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Giusi Schiavone

The importance of stupidity in scientific research. - 10 views

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    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!!!'
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    as a start of a peer reviewed paper this is an interesting first paragraph: "I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else."
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    Hilarious! Mr Schwartz, who made a PhD at Stanford(!) and apparently is working as a postdoc now, has finally discovered what science is about!!! Quote: "That's when it hit me: nobody did. That's why it was a research problem." And he seems so excited about it! I think he should not only get published in 6.14 journal, but also get the Nobel Prize immediately! Seriously, after reading something like this, how one may not have superstitions about the educational system in the US?
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    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 ...
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    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
Juxi Leitner

TED Talk: The roots of plant intelligence [video] - Holy Kaw! - 3 views

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    even being so used to italians that accent is hilarious
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    this video is fantastic!! reminds me a lot of a discussion we had in the team some years ago on the communication of fungus ....
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    how comes that they did not apply to our Ariadna?
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    maybe we should have a second look at multiple roots as networks
Joris _

Cross-section of innovators discusses the future at TEDxNASA - dailypress.com - 2 views

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    hmmm, we could have done something! ... http://www.tedxnasa.com
Christos Ampatzis

NASA news conference Dec. 2, on extraterrestrial life?! - 3 views

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    Let's start betting which party Aliens vote: GREEN, BLUE, RED, BLACK?
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    yes, the internet is going crazy over this one :) (http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/nasas-astrobiology-press-conference/) This is the most likely scenario I've seen so far for what will be announced tomorrow: http://skymania.com/wp/2010/11/alien-life-form-is-here-on-earth.html/ "...discovery of microbes in a deadly poisonous lake that get their energy from arsenic. Experts say this shows they had a completely different origin to any other creature known on our planet. It means that life began not just once but at least twice on Earth."
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    well, we've all seen the movie Evolution (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251075/) ;p ... this is exactly this scenario indeed.
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    yaaawnnn... Let's wait until they actually announce it.
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    http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ for the moment is down. My bet, the microbe they found notified its cousins and they are currently invading the US
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    you can still see the rest of it here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html a good link with a summary and discussion on the announcement is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/dec/02/nasa-life-form-bacteria-arsenic
santecarloni

Space-time cloak could hide events : Nature News - 3 views

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    I think they are taking it a bit too far....
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    I'm a little bit surprised as well about the crude story of the burglar, pure nonsense, of course! But the paper is deadly serious, Alberto and Paul are my best collaborators in metamaterials and optics, they are not this type of TV-show scientists as Leonhardt etc. But as Alberto told me: just put the name "cloak" in the title and you're in all the news. It's not science, it's kindergarden :-(.
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    is my memory wrong or isn't this what you have already mentioned as theoretically possible a few years back when discussing this, Luzi?
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    Very well possible that I mentioned this. In fact I was one of the first who took spacetime transformations in transformation optics seriously. But first, my name is not Leonhardt and I don't work at Imperial, that's why nobody cites me and second I most probably found the idea too stupid to be published. You see the two reasons why I'm not successful in science...
Tobias Seidl

Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design -- Tero et al. 327 (5964): 439 ... - 4 views

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    Navigation for robtos. That's how we should have done the hybrid controller study.
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    and why didnt we?
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    Because I have no clue about fungi. They are no animals. (Neither they are plants, of which I also don't have a clue.)
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    so what are they then? ... and don't tell me "fungi" now ..
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    Well, it has always been a long discussion. Fungi are according to the most recent findings definitely no plants. Since they have always been in botanic textbooks, I would assume that they were never considered animals.No fauna, no flora, no stones. Maybe they are extraterrestrials. But that wouldn't solve the questions. Maybe they are just "fungi"?
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    what about then: "can we use them for space?"
Nicholas Lan

volunteering for hilarious privacy/security issues - 2 views

shared by Nicholas Lan on 23 Mar 10 - Cached
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    lets you link your account to a credit card and then publish whatever you just bought and what you paid for it to your facebook status/twitter feed/etc.
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    looks like a joke: "Blippy is a fun and easy way to see and discuss what everyone is buying." TIME :"Made me want to spend more"" where is our world going to?
Juxi Leitner

A Cyborg Space Race - 1 views

  • There is more discussion in the space community on how to alter entire planets to suit humans - a process called "terraforming" - than there is on changing man to suit space.
  • making the machines our "avatars" for space exploration
  • Perhaps a brain implant linking us to our robots would be the next step in space exploration, greatly reducing communication time across the vast expanse of space
nikolas smyrlakis

