It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a UFO . . . it’s a drone?

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a UFO . . . it’s a drone?

[There have been few UFO sightings in recent years, with the exception of India (see one example below). But there has been a dramatic increase in the number of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).] The Indian Air Force, and security agencies at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, have been put on alert for aerial threats […]

Secret Area 6, near Area 51, uses controlled airspace to test airborne sensors

Secret Area 6, near Area 51, uses controlled airspace to test airborne sensors

As secret airbases go, the single runway in the test site’s Area 6 is easily overshadowed by the world’s most famous secret military base, Area 51, a dozen miles northeast. Area 51’s existence was only recently acknowledged, even after decades of speculation by UFO enthusiasts that the aircraft development and test facility also houses space […]

Saturn with moons Dione and Enceladus, courtesy of a Cassini fly-by

Saturn with moons Dione and Enceladus, courtesy of a Cassini fly-by

[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute] [This is] Dione, and it’s a moon of Saturn. The robotic Cassini spacecraft took the featured image during a flyby of Saturn’s cratered Moon last month. Perhaps what makes this image so interesting, though, is the background. First, the large orb looming behind Dione […]

Mystery solved: Obama staff says telecommuter in chief and teleprompter can lead from anywhere

Mystery solved: Obama staff says telecommuter in chief and teleprompter can lead from anywhere

President Obama went back to his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard Tuesday evening following less than 48 hours in Washington, leaving people puzzled over why he came back in the first place. … Administration officials have insisted for weeks that the president just wanted to return to the White House for a series of meetings, but […]

As old soldiers fade away, here come robots that ‘perform more ethically’

As old soldiers fade away, here come robots that ‘perform more ethically’

The Office of Naval Research will award $7.5 million in grant money over five years to university researchers from Tufts, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Brown, Yale and Georgetown to explore how to build a sense of right and wrong and moral consequence into autonomous robotic systems. “Even though today’s unmanned systems are ‘dumb’ in comparison to […]