Jan 19, 8:26 PM EST

Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- A Civil War revolver that was stolen more than 30 years ago from the Museum of the Confederacy has turned up again.
Collections Manager Catherine Wright tells WTVR-TV that the .36-caliber Spiller & Burr revolver was stolen in 1975 when the museum collection was moved to a new building.
A woman in Knoxville, Tenn., discovered the gun in December in her late father's belongings. She tried to sell it to an Ohio antique dealer who traced the gun to the museum.
WTVR reports that the woman's father collected Civil War items. It's not known how he came into possession of the gun. The woman will not face charges.
Wright says the Spiller & Burr revolver was one of the first Confederate-manufactured handguns. This one has an estimated value of $50,000.
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Information from: WTVR-TV, http://www.wtvr.com/

Breakthrough Laser Could Revolutionize Navy's Weaponry


Published January 20, 2011 | FoxNews.com
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The Navy has passed a major milestone in its quest to build an incredibly powerful new anti-aircraft gun.
Scientists with the Navy's Office of Naval Research have demonstrated a prototype system capable of producing from thin air the electrons needed to generate ultrapowerful, "megawatt-class" laser beams for the agency's next-generation system.
"The injector performed as we predicted all along," said Dinh Nguyen, senior project leader for the Free Electron Laser (FEL) program at the Los Alamos National Lab, N.M. "But until now, we didn't have the evidence to support our models. We were so happy to see our design, fabrication and testing efforts finally come to fruition."
He said the group is hoping to set a world record with the futuristic new weapon -- which could be the Holy Grail of military lasers.
FEL technology generates powerful laser beams by passing a stream of electrons -- those tiny, charged particles of matter -- through magnetic fields. Using electrons means avoiding the hassle of chemical fuels that are required for ordinary gas lasers, and bypassing the heating issue of electronic lasers.
FEL lasers can also be calibrated more specifically for anti-aircraft purposes, the Navy said, to adjust for precipitation, cloud cover, or humidity.
Quentin Saulter, FEL program manager for the Navy's research arm, said the implications of the FEL's progress are monumental. "This is a major leap forward for the program and for FEL technology throughout the Navy," Saulter said. "The fact that the team is nine months ahead of schedule provides us plenty of time to reach our goals by the end of 2011."
The research team hopes to have a full-power prototype by 2018, which would have the ability to instantly blast targets in the sky.
Navy ships have become vulnerable in modern times to supersonic missiles because of their slower defense systems, the agency worries. "The FEL is expected to provide future U.S. Naval forces with a near-instantaneous laser ship defense in any maritime environment throughout the world,” Saulter said.
Moreover, because future ships may very well use a form of electronic propulsion, there would be a readily available supply of electrons to power the raygun.
Originally invented by John Madey in 1976 at Stanford University, the project was picked up and pursued by the ONR in the 1980s -- and may finally become a reality.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/...al-power/print

New Reactor Harnesses Sun's Energy Like Plants


Published January 20, 2011 | FoxNews.com
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Researchers have unveiled a prototype reactor which mimics plant life, turning the Sun’s energy to make hydrocarbon fuel.
Developed by a team of scientists from the United States and Switzerland, The solar device uses the Sun’s rays and the metal ceria, or cerium oxide, to break down water or carbon dioxide into energy which can be stored and transported.
Harnessing the power of the sun has been but a pipe dream as conventional solar panels must use the power they generate in situ. With the ceria fueled reactor, this issue is solved.
The scientists, which include Caltech professor Sossina M. Haile and Swiss Institute of Energy Technology professor Aldo Steinfeld, wanted to figure out a way to harness the sun efficiently, without incredibly rare materials. They decided on ceria, a relatively abundant “rare-earth” metal with very special properties.
The reactor takes advantage of ceria's ability to "exhale" oxygen from its crystalline framework at very high temperatures and then "inhale" oxygen back in at lower temperatures.
"What is special about the material is that it doesn't release all of the oxygen. That helps to leave the framework of the material intact as oxygen leaves," Haile explains. "When we cool it back down, the material's thermodynamically preferred state is to pull oxygen back into the structure."
Conceptually, the device has boundless potential with its ability to break down water into hydrogen fuel and oxygen or carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen, key ingredients for the fuel cell component methanol. Because they are broken down thermochemically, the resulting fuel is easy to transport.
But the prototype is still in its infant stages and extremely inefficient, harnessing only 0.7% to 0.8% of the solar energy it absorbs with most lost through heat or re-radiation. The researchers are confident they can reach levels of around 20% which would make the device commercially viable.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/...e-plants/print