🪳 China drones with metal-cutting lasers, nuclear reactors to power moon colony, cockroaches become cyborgs

A research team led by Chinese scientist “Crazy Li” has equipped small drones with the ability to emit powerful metal-cutting laser beams—a feat once thought impossible.

The research envisions a scenario where a single small drone could confront a squad of fully armed soldiers by emitting a near-infrared laser 200 million times more powerful than a beam of 1080 nanometres wavelength, capable of causing blindness with just five microwatts of power.

Such power is sufficient to vaporize subcutaneous fat on contact and cut through metal, according to findings published by Li Xiao and his team from the National University of Defence Technology of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Delve deeper into our Must-Read.

🔥Today’s job of the day as featured on jobs.interestingengineering.com:

> Cloud Software Engineer - AI Trainer
> Associate Director of Generative AI Platform Engineering

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MUST-READ

🦾 China: Drones equipped with new tech to emit metal-cutting laser beams

In his recent research, the Chinese scientist tackled what was once considered impossible: generating a laser beam with a long kill range that typically requires truck-sized equipment. Conventional wisdom dictated that a small platform, such as a consumer drone, could never carry such a high-powered laser weapon or the energy supply it demands, the South China Morning Post reported.

Li and his colleagues overcame this limitation by inventing a compact, lightweight device that enables drones to receive powerful laser beams from the ground and redirect them toward enemy targets with precision.

To overcome weight and size limits, the drone reflects a laser sent from the ground onto the target. This boosts the drone’s laser power to 30kW or more and allows the beam to bend around obstacles like buildings, striking targets at their weakest points.

🌕 Italy kicks off project to develop small nuclear reactors to power moon settlements

Italy has kicked off a new project to start developing small nuclear fission reactors. The project aims to power settlements on the moon using these reactors.

Called the Selene project, the initiative by Italy’s national space agency, ASI, focuses on developing the Moon Energy Hub (MEnH), which would provide a stable energy source for future lunar settlements using small nuclear fission reactors called Surface Nuclear Reactors (SNRs).

The Selene project was among the winners of the ASI funding call in 2023 for developing alternative energy solutions for the moon.

🦠 Cockroaches turned into cyborgs in just 68 seconds with new automated machine

Researchers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have developed a special machine to turn cockroaches into cyborg roaches automatically. This new machine can fit portable stimulation and communication electronics onto a single cockroach in just over a minute.

The “cyborgized” cockroaches can be remotely controlled, opening up possibilities for specialized tasks like search and rescue. According to the researchers, the process does not harm the cockroaches, and the process could be scaled up to “convert” cockroaches en masse.

The electronic “backpack” applied to each cockroach enables users to influence their behavior (notably direction) through electronic stimulation of their antennae. How this backpack kit works varies, but stimulating the left or right antenna, for example, can “force” the cockroach to head in that direction.

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