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Joris _

A Singularity Approach to Space: Beamed Propulsion, AI, and Iridium on Steroids | Parab... - 8 views

www.parabolicarc.com/...ed-propulsion-iridium-steroids

technology

shared by Joris _ on 31 Aug 10 - Cached
Juxi Leitner liked it
  • Christos Ampatzis on 01 Sep 10
     
    you know what? if you exclude the title it is not so much bullshit! "Send a robot out into space - allow people to experience space via a virtual environment" I have always loved this idea!
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Juxi Leitner on 05 Sep 10
     
    do you want to add some of that to the humanoids in space acta futura article?
  • Joris _ on 06 Sep 10
     
    I looked at the wiki input on this, but I don't know what I should do. Aren't you writing the article. I definitely think there are some stuffs to pick up on the list and develop further.
  • Juxi Leitner on 06 Sep 10
     
    yeah i do but input is always more than welcome =)
  • LeopoldS on 07 Sep 10
     
    "I have always loved this idea!" - me too!!!
Nicholas Lan

Letter from Intergovernmental panel on climate change. - 2 views

docs.google.com/fileview

environment climate change

shared by Nicholas Lan on 21 Jul 10 - No Cached
  • Nicholas Lan on 21 Jul 10
     
    To Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, and Review Editors for the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) "I would also like to emphasize that enhanced media interest in the work of the IPCC would probably subject you to queries about your work and the IPCC. My sincere advice would be that you keep a distance from the media and should any questions be asked about the Working Group with which you are associated, please direct such media questions to the Co-chairs of your Working Group and for any questions regarding the IPCC to the secretariat of the IPCC." and an amusing related memo on how to deal with reporters if you can't avoid them. I particularly enjoyed the list of words that mean one thing to scientists and something else to other people. https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B88iFXWgVKt-NDc2N2FiM2QtYzQzYS00MWMxLWE4MGEtZjUwZDlmNzc3MTcz&hl=en
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Ma Ru on 21 Jul 10
     
    This. Memo. Is. Awesome.
  • pacome delva on 21 Jul 10
     
    quite weird this note of IPCC... I feel more like people have to be educated...
  • Nicholas Lan on 21 Jul 10
     
    i agree. however, (and perhaps it would have been useful to post my source which didn't seem so interesting at the time) the contents of this particular memo seems to have been interpreted as a more or less direct consequence of "ClimateGate" rather than standard practice. http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-climate-change/ On the other hand, I'd suggest that talking to the press is not necessarily a great way of educating the public, there being some truth i think to the contents of the memo.
  • LeopoldS on 21 Jul 10
     
    don't know why this seems weired or shocking - looks like some good practice advice to me
  • pacome delva on 21 Jul 10
     
    well compare to ESA it's sure it doesn't seem weird. Imagine one second a journal article about climate change: "We contacted Dr. X of the IPCC, who refused to answer to our questions..."
  • LeopoldS on 22 Jul 10
     
    this is not what the memo recommends ... it just says speak only about what you can confidently speak about and refer to others for other questions ...
jmlloren

Exotic matter : Insight : Nature - 5 views

www.nature.com/...index.html

nan phy

shared by jmlloren on 03 Aug 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • jmlloren on 03 Aug 10
     
    Trends in materials and condensed matter. Check out the topological insulators. amazing field.
  • ...12 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 03 Aug 10
     
    Aparently very interesting, will it survive the short hype? Relevant work describing mirror charges of topological insulators and the classical boundary conditions were done by Ismo and Ari. But the two communities don't know each other and so they are never cited. Also a way to produce new things...
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    Thanks for noticing! Indeed, I had no idea that Ari (don't know Ismo) was involved in the field. Was it before Kane's proposal or more recently? What I mostly like is that semiconductors are good candidates for 3D TI, however I got lost in the quantum field jargon. Yesterday, I got a headache trying to follow the Majorana fermions, the merons, skyrnions, axions, and so on. Luzi, are all these things familiar to you?
  • Luzi Bergamin on 04 Aug 10
     
