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what a ACT's exercise should look like...

Maybe, you should propose this exercise to the team. You'll see there is not much imagination, unless, you consider imagination equals craziness (bullshit things ... and the too common blah blah in the act). I think this concept is an imaginative credible concept. "anything we might ever see" explains it well.

well, the article is not very detailed so it can be only "du vent" ! did they actually try if such an airplane can fly ??? what about the engine ??? i find the solar impulse (see post below) much more eco-friendly !!! I agree with Leopold that it's quite boring and stays in the mainstream of the production. I'm sure we can do much better !!! What about some really useful things like pills against the flight sickness, and some really good food in the plane ? haha not soon to happen with all the cost reduction. The future of air transport will be a plane without seats, stewards and perhaps even without pilot !!!

Innovation in beer : "This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost."

"Tactical Nuclear Penguin"... wow... [Edit] BTW this news looks hilarious on the feed display right in front of the ACT's official website, lol

Thi HCI looks like having better peformance than BMIs!!!! It is a BRAND NEW PATENT form Microsoft

additional information: http://atelierdna.com/?p=144

isn't this a bit of a contradiction: on the one hand: "Based on rough estimates, said Núñez-Ameni the output would be comparable to that of a conventional wind farm covering the same area" and on the other: "After completion, a Windstalk should be able to produce as much electricity as a single wind turbine, with the advantage that output could be increased with a denser array of stalks. Density is not possible with conventional turbines, which need to be spaced about three times the rotor's diameter in order to avoid air turbulence. " still, very interesting concept!

July 14, 2009 NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base, Mojave, CA 6 Teams [KCSP, LM, USST, NSS, McGill, U MICH] 1 km vertical raceway, laser-powered vehicles $2,000,000 Total prize purse (two levels)

nice development! - not sure if it survives a crash test in this form at 70 or 110 km/h

That's very interesting. The algae can be used as an absorber of CO2. The problem is that in order to be efficient it has to cover a wide surface and needs water. Would it be possible to grow algaes in the clouds...? Do you know some plants that are capable of floating in the air ?

Yes. There are some epiphytic plants who do not have roots and remove CO2 and H2O from air. Oisin is doing some calculations on it.

This is about biological and technical hygromorphs, i.e. structures that change shape according to humidity. Next to pine cones, there is also a cool study on wheat awns which drill themselves into the soil just by daily variance of air humidity. Biomimetics would be passively controlled acutators or humidity driven valves in space station to open/close dehumidification devices.

Interesting, but only an abstract... do you have the full paper ?

Not yet. There is also some other nice mechanism of wheat awns and how they use changes in humidity to anchor in soil. Would maybe fit with the above mentioned work of oisin.

could this also be useful - I doubt so since it seems to use air flow for cooling but don#t really understand the mechanisms ...

The Element Four WaterMill provides fresh, potable water from an unlimited source: the air.

Some pics and movies on insect-inspired Mirco Air Vehicles. Some of the stuff I have seen in Ascona. And we are also mentioned. But only with one sentence...

he new SR-72 will use a turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) that will employ the turbine engine at lower speeds, and use a scramjet at higher speeds. A scramjet engine is designed to operate at hypersonic velocities by compressing the air through a carefully designed inlet, but needs to be traveling supersonic before it is practical to begin with. So far research projects from NASA, the Air Force and other Pentagon entities have not been able to solve the problem of transitioning from the subsonic flight regime, through hypersonic flight with a single aircraft. Same problem as Reaction Engines is trying to solve, so I am not sure whether they actually cracked it. In any case, nice pictures. Not sure why the exhaust color is purple in color. Its not running on Argon I believe.

Weird article. Intermediate thruster stage (Ramjet) is missing. Scramjet has supersonic combustion and a normal turbine delivers subsonic flows. Even with afterburner - the Scramjet inlet would decelerate the flow down to subsonic velocity with "normal" subsonic combustion. The only thing I can imagine is that the Scramjet stage is bi-functional and covers both, subsonic and supersonic combustion. But the article doesn't say anything about it.

12 new NIAC 1 studies - many topics familiar to us ... please have a look at those closest to your expertise to see if there is anything new/worth investigating (and in general to be knowledgeable on them since we will get questions sooner or later on them)
Principal Investigator Proposal Title Organization City, State, Zip Code
Atchison, Justin Swarm Flyby Gravimetry Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218-2680
Boland, Eugene Mars Ecopoiesis Test Bed Techshot, Inc. Greenville, IN 47124-9515
Cash, Webster The Aragoscope: Ultra-High Resolution Optics at Low Cost University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309-0389
Chen, Bin 3D Photocatalytic Air Processor for Dramatic Reduction of Life Support Mass & Complexity NASA ARC Moffett Field, CA 94035-0000
Hoyt, Robert WRANGLER: Capture and De-Spin of Asteroids and Space Debris Tethers Unlimited Bothel, WA 98011-8808
Matthies, Larry Titan Aerial Daughtercraft NASA JPL Pasadena, CA 91109-8001
Miller, Timothy Using the Hottest Particles in the Universe to Probe Icy Solar System Worlds John Hopkins University Laurel, MD 20723-6005
Nosanov, Jeffrey PERISCOPE: PERIapsis Subsurface Cave OPtical Explorer NASA JPL Pasadena, CA 91109-8001
Oleson, Steven Titan Submarine: Exploring the Depths of Kraken NASA GRC Cleveland, OH 44135-3127
Ono, Masahiro Comet Hitchhiker: Harvesting Kinetic Energy from Small Bodies to Enable Fast and Low-Cost Deep Space Exploration NASA JPL Pasadena, CA 91109-8001
Streetman, Brett Exploration Architecture with Quantum Inertial Gravimetry and In Situ ChipSat Sensors Draper Laboratory Cambridge, MA 02139-3539
Wiegmann, Bruce Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS) NASA MSFC Huntsville, AL 35812-0000

Eh, the swarm flyby gravimetry is very similar to the "measuring gravitational fields" project I proposed in the brewery

For the first time, researchers have shown that they can capture CO2 from the air, and convert it directly into methanol, which can then be used as an alternative fuel, as well as for hydrogen storage, in fuel cells, or as a building block for plastic.

Solar power to suck out co2 during the day and make it fuel finally solves global warming?

The material the team used in these initial proof-of-concept experiments did make use of one biological component - chloroplasts, the light-harnessing components within plant cells, which the researchers obtained from spinach leaves.

They want to catch the first stage of the Electron "Mid-air", using a helicopter. Would love to see that!

Is this for real ?

Very interesting, indeed! I wonder if it even can be beefed up. The devices produce a sustained voltage of around 0.5 volts across a 7-micrometre-thick film, with a current density of around 17 microamperes per square centimetre

You were a bit faster than me! On top is the corresponding paper.