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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

Kudos, Netflix! If this is how you take care of your customers, you will have one more soon.

On a lighter note: Decades after NASA's Apollo missions, people are having some laughs over transcripts of astronauts' humorous conversations aboard the spacecraft. For all their technological sophistication, the Apollo command module had a relatively primitive system for managing human waste.

nice indeed! " Triggered by commonly available ambient mechanical energy such as human footfalls, a NG with size smaller than a human palm can generate maximum short-circuit current of 2 mA, delivering instantaneous power output of 1.2 W to external load. The power output corresponds to an area power density of 313 W/m2 and a volume power density of 54 268 W/m3 at an open-circuit voltage of 1200 V. An energy conversion efficiency of 14.9% has been achieved. The power was capable of instantaneously lighting up as many as 600 multicolor commercial LED bulbs. The record high power output for the NG is attributed to optimized structure, proper materials selection and nanoscale surface modification. This work demonstrated the practicability of using NG to harvest large-scale mechanical energy, such as footsteps, rolling wheels, wind power, and ocean waves."

You should be able to put it also in your shoes such that you may be able to power some gadgets. Thinking about it, I have seen many kids already running around with brightly lit sneakers!

I suggest you this easy reading ( is on a peer-reviewed scientific journal, IF = 6.14) 'We just don't know what we're doing!!!'

I tend to agree with you but I think that you are too harsh - its still only an "essay" and one of his points of making sure that education at post graduate level is not about indoctrinating what we know already is valid ...

I think this quote by Richard Horton is relevant to the discussion: "We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong." :P

interesting paper for wireless energy transmission ... Duncan have a look ...

Yeah, its nice to see some research into semiconductors which aren't silicon. This paper would be useful for us if we wanted to do a study of the efficiency of the DC to microwave conversion systems for SPS.

We test the theoretical cognitive limit on the number of stable social relationships known as Dunbar's number. We find that users can entertain a maximum of 100-200 stable relationships in support for Dunbar's prediction.

Should astronauts on long term missions have (chat) bots to talk to in realtime so that they won't go mad with their fellow astronaut buddies...?

Anyone need to make a how-to tutorial (Digmo, ccviewer...?)

still only a few percent of conversion efficiency but very promising since working at reasonably focussing and unpolarised light; they announce the publication of a first design of such a system .... to be followed!! Duncan: you wanna have a closer look at it?

99% house advertising, 1% scientific results. I think this is still a conservative guess... And I'm sure this "completely new" effect that you don't see when "staring at the equations of motion" (doggone, how I love this USish "I-am-better-than-the-rest-of-the-world" jargon) certainly has been predicted at least 50 years ago by some smart USSR researcher!!

Duncan: of interest to have a closer look at it?

These features lead to a high heat-to-electricity energy conversion efficiency of 5.7% when cycled between 10 and 60 °C, opening a promising way to utilize low-grade heat.

NASA validates the EmDrive (http://emdrive.com/) technology for converting electrical energy into thrust. (from the website: "Thrust is produced by the amplification of the radiation pressure of an electromagnetic wave propagated through a resonant waveguide assembly.")

I have to join the skeptics on this one ...

The first complete theory of how plasmons produce "hot carriers" has been developed by researchers in the US. The new model could help make this process of producing carriers more efficient, which would be good news for enhancing solar-energy conversion in photovoltaic devices.

I did not read the paper but what is further down written in the article, does not give much hope that this actually gives much more insight than what we had nor that it could be used in any way to improve current PV cells soon: e.g. "To fully exploit these carriers for such applications, researchers need to understand the physical processes behind plasmon-induced hot-carrier generation. Nordlander's team has now developed a simple model that describes how plasmons produce hot carriers in spherical silver nanoparticles and nanoshells. The model describes the conduction electrons in the metal as free particles and then analyses how plasmons excite hot carriers using Fermi's golden rule - a way to calculate how a quantum system transitions from one state into another following a perturbation. The model allows the researchers to calculate how many hot carriers are produced as a function of the light frequency used to excite the metal, as well as the rate at which they are produced. The spectral profile obtained is, to all intents and purposes, the "plasmonic spectrum" of the material. Particle size and hot-carrier lifetimes "Our analyses reveal that particle size and hot-carrier lifetimes are central for determining both the production rate and the energies of the hot carriers," says Nordlander. "Larger particles and shorter lifetimes produce more carriers with lower energies and smaller particles produce fewer carriers, but with higher energies."

A good idea for a card in one of our ACT magic decks!!! In his words AI is "our biggest existential threat" - lol

the "even" in your comment is the key word

Edge.org recently had an interesting piece that ties into all of this recent AI fear mongering: http://edge.org/conversation/the-myth-of-ai

"Without the relevant data for reasoning about the state of AI technology, we are essentially "flying blind" in our conversations and decision-making related to AI [...] The AI Index is an initiative to track, collate, distill and visualize data relating to artificial intelligence. "

RIP Mars One, you were stupid to begin with.

Who would have thought?

while the whole project was obviously a scam and i'm surprised how long it took courts to figure that out, it managed to get an enormous amount of people interested in space and ignited a conversation (even if that one was just about bashing the project :D)