Good-Bye Alta-Vista, Delicious | ZDNet - 2 views

shared by nikolas smyrlakis on 17 Dec 10 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
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    we were 1,5 year ahead to switch to diigo !
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    Man, I remember, long long time ago, altavista was my first contact with the internet ever.
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    indeed ... and it was largely thanks to you ... remember well the discussion in the group meeting with the arguments brought forward: why change, it works ...
Kevin de Groote

Augmented reality translation app - 3 views

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    only english and spanish ... :-(
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    as discussed during lunch..
Dario Izzo

Robotics and optimal control - 6 views

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    Home page of teodorov.... He believes optimal control is the path to robot movement.... Not AI!!!
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    we were having a discussion about that here recently =) will look into that, grazie mille
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    Isn't it obvious! :)
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    I need to modify the first comment "He belives the path to AI goes through optimal control"... Big difference...
Luís F. Simões

The Fantastical Promise of Reversible Computing  - Technology Review - 2 views

  • Reversible logic could cut the energy wasted by computers to zero. But significant challenges lie ahead.
  • By some estimates the difference between the amount of energy required to carry out a computation and the amount that today's computers actually use, is some eight orders of magnitude. Clearly, there is room for improvement.
  • There are one or two caveats, of course. The first is that nobody has succeeded in building a properly reversible logic gate so this work is entirely theoretical. But there are a number of computing schemes that have the potential to work like this. Thapliyal and Ranganathan point in particular to the emerging technology of quantum cellular automata and show how their approach might be applied.
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  • Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1101.4222: Reversible Logic Based Concurrent Error Detection Methodology For Emerging Nanocircuits
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    We did look at making computation powers more efficient from the bio perspective (efficiency of computations in brain). This paper was actually the base for our discussion on a new approsach to computing http://atlas.estec.esa.int/ACTwiki/images/6/68/Sarpeshkar.pdf and led to several ACT internal studies
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    here is the paper I told you about, on the computational power of analog computing: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3975(95)00248-0 you can also get it here: http://www.santafe.edu/media/workingpapers/95-09-079.pdf
Joris _

The 2010 Global Innovation 1000: How the Top Innovators Keep Winning - 4 views

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    Paper Discussion Deck
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    despite being a consultancy paper, quite interesting ... " the success of these companies is not a matter of how much these companies spend on research and development, but rather how they spend it." could also be translated into: "you need us to tell you how to spend your R&D money" :-)
Loretta Latronico Poulain

Behavioural Economics? Try Biological Economics - 2 views

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    The "Biological Economics" thing is a hyping (or misunderstanding) of the BBC article. The work it refers to seems to be an application of Complex Networks theory to financial networks. I found what appear to be some of the related publications: Andrew G. Haldane (April 2009) Rethinking the financial network (further references in the footnote to page 10) Erlend Nier, Jing Yang, Tanju Yorulmazer and Amadeo Alentorn (April 2008) Network models and financial stability Funny how these issues have been repeatedly popping up at the ACT in recent weeks. This connects both with the discussions on information spreading in networks, and with roadmaps' robustness.
Joris _

Up telescope! Search begins for giant new planet - 1 views

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    well, he kind-of falls into his own trap: confusing/discussing "evidence" with "likelihood", and "there is" with "it may". He should have made more efforts in his writing, what he says is a bit pointless! (just put the Icarus' paper)
Luzi Bergamin

