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Thijs Versloot

Sunlight to jet fuel - European collaboration SOLAR-JET produces first solar kerosene - 4 views

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    With the first ever production of synthesized "solar" jet fuel, the EU-funded SOLAR-JET project has successfully demonstrated the entire production chain for renewable kerosene obtained directly from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide (CO2), therein potentially revolutionizing the future of aviation. This process has also the potential to produce any other type of fuel for transport applications, such as diesel, gasoline or pure hydrogen in a more sustainable way.
jcunha

Introducing A Brain-inspired Computer [IBM TrueNorth] - 0 views

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    Built in Silicon technology (Samsung's 28 nm process), its power is measured as one million neurons and 256 million synapses. It contains 5.4 million transistor being the largest IBM chip in these terms. All this said, it consumes less than 100 mW!! "These systems can efficiently process high-dimensional, noisy sensory data in real time, while consuming orders of magnitude less power than conventional computer architectures." IBM is working with initLabs to integrate the DVS retinal camera with these chips = real time image neuro-like image processing. In what seems to be a very successful project hugely funded by DARPA, "Our sights are now set high on the ambitious goal of integrating 4,096 chips in a single rack with 4 billion neurons and 1 trillion synapses while consuming ~4kW of power."
Juxi Leitner

Asteroid Response System in Place (Complete With U.S. Military Eye Patch) - 1 views

  • However, the US air force, which funded the development of the telescope, requires that software automatically black out a swathe of pixels to hide the trajectories of passing satellites.
Joris _

Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | ESA needs to 'tighten the belt' amid budget crisis - 2 views

  • ESA is freezing spending
  • France is planning to boost its funding by 12 percent
  • ESA selected Thales Alenia Space and OHB Technology to build the satellites, but the production contract is still bogged down by Germany's complaints about the distribution of MTG work between France and Germany
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    no much news in regard to the january's talk of Dordain althought just a thought : what if ESA tries to make money - as CNES does - rather than just spending it ?
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    to begin with european industry (and probably governments) would complain that ESA was taking business away from industry? or any part that started to make money would be quickly spun-off
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    really bad interview in my view ... btw: how is CNES making money and how much?
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    CNES is known to be a semi-autonomous agency in the sense that it can auto-finance parts of its activities. Besides the money coming from the state, money comes from the participation of CNES in private companies (e.g. Arianespace) and its own activities (e.g. SPOT among others...). It is about 400M€ per year (almost a class-M mission in Cosmic Vision). For the figures (in French): http://www.cnes.fr/automne_modules_files/standard/public/p4354_c050f7963b54a839a843723401bfddf2budget.pdf
Juxi Leitner

Obama declares war on space junk - space - 29 June 2010 - New Scientist - 2 views

  • The US will also fund research into cleaning up the space junk that's already there.
  • Obama administration also calls for research into technologies that could remove space debris already in orbit, such as laser tractor beams.
pacome delva

A Puzzling Collapse of Earth's Upper Atmosphere - 1 views

  • NASA-funded researchers are monitoring a big event in our planet's atmosphere. High above Earth's surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called "the thermosphere" recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.
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    Wow, this is a bit frigthening. Another proof that we understand very little about our atmosphere !!!
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    very interesting indeed!
Joris _

OpenLuna Picks Up Where NASA's Moon Mission Leaves Off - 0 views

  • The ambitious project will tap the resources of private enterprise to build several small scout rovers that will be shipped to the south pole of the moon via a single lander. Rock and earth samples will be returned to Earth for testing, then auctioned off to secure funding for the next phase of the plan
Francesco Biscani

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

  • 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.
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    Might be of some interest to Christos?
Friederike Sontag

Robotic roach creates order from chaos : Nature News - 8 views

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    posted before, twice:)
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    "The cockroach robot provides a specific model that biologists can test." Apparently drawing hypotheses from an arbitrary model still does the job of getting you funding and published in trendy websites...
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    @Christos: still feeling strong, ey?
Joris _

NASA budget for 2011 eliminates funds for manned lunar missions - washingtonpost.com - 3 views

  • NASA's grand plan to return to the moon, built on President George W. Bush's vision of an ambitious new chapter in space exploration, is about to vanish with hardly a whimper
  • a commercial spacecraft that could taxi astronauts into low Earth orbit
  • Obama budget as disastrous for human space fligh
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    Personally I think this is great.
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    what is great exactly ? No human beings will put a foot on the Moon, or Mars, in the next 22 yrs and more ... what an awful waste!
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    Well, the constellation program was a waste of money in its current form, overrun by delays and insufficient budget. We would have had Apollo 2.0 sixty years later, for what? At least now they are talking about going to asteroids, martian moons and stuff like that.
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    I agree that Constellation was a mistake. It is though a pity that now human Mars missions would certainly happen even later than initially hoped.
Guido de Croon