    Ismo Lindell described in the early 90's the mirror charge of what is now called topological insulator. He says that similar results were obtained already at the beginning of the 20th century... Ismo Lindell and Ari Sihvola in the recent years discussed engineering aspects of PEMCs (perfect electro-megnetic conductors,) which are more or less classical analogues of topological insulators. Fundamental aspects of PEMCs are well knwon in high-energy physics for a long time, recent works are mainly due to Friedrich Hehl and Yuri Obukhov. All these works are purely classical, so there is no charge quantisation, no considerations of electron spin etc. About Majorana fermions: yes, I spent several years of research on that topic. Axions: a topological state, of course, trivial :-) Also merons and skyrnions are topological states, but I'm less familiar with them.
  • LeopoldS on 04 Aug 10
     
    "Non-Abelian systems1, 2 contain composite particles that are neither fermions nor bosons and have a quantum statistics that is far richer than that offered by the fermion-boson dichotomy. The presence of such quasiparticles manifests itself in two remarkable ways. First, it leads to a degeneracy of the ground state that is not based on simple symmetry considerations and is robust against perturbations and interactions with the environment. Second, an interchange of two quasiparticles does not merely multiply the wavefunction by a sign, as is the case for fermions and bosons. Rather, it takes the system from one ground state to another. If a series of interchanges is made, the final state of the system will depend on the order in which these interchanges are being carried out, in sharp contrast to what happens when similar operations are performed on identical fermions or bosons." wow, this paper by Stern reads really weired ... any of you ever looked into this?
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    C'mon Leopold, it's as trivial as the topological states, AKA axions! Regarding the question, not me!
  • LeopoldS on 04 Aug 10
     
    just looked up the wikipedia entry on axions .... at least they have some creativity in names giving: "In supersymmetric theories the axion has both a scalar and a fermionic superpartner. The fermionic superpartner of the axion is called the axino, the scalar superpartner is called the saxion. In some models, the saxion is the dilaton. They are all bundled up in a chiral superfield. The axino has been predicted to be the lightest supersymmetric particle in such a model.[24] In part due to this property, it is considered a candidate for the composition of dark matter.[25]"
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    Thank's Leopold. Sorry Luzi for being ironic concerning the triviality of the axions. Now, Leo confirmed me that indeed is a trivial matter. I have problems with models where EVERYTHING is involved.
  • Luzi Bergamin on 04 Aug 10
     
    Well, that's the theory of everything, isn't it?? Seriously: I don't think that theoretically there is a lot of new stuff here. Topological aspects of (non-Abelian) theories became extremely popular in the context of string theory. The reason is very simple: topological theories are much simpler than "normal" and since string theory anyway is far too complicated to be solved, people just consider purely topological theories, then claiming that this has something to do with the real world, which of course is plainly wrong. So what I think is new about these topological insulators are the claims that one can actually fabricate a material which more or less accurately mimics a topological theory and that these materials are of practical use. Still, they are a little bit the poor man's version of the topological theories fundamental physicists like to look at since electrdynamics is an Abelian theory.
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    I have the feeling, not the knowledge, that you are right. However, I think that the implications of this light quantum field effects are great. The fact of being able to sustain two currents polarized in spin is a technological breakthrough.
  • LeopoldS on 04 Aug 10
     
    not sure how much I can contribute to your apparently educated debate here but if I remember well from my work for the master, these non-Abelian theories were all but "simple" as Luzi puts it ... and from a different perspective: to me the whole thing of being able to describe such non-Abelian systems nicely indicates that they should in one way or another also have some appearance in Nature (would be very surprised if not) - though this is of course no argument that makes string theory any better or closer to what Luzi called reality ....
  • Luzi Bergamin on 04 Aug 10
     
