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pacome delva

Direction Changes of Insect Swarms - 2 views

shared by pacome delva on 28 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Swarms of insects or schools of fish can suddenly switch direction, seemingly at random. A research team now believes they understand why. In the August Physical Review E they describe experiments with locusts and their mathematical model of the swarm. The model suggests that tiny alignment errors between neighboring individual locusts within the swarm, which normally cancel each other, can accumulate over long times and eventually cause the entire swarm to suddenly move in a new direction.
LeopoldS

Short-term meditation induces white matter changes in the anterior cingulate - PNAS - 3 views

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    one more try to get you interested in this ... seems that it is slowly but surely moving into the domain of serious science ...
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    Why don't you try this out? 10 minutes group meditation before every ACT meeting... Should be fun!
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    Great, just great!! The conclusion seems to be "Thus IBMT could provide a means for improving self-regulation and perhaps reducing or preventing various mental disorders." Why all this neuro-bio-nonsense?? Wasn't this conclusion known before just using good old classic psychology and similar? Again one of these studies that thinks to provide new evidence just because they made a boring brain scan...
Juxi Leitner

How I became a Foursquare cyberstalker | Technology | The Guardian - 0 views

  • Foursquare is now being widely touted as the app which will, after years of anticipation and prediction, mark the beginning of "life as a game" computing. Whatever you do, wherever you go, you will be scoring points, earning "medals", and be in, at the very least, social competition with other users around you.
  • Privacy seems to be very low down their priorities. In theory, if every user knows the risks, this is fine. But they just don't. It's being targeted at 18 to 25-year-olds. Facebook was forced in the end to change its default privacy settings due to public concerns. Foursquare should do the same. Some people are even checking in when they're at home. Think of the implications. It's crazy
  • Recruitment is a form of stalking, I suppose. But I can now see the negative implications of Foursquare in the real world.
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  • Ten days ago Foursquare reached the two-million-users landmark, just three months after it had reached the one-million mark. A week earlier, the company received $20m in venture capital from a who's who of Silicon Valley luminaries. It appears the trajectory for Foursquare is only upwards. But as the critical mass of Foursquare users swells and intensifies over the coming months and years, the concerns over privacy are likely to magnify. In June, Webroot, a Denver-based internet security firm, surveyed 1,645 users of "geo-location-ready mobile devices", including 624 in the UK: 29% said they shared their location with people other than their friends; 31% said they accepted a friend request from a stranger; and, yet, 55% still said they were worried about their loss of privacy.
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    anybody here using Foursquare already? Location is supposed to be "the future" (this time)
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    this is worse than having a mobile ... !
Joris _

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics - Space and the Biological Economy - 0 views

  • the U.S. space program has a robust life science program that is diligently working to innovate new approaches, research and technologies in the fields of biotechnology and bio-nanotechnology science, which are providing new solutions for old problems – including food security, medical needs and energy needs
  • more money be allocated to develop environmentally sound and energy efficient engine programs for commercial and private aviation
  • waste water program
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  • we lack fundamental knowledge about the entire effect of the photosynthesis system on food growth, and that space-based research could provide vital clues to scientists on how to streamline the process to spur more efficient food growth
  • From the start of the space age until 2010 only around 500 people have journeyed into space, but with the advent of private space travel in the next 24 months another 500 people are expected to go into space
  • Wagner indentified prize systems that award monetary prizes to companies or individuals as an effective way to spur innovation and creativity, and urged the Congressional staffers present to consider creating more prize systems to stimulate needed innovation
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    a bunch of ideas, iinitiatives, and good points about upcoming changes in space ...
LeopoldS

Yale Environment 360: The Greenhouse GasThat Nobody Knew - 2 views

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    interesting perspective ... hopefully included by now in the list but I did not check ....
pacome delva