Nano flapping wing MAV by Aerovironment (DARPA-funded) - 6 views

A 7.5 inch, 19 gram flapping wing MAV with camera! It uses active stabilization since it has single wings and no tail. http://www.avinc.com/nano http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hummingbird-...

ai

started by Guido de Croon on 18 Feb 11 no follow-up yet
Giusi Schiavone

coming back to the Moon - 2 views

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    The $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE will be awarded to the first privately funded teams to build robots that successfully land on the lunar surface, explore the Moon by moving at least 500 meters (~1/3 of a mile), and return high definition video and imagery. The Google Lunar X PRIZE expires whenever all prizes are claimed, or at the end of 2015. As of midnight on December 31st, 2010, the team registration for the Google Lunar X PRIZE is closed. No additional applicants will be accepted to join the competition. ...too late
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    please see the act report on this from a few years ago - its on the wiki - should we maybe make an update analysis? any volunteers? Giusi?
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    I'll have a look
Nicholas Lan

Betting on Green - 5 views

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    breakthroughs vs. accelerated deployment in climate change mitigation technologies.
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    interesting guy indeed ... "Forget today's green technologies like electric cars, wind turbines, solar cells and smart grids, in other words. None meets what Mr Khosla calls the "Chindia price"-the price at which people in China and India will buy them without a subsidy. "Everything's a toy until it reaches that point," he says. I also like this one since its a bit like ACT topic selection: ""I am only interested in technologies that have a 90% chance of failure but, if they do succeed, would change the infrastructure of society in some radical way," he says." should we propose SPS to him ? :-)
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    one more: ""I never compute returns. If you start forecasting cash flows, you lose innovation, you lose instinct. You average yourself down to mediocrity." "I've had many more failures than successes in my life," admits Mr Khosla. "My willingness to fail gives me the ability to succeed."
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    indeed. puts me in mind of the often reinvented private ACT idea. actually there's a bunch of interesting looking articles on his website. http://www.khoslaventures.com/khosla/papers.html . No sps in the solar one as far as i can tell :) found this bit intriguing too in that, albeit presumably out of context, it doesn't make sense ""The solution to our energy problems is almost the exact opposite of what Khosla says," declares Joseph Romm, who is the editor of Climate Progress, an influential climate blog, and a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress Action Fund, a think-tank. "Technology breakthroughs are unlikely to be the answer. Accelerated deployment of existing technologies will get you down the cost curve much more rapidly than a breakthrough."" found this seemingly not very well considered piece (to be fair a blog post) by the guy http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/02/is-anyone-more-incoherent-than-vinod-khosla/ . maybe he's written some more convincing stuff in this vein somewhere.
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    "Mr Khosla (...) is investing over $1 billion of his clients' money in black swans" Well, with his own money his approach might be a little different :-)
Luís F. Simões