    Well, electrodynamics remains an Abelian theory. From the theoretical point of view this is less interesting than non-Abelian ones, since in 4D the fibre bundle of a U(1) theory is trivial (great buzz words, eh!) But in topological insulators the point of view is slightly different since one always has the insulator (topological theory), its surrounding (propagating theory) and most importantly the interface between the two. This is a new situation that people from field and string theory were not really interested in.
  • Dario Izzo on 04 Aug 10
     
    guys... how would you explain this to your gran mothers?
  • jmlloren on 05 Aug 10
  • LeopoldS on 07 Aug 10
     
    *you* tried *your* best .... ??
Joris _

BBC News - Old star wallows in 'steam bath' - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-11153086

science water

shared by Joris _ on 02 Sep 10 - Cached
  • an old giant star wallows in a "steam bath"
  • These spectrometers were able to confirm that CW Leonis' water was present very close in to the star, all the way down to near its surface - far too close to have come from comets.
Ma Ru

Russia's underwater 'cosmic eye' - 2 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-11384614

science neutrino PHY telescope

shared by Ma Ru on 24 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Ma Ru on 24 Sep 10
     
    Awesome video!!!
Loretta Latronico Poulain

The biology of business: Homo administrans - 0 views

www.economist.com/17090697

science fun

shared by Loretta Latronico Poulain on 24 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Loretta Latronico Poulain on 24 Sep 10
     
    "Richard Arvey, the head of the NUS business school's department of management and organisation, has been looking into precisely how genes interact with different types of environment to create such things as entrepreneurial zeal and the ability to lead others."...They are doing experiments with twins...I want to try with my twin!!!:))
duncan barker

BBC News - Snail sat-nav triumphs in contest - 2 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-11306681

shared by duncan barker on 17 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • duncan barker on 17 Sep 10
     
    Leopold - this reminded me your lunch the other day. some interesting science too :)
  • LeopoldS on 19 Sep 10
     
    so what can we do in this area? how can "we use citizen scientists for space"?
Joris _

BBC News - Virgin Galactic slows satellite launcher plans - 2 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-11453390

MAD

shared by Joris _ on 04 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 10 Oct 10
     
    pity!
LeopoldS

Yale Environment 360: The Greenhouse GasThat Nobody Knew - 2 views

e360.yale.edu/...print.msp

PHY science climate-change

shared by LeopoldS on 18 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 18 Oct 10
     
    interesting perspective ... hopefully included by now in the list but I did not check ....
Ma Ru

Dream job for Tobias and the like? - 2 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-11479323

BIO fun student spider fly

shared by Ma Ru on 06 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 10 Oct 10
     
    there is no "and the like" ... when talking of Tobias !!! :-)
LeopoldS

BBC News - Eutelsat suffers spacecraft loss - 1 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-11652320

space launcher telecom

shared by LeopoldS on 29 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 29 Oct 10
     
    bad news ... hope that its not Ariane related (but does not see to be the case)
Juxi Leitner

Slashdot Science Story | Calculating Environmental Damage From Space Tourism Rockets - 3 views

science.slashdot.org/...age-From-Space-Tourism-Rockets

technology green environment danger rockets

shared by Juxi Leitner on 02 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 02 Nov 10
     
    Cynthia - please have a look ... can we check the OoM?
  • Juxi Leitner on 05 Nov 10
     
    http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101022/full/news.2010.558.html hmm should be the ACT in Nature, no? ;)
  • Ma Ru on 05 Nov 10
     
    Yeeesss :) So the "non-commercial" rockets do not emit soot? And how many "non-commercial" launches per year are there in comparison to the commercial ones? Finally commercial space-flight seems more realisable than ever, and "non-commercial" guys will do everything to prevent situation in which they have to compete on an open market... Coming years should be very interesting...
LeopoldS