Prof. Markrams Hirnmaschine (Startseite, NZZ Online) - 2 views

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    A critical view on Prof. Markram's Blue Brain project (in German).
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    A critical view on Prof. Markram's Blue Brain project (in German).
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    so critical that the comment needed to be posted twice :-) ?
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    Yes, I know; I still don't know how to deal with this f.... Diigo Toolbar! Shame on me!!!
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    Would be nice to read something about the modelling, but it appears that there is nothing published in detail. Following the article, the main approach is to model each(!) neuron taking into account the spatial structure of the neurons positions. Once achieved they expect intelligent behaviour. And they need a (type of) supercomputer which does not exist yet.
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    As far as I know it's sort of like "Let's construct an enormous dynamical system and see what happens"... i.e. a waste of taxpayer's money... Able to heal Alzheimer... Yeah... Actually I was on the conference the author is mentioning (FET 2011) and I have seen the presentations of all 6 flagship proposals. Following that I had a discussion with one of my colleagues about the existence of limits of the amount of bullshit politicians are willing to buy from scientists. Will there be a point at which politicians, despite their total ignorance, will realise that scientists simply don't deliver anything they promise? How long will we (scientists) be stuck in the viscous circle of have-to-promise-more-than-predecessors in order to get money? Will we face a situation when we'll be forced to revert to promises which are realistic? To be honest none of the 6 presentations convinced me of their scientific merit (apart from the one on graphene where I have absolutely no expertise to tell). Apparently a huge amount of money is about to be wasted.
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    It's not just "Let's construct an enormous dynamical system and see what happens", it's worse! Also the simulation of the cosmological evolution is/was a little bit of this type, still the results are very interesting and useful. Why? Neither the whole cosmos nor the human brain at the level of single neurons can be modelled on a computer, that would last aeons on a "yet-to-be-invented-extra-super-computer". Thus one has to make assumptions and simplifications. In cosmology we have working theories of gravitation, thermodynamics, electrodynamics etc. at hand; starting from these theories we can make reasonable assumptions and (more or less) justified simplifications. The result is valuable since it provides insight into a complex system under given, explicit and understood assumptions. Nothing similar seems to exist in neuroscience. There is no theory of the human brain and apparently nobody has the slightest idea which simplifications can be made without harm. Of course, Mr. Markram remains completely unaffected of ''details'' like this. Finally, Marek, money is not wasted, we ''build networks of excellence'' and ''select the brightest of the brightest'' to make them study and work at our ''elite institutions'' :-). I lively remember the stage of one of these "bestofthebest" from Ivy League at the ACT...
Luís F. Simões

Bitcoin P2P Currency: The Most Dangerous Project We've Ever Seen - 10 views

  • After month of research and discovery, we’ve learned the following:1. Bitcoin is a technologically sound project.2. Bitcoin is unstoppable without end-user prosecution.3. Bitcoin is the most dangerous open-source project ever created.4. Bitcoin may be the most dangerous technological project since the internet itself.5. Bitcoin is a political statement by technotarians (technological libertarians).*6. Bitcoins will change the world unless governments ban them with harsh penalties.
  • The benefits of a currency like this:a) Your coins can’t be frozen (like a Paypal account can be)b) Your coins can’t be trackedc) Your coins can’t be taxedd) Transaction costs are extremely low (sorry credit card companies)
  • An individual with the name -- or perhaps handle -- of Satoshi Nakamoto first wrote about bitcoins in a paper called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
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  • * We made this term up to describe the “good people” of the internet who believe in the fundamental rights of individuals to be free, have free speech, fight hypocrisy and stand behind logic, technology and science over religion, political structure and tradition. These are the people who build and support things like Wikileaks, Anonymous, Linux and Wikipedia. They think that people can, and should, govern themselves. They are against external forms of control such as DRM, laws that are bought and sold by lobbyists, and religions like Scientology. They include splinter groups that enforce these ideals in the form of hacktivism, such as the takedown of the Sony Playstation Network after Sony tried to prosecute a hacker for unlocking its console.
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    Sounds good!
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    wow it's frigthening! it's the dream of every anarchist, every drug, arm, human dealer! the world made as a global fiscal paradise... the idea is clever however it will not replace real money because 1 - no one will build a fortune on bitcoin if a technological breakthrough can ruin them 2 - government never allowed parallel money to flourish on their territory, so it will be almost impossible to change bitcoin against euros or dollars
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    interesting stuff anyone read cryptonomicon by neal stephenson? similar theme.
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    :) yes. One of the comments on reddit was precisely drawing the parallels with Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash / Diamond Age / Cryptonomicon. Interesting stuff indeed. It has a lot of potential for misuse, but also opens up new possibilities. We've discussed recently how emerging technologies will drive social change. Whether it's the likes of NSA / CIA who will benefit the most from the Twitters, Facebooks and so on, by gaining greater power for control, or whether individuals are being empowered to at least an identical degree. We saw last year VISA / PayPal censoring WikiLeaks... Well, here's a way for any individual to support such an organization, in a fully anonymous and uncontrollable way...
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    One of my colleagues has made a nice, short write-up about BitCoin: http://www.pds.ewi.tudelft.nl/~victor/bitcoin.html
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    very nice analysis indeed - thanks Tamas for sharing it!
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    mmm I'm not an expert but it seemed to me that, even if these criticisms are true, there is one fundamental difference between the money you exchange on internet via your bank, and bitcoins. The first one is virtual money and the second one aims at being real, physical, money, even if digital, in the same way as banknotes, coins, or gold.
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    An algorithm wanna-be central bank issuing untraceable tax free money between internet users? not more likely than the end of the world supposed to take place tomorrow, in my opinion. Algorithms don't usually assault women though !:P
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    well, most money is anyway just virtual and only based on expectations and trust ... (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply) and thus if people trust that this "money" has some value in the sense that they can get something of value to them in exchange, then not much more is needed it seems to me ...
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    @Leopold: ok let's use the rigth words then. Bitcoin aim at being a currency ("physical objects generally accepted as a medium of exchange" from wikipedia), different than the "demand deposit". In the article proposed by Tamas he compares what cannot be compared (currencies, demand deposits and their mean of exchange). The interesting question is wether one can create a digital currency which is too difficult to counterfeit. As far as I know, there is no existing digital currency except this bitcoins (and maybe the currencies from games as second life and others, but which are of limited use in real world).
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    well of course money is trust, and even more loans and credit and even more stock and bond markets. It all represents trust and expectations. However since the first banks 500 years ago and the first loans etc. etc., and as well the fact that bonds and currencies bring down whole countries (Greece lately), and are mainly controlled by large financial centres and (central) banks, banks have always been on the winning side no matter what and that isn't going to change easily. So if you are talking about these new currencies it would be a new era, not just a new currency. So should Greece convert its debt to bitcoins ;P ?
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    well, from 1936 to 1993 the central bank of france was owned by the state and was supposed to serve the general interest...
ESA ACT

