HughPickens.com writes Clifford Davis reports that only 30% of young people between the ages of 17 and 24 are qualified to become soldiers primarily due to three issues: obesity or health problems; lack of a high school education; and criminal histories. While cognitive and moral disqualifications have held steady, weight issues account for 18% of disqualifications, and the number is rising steadily and it’s projected to hit 25% by 2025, which Batschelet calls “troubling.” The current Army policy is that every recruit, whether enlisting for infantry or graphic design, has to meet the same physical requirements to join — but that requirement may be changing. “Today, we need cyber warriors, so we’re starting to recruit for Army Cyber, ” says Batschelet. “One of the things we’re considering is that your [mission] as a cyber warrior is different. Maybe you’re not the Ranger who can do 100 pushups, 100 sit-ups and run the 2-mile inside of 10 minutes, but you can crack a data system of an enemy.” “We’re looking for America’s best and brightest just like any Fortune 500 company out there, ” says Lt. Col. Sharlene Pigg. “We’re looking for those men and women who excel in science, technology, engineering and math.” Batschelet admits that a drastic change in physical requirements for recruits may be hard for some to swallow. “That’s going to be an institutional, cultural change for us to be able to get our heads around that is kind of a different definition of quality, ” says Batschelet. “I would say it’s a modernizing, or defining in a more precise way, what is considered quality for soldiers.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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US Army May Relax Physical Requirements To Recruit Cyber Warriors
An anonymous reader writes The state-run OAO Rosneft has discovered a vast pool of crude in the Kara Sea region of the Arctic Ocean, arguably bigger than the Gulf of Mexico. From the article: “The discovery sharpens the dispute between Russia and the U.S. over President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine. The well was drilled before the Oct. 10 deadline Exxon was granted by the U.S. government under sanctions barring American companies from working in Russia’s Arctic offshore. Rosneft and Exxon won’t be able to do more drilling, putting the exploration and development of the area on hold despite the find announced today.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Taco Cowboy writes Japan is planning to launch a military space force by 2019. The Mainichi Shimbun is reporting that Japan plans to create a “space force” within its existing Self Defence Force, hoping to have it operational by 2019. Japan would provide the US military with information obtained by the force as part of the joint bid to strengthen ties in space, the so-called “fourth battlefield”, Kyodo news agency said, citing unnamed sources. Note that this plan, which involves simply looking into space using old civilian astronomy equipment and radar, is just the beginning. The transforming space fighters and combat mechs will presumably come later. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
A joint project involving NASA and MIT researchers had demonstrated technology that could supply a lunar colony with broadband via lasers (“faster Internet access than many U.S. homes get”) and has already demonstrated its worth in communications with spacecraft. From ComputerWorld’s article: “The Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) kicked off last September with the launch of NASA’s LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer), a research satellite now orbiting the moon. NASA built a laser communications module into LADEE for use in the high-speed wireless experiment. LLCD has already proved itself, transmitting data from LADEE to Earth at 622Mbps (bits per second) and in the other direction at 19.44Mbps, according to MIT. It beat the fastest-ever radio communication to the moon by a factor of 4, 800.” Communicating at such distances means overcoming various challenges; one of the biggest is the variability in Earth’s atmosphere. The LLCD doesn’t try to power through the atmosphere at only one spot, therefore, but uses four separate beams in the New Mexico desert, each aimed “through a different column of air, where the light-bending effects of the atmosphere are slightly different. That increases the chance that at least one of the beams will reach the receiver on the LADEE. Test results have been promising, according to MIT, with the 384, 633-kilometer optical link providing error-free performance in both darkness and bright sunlight, through partly transparent thin clouds, and through atmospheric turbulence that affected signal power.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Despite the billions upon billions of dollars funneled into the hungry maw of the military over the past 70 years, some technology has remained the same since World War II—including the smoke grenade. Now, the Army is choosing a new version that, in theory, will be slightly less toxic than the “classic” model. Read more… 
Jeremiah Cornelius writes: “The U.S. Navy’s new railgun technology, developed by General Atomics, uses the Lorentz force in a type of linear, electric motor to hurl a 23-pound projectile at speeds exceeding Mach 7 — in excess of 5, 000 mph. The weapon has a range of 100 miles and doesn’t require explosive warheads. ‘The electromagnetic railgun represents an incredible new offensive capability for the U.S. Navy, ‘ says Rear Adm. Bryant Fuller, the Navy’s chief engineer. ‘This capability will allow us to effectively counter a wide range of threats at a relatively low cost, while keeping our ships and sailors safer by removing the need to carry as many high-explosive weapons.’ Sea trials begin aboard an experimental Navy catamaran, the USNS Millinocket, in 2016.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 