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IBM for the first time ever is making quantum computing available to the public, providing access to a quantum processor via the cloud. Users can create algorithms and run experiments and get inspired by the possibilities of a quantum computer.

Looks interesting.. Have you tried it?

Mathias Troyer from ETH Zurtich gave a talk in Leiden where he showed what he wants to be the replacement to this IBM programming or the best ally of it - program quantum computers with, for instance, python code. Nice developments coming from the quantum coding field, besides the fact we are ages away from a practical quantum computer.

At its Ignite conference today, Microsoft announced its moves to embrace the next big thing in computing: quantum computing. Later this year, Microsoft will release a new quantum computing programming language, with full Visual Studio integration, along with a quantum computing simulator. With these, developers will be able to both develop and debug quantum programs implementing quantum algorithms.

asm.js: it's really fast, backwards compatible, and now in the release version of Firefox. "By doing this the result is highly optimized and can be converted directly from this Asm.js syntax directly into ASSEMBLY without having to interpret it, as one would normally have to do with JavaScript" Here is great introduction to asm.js and C++ to js compilation: http://ejohn.org/blog/asmjs-javascript-compile-target

An intermediate level discussion of those results by Scott Manley (Physicist, Kerbal Space Program YouTuber): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGcvxg7jJTs

At 8:33 a.m., (Japan Standard Time) January 15, 2017, SS-520 No. 4, JAXA's sounding rocket launched from the Uchinoura Space Center. Through SS-520 No. 4 launch, JAXA sought for research and development of launch vehicles and satellites and the launch demonstration of TRICOM-1, its onboard nanosat that weighs about 3 kilograms. The launch was part of Japanese government's program for development of launch vehicles and satellites in public-private partnerships. Long story short: Space-X has the better fireworks

I hate scorpions, but this could be a nice subject for a future Ariadna study! This north African desert scorpion, doesn't dig burrows to protect itself from the sand-laden wind (as the other scorpions do). When the sand whips by at speeds that would strip paint away from steel, the scorpion is able to scurry off without apparent damage.

Nice research, though they have done almost all the work that we could do in an Ariadna, didnt they? "To check, they took further photographs. In particular, they used a laser scanning system to make a three-dimensional map of the armour and then plugged the result into a computer program that blasted the virtual armour with virtual sand grains at various angles of attack. This process revealed that the granules were disturbing the air flow near the skeleton's surface in ways that appeared to be reducing the erosion rate. Their model suggested that if scorpion exoskeletons were smooth, they would experience almost twice the erosion rate that they actually do. Having tried things out in a computer, the team then tried them for real. They placed samples of steel in a wind tunnel and fired grains of sand at them using compressed air. One piece of steel was smooth, but the others had grooves of different heights, widths and separations, inspired by scorpion exoskeleton, etched onto their surfaces. Each sample was exposed to the lab-generated sandstorm for five minutes and then weighed to find out how badly it had been eroded. The upshot was that the pattern most resembling scorpion armour-with grooves that were 2mm apart, 5mm wide and 4mm high-proved best able to withstand the assault. Though not as good as the computer model suggested real scorpion geometry is, such grooving nevertheless cut erosion by a fifth, compared with a smooth steel surface. The lesson for aircraft makers, Dr Han suggests, is that a little surface irregularity might help to prolong the active lives of planes and helicopters, as well as those of scorpions."

What bugs me (pardon the pun) is that the dimensions of the pattern they used were scaled up by many orders of magnitude, while "grains of sand" with which the surface was bombarded apparently were not... Not being a specialist in the field, I would nevertheless expect that the size of the surface pattern *in relation to* to size of particles used for bombarding would be crucial.

Filename: BURN_BABY_BURN--MASTER_IGNITION_ROUTINE.agc

interesting workshop on language here in Leiden ... Luis, Giusi??

interesting indeed, but the lectures I'd be interested in already took place

No good, 80% of these people are top quoted in my research area... I really should have been there. Evidently the organisers need to work on advertising.

CubeSats + 3D printing... for space. I'm surprised this isn't an ACT project :) more info: SpiderFab: Process for On-Orbit Construction of Kilometer-Scale Apertures

$100,000 from NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program to hammer out a design and figure out whether spacecraft self-construction makes business sense .... I can answer for 0$ ..... NO Infact the question is just stupid: a) spacecraft self-construction exist: then it is a no brainer to decide wether it makes business sense b) it does not: then there is no business

wow impressive. Could be super useful for astronauts !

And some comparison between NASA and ESA about artist in residence programs :)

In follow up of our discussion yesterday, what would be required to get private investment to keep an orbiting station going? Do we actually want to? On the side, at least the budget for NASA seems to make it unlikely to be able to afford both ISS and a beyond-Earth orbit exploration program (http://www.americaspace.com/?p=36568)

A joint Harvard-MIT research program led by Harvard Professor of Physics Mikhail Lukin and MIT Professor of Physics Vladan Vuletic has created a new state of matter the two describe as extremely similar to the lightsabers seen in "Star Wars."

"Photonic molecules"? Intriguing..

I remember that ESA was looking into similar things for the Vulcain 2/2+ NE upgrade together with Volvo and other companies. Does anybody know about the status of that program (google does not ;-))?

At the link below you find additional information about the projects: Education: Ten weeks to save the world http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100915/full/467266a.html

well, most good ideas probably take only a second to be formulated, it's the details that take years :-)

I do not think the point of the SU is to formulate new ideas (infact there is nothing new in the projects chosen). Their mission is to build and maintain a network of contacts among who they believe will be the 'future leaders' of space ... very similar to our beloved ISU.

While the new bacteria is pretty much useless, it would be interesting to see how base 3 genetic programming would turn out.

Interesting ideas - though some metaphors are a bit far fetched. Personally, I think it could be interesting if every scientific article would also have a how-to or tutorial section that gives a recipe of how to apply the newly gained knowledge. Of course, that might be tough to do... :-)

The API of the world is already there (a bit), it is the previous knowledge developed by others. Open Source projects such as the wheel or the brick, allow everyday amazing new APPs to be build such as buildings and cars .... There still is merit, though, in learning from software developments techniques in the everyday world projects. This is indeed the motivation for the ACT to do work in open source (SOCIS, GSoC) and push its members to use stuff like wiki, svn, github, jenkins, and alike. This way we are performing and fostering (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/foster) research into working methods in the hope we will be able to export some of its benefit to the larger ESA.

........... COMING JULY 6th