Postit :: Firefox Add-ons - 0 views

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    Wasn't that what we actually wanted??? (del.icio.us + comments)
Ma Ru

Euroscience Open Forum 2010 - 2 views

shared by Ma Ru on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
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    A conference ACT should consider going to.
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    Perhaps some of ACTers will find this conference interesting... One of the talks: "Would Einstein be on Twitter? Exploring the potential and limits of Web 2.0 in science & science communication" [Edit] Oh, I see someone has already posted this link... a year ago. Anyway, if anyone of you plans to go, let me know - I'll be around ;-)
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    Just came back from ESOF 2010... I was on look for ACT agents undercover, but either they were not there or the cover was good enough... Anyway here's a few remarks from me (I could write a nice report... if you paid): 1) In general, to say that ESA was underrepresented on the conference as a whole is not enough (I guess ESA just failed to notice the event taking place). For instance, on the GMES presentation, ESA as such was not mentioned at all... at some point I started to wonder if ESA is actually involved in the project, but now I checked the website and apparently it is. On the other hand, GMES presentation was crap anyway, as after 1:15 of talking, I didn't gain any knowledge of what GMES is and what its contributions to the EU community will be. 2) There was a lot of talk about LHC and particle research (well, at least among those that I attended). Some of them were very good, some of them rather crap... 3) "Would Einstein be on Twitter? Exploring the potential and limits of Web 2.0 in science & science communication" talk - quite interesting, but focusing mainly on Science-to-Wide Public and Science-to-Journalists communication. Not really on Science-to-Science (as in Ariadnet). There was quite an extensive discussion with the public. You may be interested that Nature is trying to stimulate Web 2.0 communication, running blog service, but also I think a kind of social network - perhaps you'd like to have a look. In general the conclusion was that Web 2.0 is not so useful for scientific communication because practising it requires TIME (blogs, etc.) and often some professional skills (podcasts/videocasts, etc.), and scientists have neither of these. This can be run on corporation level (like ESA does actually), but then it looses the "intimate" character. 4) "How much can robots learn?" talk... very nicely presented: understandable by the wide public, but conveying the message... which is something like "we can already make the robots do stuff absolutely imp
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    Well, my comment was cut in half, and I don't feel like typing it again... the most important highlight from the rest is that the only presenter from ESA (ESTEC) did not show up on his talk because his department was undergoing some sort of audit on the same day :)
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    Fantastic comment - or better report!! thanks very much Marek! Who was the supposed no-show speaker from ESA?
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    Bernard Foing (he is actually one of the 8 ESA employees who have their own page on Wikipedia)...
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    written almost entirely by a guy called a "quest for knowledge" ... who will this be????? :-)
ESA ACT

Quantifying Coauthor Contributions -- Sekercioglu 322 (5900): 371a -- Science - 0 views

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    This is on the trend of having a dozen of authors on mini papers and how it could be dealt with.
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