If this works it will change the world, its the SABRE engine in development by Reaction Engines Ltd. It will use oxygen from the atmosphere as the oxidizer and then switch to on board liquid oxygen reserves to make the final push to space. This right here is the next stepping stone to bringing down the cost of getting people and materials into space.
Studying dinosaur bones and physiology can only teach us so much about how dinosaurs actually walked the Earth. Because dinosaurs called theropods are related to modern birds, a few researchers thought they could study how they walk using chickens.
Theropods include dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor, but they also ranged in size all the way down to tiny chicken-sized raptors covered in feathers. Theropods and modern birds also both have spongy air-filled bones, wishbones, and feathers and lay eggs and watch over them.
From Popsci:
Today in mind-bendingly cool stuff that nanoparticles can do: A team of researchers at Rice University in Texas has demonstrated a mechanism by which they can create steam in just seconds by focusing sunlight on a mixture of water and nanoparticles. This isn't just some artificial means of lowering boiling point either; this solar powered "boiler" can produce steam before the water even gets warm to the touch, without ever bringing the aggregate water to a boil.
