’s two prototypes of the Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery, or TGER, are shipping out to Victory Base Camp in Baghdad today for a 90 day test of the units under extreme working conditions.
The refineries, which can take in food slop, plastic, paper and styrofoam and output synthetic gas or hydrous ethanol, were developed by McLean, Va.-based defense contractor Defense Life Sciences, Purdue University and the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland.
“It actually hits about 130 degrees there in August,” said James Valdes, the scientific advisor for biotechnology at the Edgewood center, to Cleantech.com about Baghdad.
He said the TGERs, pronounced “tigers,” should be back stateside by then, but there will still be plenty of heat and other challenges for the biorefineries before the testing is done.
“I was there about a month ago. Every afternoon, as the wind kicks up — gets all the sand and dust in the air — very fine dust gets into everything,” said Valdes. (more…)
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