Wired world is increasingly vulnerable to coronal ejections

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), were presented with a challenge at the start of 2012: get their parties to agree to cut $1.2 trillion from the budget and deal with a series of tax extensions. Failing meant a likely recession caused by inaction, and election-year inertia only raised the stakes.

Astronomers using NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia), a highly modified Boeing 747SP that carries a 100-in.-dia. IR telescope, have created a series of multiple exposures revealing a ring of gas and dust created in a burst of energy 4-6 million years ago at the center of the Milky Way.

Marillyn Hewson joined the old Lockheed Corp. in 1983

Active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radars have transformed military aviation, providing significantly greater multi-mode capability and reliability. Now the technology is moving into the land and sea domains. Thales's APAR active phased-array radar is already operational on frigates with three European navies, and the DDG-1000, the U.S. Navy's first AESA-equipped warship, will launch in 2013 fitted with Raytheon's SPY-3 radar.

The Transportation Security Administration is commissioning a study about whether the X-ray body scanners used to screen passengers at airports emit too much radiation. The study also will evaluate whether the design and maintenance of machines that use X-ray technology could prevent over-exposure to harmful radiation. The safety of X-ray screening machines was called into question in a 2011 report by ProPublica, a non-profit investigative news group, which suggested that up to 100 U.S. airline passengers per year could contract cancer from airport screenings.

It has been called the most significant advance in jet engines since the turbofan: development of variable-cycle “third stream” engines with 25% lower specific fuel consumption than today's fighter powerplants. General Electric and Rolls-Royce will ground-test demonstrator engines in 2013, and GE and Pratt & Whitney are under contract to mature the technology and test new adaptive-fan engine designs in 2016. In addition to the high-pressure core and low-pressure bypass streams of a conventional turbofan, these variable-bypass engines have a third, outer flowpath.

General Electric has confirmed it will purchase Italian aero engine specialist Avio SpA from Cinven, a European private equity firm, and government-owned defense group Finmeccanica for €3.3 billion ($4.36 billion).