Can Google Predict the Stock Market? - ScienceNOW - 2 views

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    in related news: Twitter Mood Predicts The Stock Market "An analysis of almost 10 million tweets from 2008 shows how they can be used to predict stock market movements up to 6 days in advance" http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25900/ http://arxiv.org/abs/1010.3003
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    not overly impressive: "The Google data could not predict the weekly fluctuations in stock prices. However, the team found a strong correlation between Internet searches for a company's name and its trade volume, the total number of times the stock changed hands over a given week."
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    Likewise, I can predict the statistical properties of white noise :-)
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    the problem is that usually the google search queries and the twitter updates happen after a crisis for example. I dont really think that people all over the world suddenly realised that Lehman would collapse and started googling it like crazy before it collapsed. More likely they did it afterwards.
Joris _

changement_climatique__octobre_2010.pdf - 2 views

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    Report commissionned by French ministry on the question of global warming and causes - in french though.
Ma Ru

Venus holds warning for Earth - 0 views

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    Just in case you missed these one... should be of interest for ACT's climate modelling squad. "As well as telling us more about Venus, it could be sending a warning to those on Earth seeking to inject our atmosphere with sulphur droplets in an attempt to mitigate climate change."
pacome delva

Cutting Soot Counteracts Warming in California - 1 views

  • models suggest that cut may also have cut into the warming of the state's climate in an unexpectedly big way, preventing temperatures from climbing even higher.
  • "This indeed has major implications for mitigating climate change on a global scale," says Ramanathan. "We have the chance to see a quick global response."
Eduardo Martin Moraud

Augmented Hyper-reality - 1 views

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    Check it out: How hyper-reality might change our vision of the world in the future. Pretty cool
LeopoldS

http://www.springerlink.com/content/9476j57g1t07vhn2/fulltext.pdf - 1 views

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    interesting approach ... though don't like the GDP link, but this is subjective of course ...
nikolas smyrlakis

James Cameron's New 3-D Epic Could Change Film Forever | Magazine - 0 views

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    ACT cinema? a bit long article but interesting
LeopoldS

Track changes with LaTeX - 3 views

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    did any of you Latex gurus already try this out?
  • ...1 more comment...
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    It's installed on my computer, but I never really used it. I think it's fine, but for my purposes latexdiff mostly is enough.
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    I assume that you use latexdiff from the command line ... still have to find a nice script with which to integrate it into the TexShop GUI for Karène ...
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    A command line is an interface as well. I was able to explain via phone to a (computer-wise) avarage undereducated Mac-user how to install and run latexdiff. Thus I think also Karene can use it...
Eduardo Martin Moraud

On whether to re-brand space junk as "historical heritage"... - 3 views

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    For those working on space debris removal... Watch out for moon-protection activists that will accuse you of distroying a historical heritage: "There are countless places on Earth that have been awarded protection to preserve their historic or cultural importance. The moon has none. But that may be about to change...."
Joris _

Panel Picks 3 Finalists for ESAs Cosmic Vision M class Missions | SpaceNews.com - 3 views

  • “superb from a science standpoint,” but beyond Europe’s current budget
  • There was some questioning of the cost estimate for Euclid, but at some point you have to decide: Either you don’t believe the estimates that [ESA science program managers] produced, or you assume their estimates are credible. Euclid was the one mission where costs were debated, but the consensus was to use the cost estimates presented to us.
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    finally cross-scale is not selected, it was the only cosmic vision mission with multi-satellites formation flying, since the concept for Xeus has changed. There is still Swarm but it's not really formation flying... So ESA is missing something here...
Juxi Leitner

A Cyborg Space Race - 1 views

  • There is more discussion in the space community on how to alter entire planets to suit humans - a process called "terraforming" - than there is on changing man to suit space.
  • making the machines our "avatars" for space exploration
  • Perhaps a brain implant linking us to our robots would be the next step in space exploration, greatly reducing communication time across the vast expanse of space
nikolas smyrlakis

Good-Bye Alta-Vista, Delicious | ZDNet - 2 views

shared by nikolas smyrlakis on 17 Dec 10 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
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    we were 1,5 year ahead to switch to diigo !
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    Man, I remember, long long time ago, altavista was my first contact with the internet ever.
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    indeed ... and it was largely thanks to you ... remember well the discussion in the group meeting with the arguments brought forward: why change, it works ...
duncan barker

Scientists arguing about climate change - very funny - 2 views

shared by duncan barker on 06 Jan 11 - No Cached
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    They are arguing about whether its the Sun or CO2 levels which effect global temperatures. which do you believe?
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