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Plans for UK satellite launcher - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7862827.stm

spaceflight space private-spaceflight space-tourism suborbital

shared by LeopoldS on 08 Dec 09 - Cached
  • LeopoldS on 08 Dec 09
     
    ".... taking at least 50kg of payload into a polar orbit with a minimum altitude of 400km (248 miles), but engineers would aim to get significant additional performance. "We'd be looking at a range from 50 to up to a maximum of 200kg because you'd want to do different sizes of satellite," said Mr Whitehorn."
Nina Nadine Ridder

Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming | LiveScience - 5 views

www.livescience.com/..._global_warming_results-1.html

climate_change satellite_orbit drag atmosphere

shared by Nina Nadine Ridder on 07 Dec 09 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Nina Nadine Ridder on 07 Dec 09
     
    #4 is pretty interesting 
  • ...1 more comment...
  • LeopoldS on 08 Dec 09
     
    first time I hear about this!!! Is there any peer reviewed paper reference to this? should impact missions like GOCE!!
  • Nina Nadine Ridder on 08 Dec 09
     
    There are (even in Science): http://science-mag.aaas.org/cgi/reprint/314/5803/1253.pdf There is also a group at UCAR (lead by S. Solomon, one of the Gods in atmospheric research) who are analyzing this effect: http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/thermosphere.shtml
  • Joris _ on 08 Dec 09
     
    for the drag effect, this is well known in fluid mechanics, we use the Knudsen number, which explains this phenomenon ... for a perfect gaz though!
LeopoldS

China To Build Eco-City Cluster In Hubei - ChinaCSR.com - Corporate Social Responsibili... - 0 views

www.chinacsr.com/...uild-eco-city-cluster-in-hubei

environment china

shared by LeopoldS on 07 Dec 09 - Cached
  • LeopoldS on 07 Dec 09
     
    ecological construction and environmental protection of a city cluster and more than CNY500 billion will be invested to build this eco-city cluster, which is to be centered on Wuhan.
LeopoldS

Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China - 0 views

www.most.gov.cn/...t20091120_74294.htm

environment ecology development china cooperation politics

shared by LeopoldS on 07 Dec 09 - Cached
  • LeopoldS on 07 Dec 09
     
    University Alliance for Low Carbon Energy   Three universities, including Tsinghua University, University of Cambridge, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have fostered up an alliance on November 15, 2009 to advocate low carbon energy and climate change adaptation The alliance will mainly work on 6 major areas: clean coal technology and CCS, homebuilding energy efficiency, industrial energy efficiency and sustainable transport, biomass energy and other renewable energy, advanced nuclear energy, intelligent power grid, and energy policies/planning. A steering panel made up of the senior experts from the three universities (two from each) will be established to review, evaluate, and endorse the goals, projects, fund raising activities, and collaborations under the alliance. With the Headquarters at the campus of Tsinghua University and branch offices at other two universities, the alliance will be chaired by a scientist selected from Tsinghua University.   According to a briefing, the alliance will need a budget of USD 3-5 million, mainly from the donations of government, industry, and all walks of life. In this context, the R&D findings derived from the alliance will find its applications in improving people's life.
Francesco Biscani

Official Google Blog: Announcing Google's Focused Research Awards - 0 views

googleblog.blogspot.com/...-googles-focused-research.html

inf

shared by Francesco Biscani on 02 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Today, we're announcing the first-ever round of Google Focused Research Awards — funding research in areas of study that are of key interest to Google as well as the research community. These awards, totaling $5.7 million, cover four areas: machine learning, the use of mobile phones as data collection devices for public health and environment monitoring, energy efficiency in computing, and privacy.
  • Francesco Biscani on 02 Feb 10
     
    Might be of some interest to Christos?
Ma Ru

Ghost of Oisin - Electric Sea Worms - 2 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8570387.stm

nrg environment renewable

shared by Ma Ru on 16 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Ma Ru on 16 Mar 10
     
    Now you can peep inside.
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