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A long read but very interesting and well written.

PS: Does this quote from the article not sound a lot like Inception? 'In any given situation, the brain will retrieve old memories to inform an organism's behavior. If the memory is relevant to the situation, the organism can act on the information; if it is not relevant, then the organism can learn from the situation and create a new memory. With reconsolidation, researchers argued, there seemed to be a brief window in between the retrieval of an old memory and the creation of a new memory in which the old memory is vulnerable to manipulation.'

Very nice experiment on the verge of Condensed matter Physics! The presence of Landau levels is a necessary condition to obtain a Quantum Hall state. Quantum Hall states have first appeared in 2D electronic gases when applied a perpendicular magnetic field that induces a new topological state of the "electronic gas". This new topological state is believed to "protect" some parameters of the system, such as conductance making it possible to measure fundamental constants with very high precision even in imperfect experimental conditions. In this fundamental experiment, a synthetic magnetic field was created that acts in continuum photons, producing "an integer quantum Hall system in curved space, a long-standing challenge in condensed matter physics".

Get cracking, ACT AI team ;) A new X prize designed to advance artificial intelligence has been announced at the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference. The X Prize was set up to push the boundaries of technology to solve issues such as climate change. The winner, which will be announced at TED in 2020, will win $5m (£3.4m).

" This isn't Camilla's first adventure. The chicken has also flown on a NASA T-38 training jet, traveled onboard a helium balloon to the stratosphere over Louisiana, visited the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, and visited hundreds of elementary students in classrooms around the country. " Pretty impressive Camilla ! Congratulations :)

The International Space Apps Challenge is now over, it is interesting to have a look at the solutions ...

what sort of "app" is this e.g. http://spaceappschallenge.org/challenge/brightest-night/solution/132 "We started of by trying to set our camera in raw mode, howsoever this can't be done for current logitech modules and without a high risk of permanently destroying the camera (reflashing the EEPROM). we use a logitech c920 and captured a raw image from it using guvcview on ArchLinux we then wrote some python code to calculate the average BGR value of our Image. We are currently workin on automiztion, but this will take much longer as there will be a lot of reverse engineering of the USB-Protocol needed."

c'mon really! To name a few: - Tour of the Solar System ... that is one of the numerous specialities of the ACT. - Satellite data correlation tool ... solution is flawed, but I really like the idea. Lot of added value. I definitely think are interestung stuffs to do there for cheap. - Aurora project: Model & Data ... space weather not interesting?! - Kepler ... a classic Do not expect the solutions to be tremendous just after 3 days of work, but the proposed list of challenges are "seeds" for innovation to me.

Julius von Bismarck is only 28 years old, but his artistic resume is already several pages long. He's currently taking time off from school to be the new artist in residence at CERN ? the world's biggest particle physics research facility, home of the Large Hadron Collider.

Perhaps a new role for the ACT!?

very good idea - one that already Andrés had way back and a few years ago I was in contact with a group in Amsterdam who was interested but it never materialised ... any good recommendations? this Bismark guy seems to be a nice chap to have around in the office according to the photo on the site: long beard, a bottle of wine in the office and steering out of the window in search for ideas ... give the ugly office he might even want to swap it with our nice semi open space! :-)

"The latest idea comes from engineers at Glasgow's University of Strathclyde who suggest that a swarm of laser-wielding satellites could nudge Earth-bound asteroids off their collision course.... One proposed deflection technique involves using lasers to pulverize the surface of the asteroid, ejecting tiny bits of rock that would act as a propellant and push it onto a different course."

"inherently difficult problem" is exaggerated but interesting experiment nevertheless; any volunteers to put their brain under voltage ?

Solution to the problem looks easy when you see it, but note it requires thinking out of the box (literally), and I guess this is the main reason of its difficulty. What ACT could do is to check if the procedure increases one's average score in the astronaut test.

The famous Mars Rover Simulator was a piece of the Evolution in Robotic Island Ariadna!!!!! But again, its only an algorithm :) whats new?

Go Plymouth!

Quote: Recognizing the need to investigate and evaluate visionary aerospace concepts for their validity, several organizations employ specialized groups to do just this, like ESA's Advanced Concepts Team [2], Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works [3] or NASA's Team-X [4].

any idea how this works - who wants to have a closer look at it?

Wouldn't it be worth having a closer look?

it's still not clear to me how to get electricity in and out of this thing?

hmmm, I was wondering how many ESA employees do know that ACT does exist....

And my son studying at Stanford (he just sent me the same link !) follows the courses this semester of two of the teachers mentioned in the article, Thrun - very good and Ng - excellent

presentation: http://youtu.be/4efE_gO9lFo

random idea: how about using this thing as the "pheromone" to be by released by robots in a swarm... Recognizing an area as being of interest, for some reason, would lead to more "pheromones" being released there. This would in turn attract other robots to the area, by virtue of having also maximization of connectivity to the rest of the swarm as part of the navigation algorithm.

If this works as they claim this would be really interesting. Still no clue how they might be able to make this work though! Anybody?

he drone of speakers who won't stop is an inevitable experience at conferences, meetings, cinemas and public libraries.  Today, Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, both in Japan, present a radical solution: a speech jamming device that forces recalcitrant speakers into submission. 

...must...not...make...the...obvious...ACT...meeting...joke...

Unfortunately it won't work when it is most needed .... Read this: "Their tests also identify some curious phenomena. They say the gun is more effective when the delay varies in time and more effective against speech that involves reading aloud than against spontaneous monologue. Sadly, they report that it has no effect on meaningless sound sequences such as "aaaaarghhh".

Quantum processes shouldn't survive in hot, wet biological systems and yet a growing body of evidence suggests they do. Now physicists think they know how

Yes, because our bosses forced us to write strategic reports on "system of systems" :-)

Oh these terrible ignorant slave masters .... Would love to see your "reports on system of systems" :-)

"On March 28, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will kick of another one of its highly successful challenges this time looking for teams or individuals to develop unique algorithms to control small satellites on-board the International Space Station. " Will the ACT participate?

That would be wrong on so many levels...

Could not find out what the prize money is? Also does not seem clear to me how three cubes can catch an object "flying" in the opposite direction... But the approach is nice to see

Put together two ACT topics and see what happens.

I remember discussing this briefly and then discarding the idea - but don't remember why any more; duncan?

Well, I think that although the antenna is small, you counteract this with a much large metameterial lens. Probably if you design an antenna of a similar size to the 'lens' you can couple power equally well over the same distance. Then again, further optimization might help improve the size. Maybe in the end you want to combine both together, optimization of the antenna, including a metamaterials lens.

surprised that I do not see ACT members on this list talking about FUTURE ;-)

Probably related to the former ACT study on asteroid spin-up and the YORP effect.

Love tip 3.. thats why I am at the ACT of course :) 3. Surround yourself with pros Surround yourself with people who are self-assured, and live life without comprising their core values. These people will rub off on you quickly. finally.. The world is already full of people who obey the status quo. But the people who don't give a fuck are the ones that change the world.