Shell energy scenarios to 2050 - 6 views

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    just in case you were feeling happy and optimistic
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    An energy scenario published by an oil company? Allow me to be sceptical...
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    Indeed, Shell is an energy company, not just oil, for some time now ... The two scenarii are, in their approach, dependant of economic and political situation, which is right now impossible to forecast. Reference to Kyoto is surprising, almost out-dated! But overall, I find it rather optimistic at some stages, and probably the timeline (p37-39) is unlikely with recent events.
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    the report was published in 2008, which explains the reference to Kyoto, as the follow-up to it was much more uncertain at that point. The Blueprint scenario is indeed optimistic, but also quite unlikely I'd say. I don't see humanity suddenly becoming so wise and coordinated. Sadly, I see something closer to the Scramble scenario as much more likely to occur.
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    not an oil company??? please have a look at the percentage of their revenues coming from oil and gas and then compare this with all their other energy activities together and you will see very quickly that it is only window dressing ... they are an oil and gas company ... and nothing more
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    not JUST oil. From a description: "Shell is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies." Of course revenues coming from oil are the biggest, the investment turnover on other energy sources is small for now. Knowing that most of their revenues is from an expendable source, to guarantee their future, they invest elsewhere. They have invested >1b$ in renewable energy, including biofuels. They had the largest wind power business among so-called "oil" companies. Oil only defines what they do "best". As a comparison, some time ago, Apple were selling only computers and now they sell phones. But I would not say Apple is just a phone company.
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    window dressing only ... e.g. Net cash from operating activities (pre-tax) in 2008: 70 Billion$ net income in 2008: 26 Billion revenues in 2008: 88 Billion Their investments and revenues in renewables don't even show up in their annual financial reports since probably they are under the heading of "marketing" which is already 1.7 Billion $ ... this is what they report on their investments: Capital investment, portfolio actions and business development Capital investment in 2009 was $24 billion. This represents a 26% decrease from 2008, which included over $8 billion in acquisitions, primarily relating to Duvernay Oil Corp. Capital investment included exploration expenditure of $4.5 billion (2008: $11.0 billion). In Abu Dhabi, Shell signed an agreement with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company to extend the GASCO joint venture for a further 20 years. In Australia, Shell and its partners took the final investment decision (FID) for the Gorgon LNG project (Shell share 25%). Gorgon will supply global gas markets to at least 2050, with a capacity of 15 million tonnes (100% basis) of LNG per year and a major carbon capture and storage scheme. Shell has announced a front-end engineering and design study for a floating LNG (FLNG) project, with the potential to deploy these facilities at the Prelude offshore gas discovery in Australia (Shell share 100%). In Australia, Shell confirmed that it has accepted Woodside Petroleum Ltd.'s entitlement offer of new shares at a total cost of $0.8 billion, maintaining its 34.27% share in the company; $0.4 billion was paid in 2009 with the remainder paid in 2010. In Bolivia and Brazil, Shell sold its share in a gas pipeline and in a thermoelectric power plant and its related assets for a total of around $100 million. In Canada, the Government of Alberta and the national government jointly announced their intent to contribute $0.8 billion of funding towards the Quest carbon capture and sequestration project. Quest, which is at the f
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    thanks for the info :) They still have their 50% share in the wind farm in Noordzee (you can see it from ESTEC on a clear day). Look for Shell International Renewables, other subsidiaries and joint-ventures. I guess, the report is about the oil branch. http://sustainabilityreport.shell.com/2009/servicepages/downloads/files/all_shell_sr09.pdf http://www.noordzeewind.nl/
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    no - its about Shell globally - all Shell .. these participations are just peanuts please read the intro of the CEO in the pdf you linked to: he does not even mention renewables! their entire sustainability strategy is about oil and gas - just making it (look) nicer and environmentally friendlier
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    Fair enough, for me even peanuts are worthy and I am not able to judge. Not all big-profit companies, like Shell, are evil :( Look in the pdf what is in the upstream and downstream you mentionned above. Non-shell sources for examples and more objectivity: http://www.nuon.com/company/Innovative-projects/noordzeewind.jsp http://www.e-energymarket.com/news/single-news/article/ferrari-tops-bahrain-gp-using-shell-biofuel.html thanks.
Luís F. Simões

New algorithm offers ability to influence systems such as living cells or social networks - 3 views

  • a new computational model that can analyze any type of complex network -- biological, social or electronic -- and reveal the critical points that can be used to control the entire system.
  • Slotine and his colleagues applied traditional control theory to these recent advances, devising a new model for controlling complex, self-assembling networks.
  • Yang-Yu Liu, Jean-Jacques Slotine, Albert-László Barabási. Controllability of complex networks. Nature, 2011; 473 (7346): 167 DOI: 10.1038/nature10011
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    Sounds too super to be true, no?
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    cover story in the May 12 issue of Nature
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    For each, they calculated the percentage of points that need to be controlled in order to gain control of the entire system.
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    > Sounds too super to be true, no? Yeah, how else may it sound, being a combination of hi-quality (I assume) research targeted at attracting funding, raised to the power of Science Daily's pop-pseudo-scientific journalists' bu****it? Original article starts with a cool sentence too: > The ultimate proof of our understanding of natural or technological systems is reflected in our ability to control them. ...a good starting point for a never-ending philosophers' debate... Now seriously, because of a big name behind the study, I'm very curious to read the original article. Although I expect the conclusion to be that in practical cases (i.e. the cases of "networks" you *would like to* "control"), you need to control all nodes or something equally impractical...
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    then I am looking forward to reading your conclusions here after you will have actually read the paper
Joris _

DARPA Solicits Ideas For Its Hundred-Year Starship Project | Popular Science - 4 views

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    I just can't see how their way of finding non-state funding for a 100 year project could work but would be happy to be surprised positively ...
LeopoldS

NASA - NASA Innovation Fund - 0 views

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    list of newly selected innovation projects by NASA; contains some topics at least interesting from the title and some that we have worked on! anybody interested in making a quick read and analysis of these? (though last time we did not get much feedback on our report)
ESA ACT

NASA cuts funding to private spaceship developer - space - 18 October 2007 - New Scient... - 0 views

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    remains an ambitious programme, renewed competition in space tourism as a result?
ESA ACT

Junior Research Fellowship - 0 views

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    For anyone in need for post ACT ideas.
jmlloren

EU-funded researchers discover new immune cell - 0 views

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    The cells that attacking my feet has been finally identified!
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