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TU/e is participating in the new Cruiser class of the World Solar Challenge. This competition entails building an eco friendly family car (instead of a racer) to prove that solar powered transportation is possible. Actually this car produces more solar power than it needs and has a range of 300+ km.

"The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence, launched in the fall of 2014, is a long-term investigation of the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its influences on people, their communities, and society." (...) "The report is designed to address four intended audiences. For the general public, it aims to provide an accessible, scientifically and technologically accurate portrayal of the current state of AI and its potential. For industry, the report describes relevant technologies and legal and ethical challenges, and may help guide resource allocation. The report is also directed to local, national, and international governments to help them better plan for AI in governance. Finally, the report can help AI researchers, as well as their institutions and funders, to set priorities and consider the ethical and legal issues raised by AI research and its applications."

In case you are interested in Martin's past project, this article covers his master thesis. Potential for space? One of the biggest challenges with swarms of robots is manufacturing and deploying the swarm itself. Even if the robots are relatively small and relatively simple, you're still dealing with a whole bunch of them, and every step in building the robots or letting them loose is multiplied over the entire number of bots in the swarm.

An excellent science coffee topic! This is a true breakthrough in pure mathematics with plentiful applications in the lesser sciences (such as theoretical physics). People tell me quantum gravity is already practically solved by this. Conway's powerful theory of Alternative Facts can render many difficult problems tractable. Here we demonstrate the power of AF to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, one of the most important unsolved problems in mathematics. We further suggest applications of AF to other challenging unsolved problems such as the zero-equals-one conjecture (which is also true) and the side-counting problem of the circle.

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".

For a Few Dollars More ... Except for this debatable purpose, this challenge seems interesting. They've made a presentation at ESTEC one month ago about that topic : http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120314_ESA_ESTEC.pdf By the way, KISS is a funny name for a space institute.

It is not new, but I can't remember any discussion on this concept at the ACT

The idea has been around for already some time (2008) but I like it despite the challenges/trade-off: visible vs IR photovoltaics, black leaves would be better... Piezo + classical PV would already be great... Optimizing the leave shape & distribution for both wind and sun energy harvesting could be interesting...

$50k prize to put documents back together

Final level will be something that has been burned to ashes which were then flushed down the toilet...

NASA's new crowdsourcing initiative to find asteroid threats.

A 7x7x3m large unfolding structure from the car trunk. "Before the design is ready to roll, the team still needs to tune up the solar components, a challenge made more difficult by the pavilion's inherent mobility, making it impossible to gauge how sunlight will fall on it."

According to the article it seems that the growth of biofilms in space (MIR, ISS) is continuing to be a challenge for any space missions. Hardly any information is present on what role gravity plays in their growth and development. Maybe detection is also one important aspect of this indeed (Tom?)

why am I not surprised .....

http://www.academia.edu/4210419/Can_climate_models_explain_the_recent_stagnation_in_global_warming A view of well-respected scientists on how to proceed from here, that was rejected from Nature. In any case, a long way to go...

unfortunately it's too early to cheer and burn more coal ... there is also a nice podcast associated to this paper from nature Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling Yu Kosaka & Shang-Ping Xie Nature 501, 403-407 (19 September 2013) doi:10.1038/nature12534 Received 18 June 2013 Accepted 08 August 2013 Published online 28 August 2013 Despite the continued increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, the annual-mean global temperature has not risen in the twenty-first century1, 2, challenging the prevailing view that anthropogenic forcing causes climate warming. Various mechanisms have been proposed for this hiatus in global warming3, 4, 5, 6, but their relative importance has not been quantified, hampering observational estimates of climate sensitivity. Here we show that accounting for recent cooling in the eastern equatorial Pacific reconciles climate simulations and observations. We present a novel method of uncovering mechanisms for global temperature change by prescribing, in addition to radiative forcing, the observed history of sea surface temperature over the central to eastern tropical Pacific in a climate model. Although the surface temperature prescription is limited to only 8.2% of the global surface, our model reproduces the annual-mean global temperature remarkably well with correlation coefficient r = 0.97 for 1970-2012 (which includes the current hiatus and a period of accelerated global warming). Moreover, our simulation captures major seasonal and regional characteristics of the hiatus, including the intensified Walker circulation, the winter cooling in northwestern North America and the prolonged drought in the southern USA. Our results show that the current hiatus is part of natural climate variability, tied specifically to a La-Niña-like decadal cooling. Although similar decadal hiatus events may occur in the future, the multi-decadal warming trend is very likely to continue with greenhouse gas

Wired magazine has a special focus today on Plutonium-238 the fuel for RTG power sources. The history of the material plus the challenges due to the shortage of it - potentially ending deep space exploration as we practice it today (?)...

The Northeast Blackout of 2003 that forced the shut-down of over 100 power plants and affected 55M people - the largest black-out in US history - was precipitated by a single overloaded transmission line, in Ohio, sagging and touching overgrown vegetation.

Relevant to our recent discussion on big data at ESA?

relevant yes, though the article gives little information on the "how"

"A Soviet supercavitation torpedo called Shkval was able to reach a speed of 370km/h or more - much faster than any other conventional torpedoes," he said. However, The SCMP highlighted two problems in supercavitation technology. First, the submerged vessel needed to be launched at high speeds, approaching 100km/h, to generate and maintain the air bubble. Secondly, it is difficult if not impossible to steer the vessel using conventional mechanisms, which are inside the bubble, without direct contact with water. As a result, its application has been limited to unmanned vessels, fired in a straight line.

can't you just selectively inject the gas so that you control in which direction the bubble forms?

NASA is setting a $2.25 million competition to design and build a 3-D printed habitat for deep space exploration - new task for the future architect of the team?

I kind of like Thijs's space mirror ablation method as a way of printing :))

some interesting recommendations part of a current discussion between the commission and some member states in a general, and apparently popular with all parties, drive to reduce bureaucracy to, among other things, stimulate innovation. Firms face a challenge. They produce superb products, offer world-class services and benefit from being able to sell to a European market of 500 million customers. But they are often encumbered by problematic, poorly-understood and burdensome European rules. The impact is clear: fewer inventions are patented, fewer sales are made, fewer goods are produced and fewer jobs are created.

what hypocrites ... "As businesspeople, we are convinced that these and many other problems must be addressed if British and European firms are to compete in the global marketplace. We need regulation to operate in a pan-European market. We are not against regulation per se. But we need regulation that is pro-growth and pro-innovation." sure ....

In case you are looking for inspiration for a new piece of ACT's meeting room furniture... "This is almost an example, not of mathematics but how mathematics changes when it becomes physics"