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Commercial project for wearable solar cells by 2015 ...

More than a century after the idea was first floated, physicists have finally figured out how to tie water in knots in the laboratory. The gnarly feat, described today in Nature Physics1, paves the way for scientists to experimentally study twists and turns in a range of phenomena - ionized gases like that of the Sun's outer atmosphere, superconductive materials, liquid crystals and quantum fields that describe elementary particles.

Lord Kelvin proposed that atoms were knotted "vortex rings" - which are essentially like tornado bent into closed loops and knotted around themselves, as Daniel Lathrop and Barbara Brawn-Cinani write in an accompanying commentary. In Kelvin's vision, the fluid was the theoretical 'aether' then thought to pervade all of space. Each type of atom would be represented by a different knot.

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Kelvin's interpretation of the periodic table never went anywhere, but his ideas led to the blossoming of the mathematical theory of knots, part of the field of topology. Meanwhile, scientists also have come to realize that knots have a key role in a host of physical processes.

not latest news but still, he is probably the most high profile SPS advocate out there

" 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 :)

Nice overview about past missions to other bodies of our solar system.

A simple cube open at the top can increase the annual energy density generation by a factor (depending on the latitude) of 2 - 3.8 compared to a flat horizontal panel, versus an increase by a factor of 1.3 - 1.8 achieved from a flat panel using dual-axis tracking. Genetic algorithm are used to optimize the energy production in a day for arbitrarily shaped 3D solar cells confined to a given area footprint and total volume doi:10.1063/1.3308490 could be interesting to investigate

always said so...

Google subsidiary Google Fiber, Inc. is seeking permission to place satellite antennas on land near its data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The antennas could be used to receive content feeds from broadcast networks that could be bundled with a high-speed fiber service.

an oddly similar story http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/20/apple-is-solar-friendly/ apple to build largest solar array in US

smart idea!

some biomimicry used in energy systems... maybe it sparks some ideas

not much new that has not been shared here before ... BUT: we have done relativley little on any of them. for good reasons?? don't know - maybe time to look into some of these again more closely Energy Efficiency( Termite mounds inspired regulated airflow for temperature control of large structures, preventing wasteful air conditioning and saving 10% energy.[1] Whale fins shapes informed the design of new-age wind turbine blades, with bumps/tubercles reducing drag by 30% and boosting power by 20%.[2][3][4] Stingray motion has motivated studies on this type of low-effort flapping glide, which takes advantage of the leading edge vortex, for new-age underwater robots and submarines.[5][6] Studies of microstructures found on shark skin that decrease drag and prevent accumulation of algae, barnacles, and mussels attached to their body have led to "anti-biofouling" technologies meant to address the 15% of marine vessel fuel use due to drag.[7][8][9][10] Energy Generation( Passive heliotropism exhibited by sunflowers has inspired research on a liquid crystalline elastomer and carbon nanotube system that improves the efficiency of solar panels by 10%, without using GPS and active repositioning panels to track the sun.[11][12][13] Mimicking the fluid dynamics principles utilized by schools of fish could help to optimize the arrangement of individual wind turbines in wind farms.[14] The nanoscale anti-reflection structures found on certain butterfly wings has led to a model to effectively harness solar energy.[15][16][17] Energy Storage( Inspired by the sunlight-to-energy conversion in plants, researchers are utilizing a protein in spinach to create a sort of photovoltaic cell that generates hydrogen from water (i.e. hydrogen fuel cell).[18][19] Utilizing a property of genetically-engineered viruses, specifically their ability to recognize and bind to certain materials (carbon nanotubes in this case), researchers have developed virus-based "scaffolds" that

saac Asimov's predictions of the year 2014 back in 1964.. Truly amazing to read how close his sharp mind turned out to be at that time (cold war, Yuri Gagarin just went into space and Fortran first appeared 7 years before). The last prediction also came true I think, however the solution was not psychiatry.. instead we invented Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Also, he predicted that solar power stations would power the places on earth where solar power nor fission (?) would be available... Not there yet

theoretical physicists... :) Read the last sentence of the paper...in this way anyone can publish in nature...just make a good story with little evidence Did dark matter kill the dinosaurs? The Solar System's periodic passage through a 'dark disk' on the galactic plane could trigger comet bombardments that would cause mass extinctions.

Hmm.. right.. then again, this is not an actual journal publication but a news broadcast. But you are right that the name Nature is attached to it so the journal is definitely banking on their acquired status.

More information on the future of UAVs and the space industry.

Turn on Metal and they will boost their efficiency by 666%!

the title is at best misleading ... they add piezoelectrics into PV cells ... "manufacturing a piezoelectric material, zinc oxide nanorods, into the solar cells increased their efficiency when sound waves were played"

pretty interesting! I am still convinced we can do something in this :)

There surely must be possibilities indeed, maybe we should expand it to an RF? By coincidence, I bumped into a quantum optics PhD looking for a post-doc, who would love to give a talk in the team on his research (although very different topic) and I invited him for early January.

Nice link and clear overview! I like the point raised about 1000 man in space, even when including automation (as far as they could envision at the time). Now that is a future of the space industry and permanent habitation of near-earth orbits! In fact, I can envision just two reasons maybe, power and the hotel industry

Japan has started construction of two floating solar power plants, which will become part of a huge, 60 megawatt floating renewable energy network.

They should probably buddy up with the wave energy dudes and create the ultimate reneweable energy plant