Latin America's deadliest earthquakes
https://redd.it/1uglasb
@r_mapporn

Two Empty Aircraft Carriers

The USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier has been moved to within 250 kilometers of Iran’s coastline and Hypersonic, anti-ship missiles — with NO DESTROYER ESCORTS to protect it. A SECOND Aircraft Carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush (our newest carrier) has now taken up a position even CLOSER to Iran’s coastline: 170 kilometers from Iran’s […]

https://voxday.net/2026/07/10/two-empty-aircraft-carriers/

Present-day merchant shipping density in the world's oceans
https://redd.it/1uhg4rg
@r_mapporn

NEW: 🇺🇸🇮🇷🇨🇭 Axios reports that U.S.-Iran talks are scheduled for next week in Switzerland

Iran says there won’t be any talks

@Megatron_ron

In the Lord of the Rings films, most of the Riders of Rohan were actually women with fake beards because when the production put out a call for local experienced riders, a lot of women showed up with their own horses.

Did you know? 🎓

☢️ 🇺🇸 🔋 Lightweight cells powered by nuclear waste could drive tomorrow's drones

DARPA program aims to create a 30-year battery minimally viable prototype by early 2027.

“Solar cells directly convert sunlight into electricity…Ours directly convert radiation into electricity,” said Stafford Sheehan, CEO and founder of Project Omega, which describes their radioisotope power sources as mini-generators that replace traditional batteries.

The power cells could be used in “any application where a battery dying is a pain point,” Sheehan said. “One example is on satellites: if you lose power on a satellite, you lose the satellite, it's gone…if your batteries die and you don't have any sort of backup power.”

“At a high level, we take nuclear waste, we recycle it into two products: one is fuel for reactors…the other are power isotopes, so isotopes you can use to power things,” Sheehan said.

Radioisotope power sources have been used in everything from smoke detectors to space systems. But Project Omega hopes to do it on a larger scale.

“There are over 100,000 metric tons of nuclear waste sitting in the 52 reactor sites around the country; so there's plenty of nuclear waste currently. The federal government gets sued for billions of dollars every year just because they haven't dealt with the nuclear waste,” Sheehan said. “It's very valuable to have a battery that lasts.”

Omega’s power cells consist of a solid state, or “chunk,” of isotope that will be layered with the semiconductor to generate power. They also work in extreme temperatures—something that would benefit military operations using unmanned systems in harsh environments.

“We have been using these radioisotope power systems in space for decades,” Sheehan said. “We're just taking the systems that we use for space and we're using a different isotope,” Strontinum-90, which is less hazardous than the Plutonium-238 isotopes used in similar systems.

“Over the next 18 months, the program will focus on reducing technical risk, testing system performance under realistic conditions, and generating the data needed to inform future development and transition pathways,” a PNNL official wrote in a statement to Defense One. “Key challenges include improving energy conversion efficiency, validating long-term reliability, managing radiation effects, and ensuring safe, secure handling and deployment.”

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2026/07/these-light-weight-power-cells-run-nuclear-waste-and-could-power-next-gen-drones/414585/

👌 🇺🇸 🇳🇴 1X unveils the new humanoid hand for NEO

- 25 degrees of freedom: 22 fully actuated in the fingers and palm, plus 3 at the wrist.
- The DoF are distributed anatomically rather than evenly, deliberately biased toward a thumb that genuinely opposes the fingers.
- In-house tendon-driven, quasi-direct-drive running low gear ratios of ~5:1 to 15:1 vs the typical 100:1–200:1.
- Motors live in the forearm and pull tendons through the wrist. This keeps the hand light and its inertia low while producing high forces.

Sensing

- All 25 DoF are natively force-controlled and fully backdrivable. Every joint doubles as a force sensor.
- Very important, closed-loop proprioception: it always knows its own pose and effort without looking.
- Tactile skin across the fingertips and surfaces measuring contact and shear. This helps with adaptive gripping in real time.

Safety and durability

- IP68 waterproof and food-safe, so it can wash its own hands.
- Compliant by construction: the low gear ratios, tendon drive, and low distal inertia let external impacts safely backdrive the fingers. It yields when hit by a hammer or caught in a drawer.
- Full finger assemblies validated to millions of cycles.

Manufacturing

- Deep vertical integration: in-house motors, custom electronics, and tendon systems.
- Hundreds built already, with capacity to produce 10,000 hands this year.

"An API to the Physical World"

📎 The Humanoid Hub