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for Press & Dyson's paper check:  http://edge.org/conversation/on-iterated-prisoner-dilemma http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1206569109

The atom may not be a planetary system, but under specific circumstances it can behave like one. That is the curious finding of physicists in Austria and the US, who have confirmed a 1994 prediction that, in the presence of an applied electromagnetic field, electrons in very highly energized atomic states should behave like the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter.

Bohr's model finally not so wrong?

Physicists have simulated two universes colliding inside a metamaterial--  Now, this is cool (if it is true...)

Hm, they use more or less everything I don't especially like. They are nonmagnetic, so the relation materialGR is already rather weak. Usually, experimentalists prefer nonmagnetic media, since they are cheaper and broadband. At least the broadband is no argument here, since the frequency defines the "mass", which I find a rather strange point of view. And finally, they use strong anisotropy as a model of "time", which is rather problematic. Of course, the spatial direction with eps<0 appears in the wave equation with the same sign as time. But this does not mean that it behaves like time. But to teach material physicists that time is more than just a different sign in the wave equation seems to be as hopeless as to teach them that a black hole is more than something that absorbs all light... SIGHHH

Luzi I miss you ...

"Real leadership is about transforming the system, not just succeeding within or despite the system. Today, we know how to run organizations in ways that that lift up the human spirit, both for those doing the work and those for whom the work is done. So why don't we get on with it?"

Might be a useful reference for PyGMO-related works.

paywall skipping: http://www.ncmis.cas.cn/kxcb/jclyzs/201202/W020120203526011739796.pdf

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

The researchers used a global climate model to show that if an extreme emissions pathway -- RCP8.5 -- is followed up until 2035, allowing temperatures to rise 1°C above the 1970-1999 mean, and then SRM (Solar Radiation Management) is implemented for 25 years and suddenly stopped, global temperatures could increase by 4°C in the following decades.

Nice quantitative study. They treat the problem within the full uncertainty range of climate sensitivity parameter (much uncertain), very complete. However, at SRM ceasing, after an initial positive spike of Radiative Forcing, the rate of warming seems to return to rates predicted for the non-geoengineering case: "The 20-year temperature trends following SRM cessation are 0.2−0.6 °C/decade for the range of climate sensitivities (figure 5), comparable to those trends that occur under the RCP8.5 scenario without any SRM." I am actually working on a similar idea for deliberate Mars terraforming: aiming to cool the planet down before we introduce a positive Temperature raising feedback with greenhouse gases, maybe could be more efficient than warming itself.

Interesting discussion is going about, on how work anxiety is spreading in academia, with possible mental consequences. And with robust links to the "Doing What You Love" motto of life/work. Could be proven an unsustainable model though. Recalling of Higgs' recent declaration, that today's Academia productivity demands would be hectic for him, could point to the direction of the problem and the solution...?

By just getting a DNA footprint of a person scientists (and soon police) can produce an image of the person's face. Check out the pictures!

should try it the other way around, deduce the DNA from facial features. That would be even cooler.

Well actually, they did something like that as they searched for common DNA patterns in people that had similar facial features. With a large enough dataset that could provide already 24 DNA tracers that could used reliably for prediction. Imagine if you had even more data available, who needs a model then... just let the NN do it :)

Interesting read if you're interested on the kind of coding that goes into something like the Curiosity rover. :) btw.. nice fill-packet being sent by Curiosity: "Elvis has Spirit. The answer is 42....END\r\n"

Here you go. You can now scrap Lisa altogether. Who's going to tell Pacome?

Awesome and exciting stuff indeed! The data pinpoint the time when inflation occurred - about 10E-37 seconds into the Universe's life - and its temperature at the time, corresponding to energies of about 10E16 gigaelectronvolts, says cosmologist Michael Turner of the University of Chicago. That is the same energy at which three of the four fundamental forces of nature - the weak, strong and electromagnetic force - are expected to become indistinguishable from one another in a model known as the grand unified theory. I expect more fundamental physics insights to come out of this in the future. A full-sky survey from space may still be an interesting addition to the measurement capabilities, so I would not rule out LISA all together I guess...

NASA answer to the big data hype

"The service encompasses selected NASA satellite and global change data sets -- including temperature, precipitation, and forest cover -- and data processing tools from the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX)" Very good marketing move for just three types of selected data (MODIS, Landsat products) plus four model runs (past/projection) for the the four greenhouse gas emissions scenarios of the IPCC. It looks as if they are making data available to adress a targeted question (crowdsourcing of science, as Paul mentioned last time, this time climate evolution), not at all the "free scrolling of the user around the database" to pick up what he thinks useful, mode. There is already more rich libraries out there when it comes to climate (http://icdc.zmaw.de/) Maybe simpler approach is the way to go: make available the big data sets categorized by study topic (climate evolution, solar system science, galaxies etc.) and not by instrument or mission, which is more technical, so that the amateur user can identify his point of interest easily.

They are taking a good leap forward with it, but it definitely requires a lot of post processing of the data. Actually it seems they downsample everything to workable chunks. But I guess the power is really in the availability of the data in combination with Amazon's cloud computing platform. Who knows what will come out of it if hundreds of people start interacting with it.

This sort of reminds me of that Festo robot thing. Except this one was more of a baloon type model: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxVf9QY_TFs

Another underestimated source of CO2, are turbulent waters. "The stronger the turbulences at the water's surface, the more CO2 is released into the atmosphere. The combination of maps and data revealed that, while the CO2 emissions from lakes and reservoirs are lower than assumed, those from rivers and streams are three times as high as previously believed." Alltogether the emitted CO2 equates to roughly one-fifth of the emissions caused by humans. Yet more stuff to model...

Nasia, I thought about your statement carefully - and I cannot agree with you. Water is not a greenhouse gas. It is instead a liquid. Also, I can't believe you keep feeding the troll! :-P But on a more topical note: I think it is an over-simplification to call water a greenhouse gas - water is one of the most important mechanisms in the way Earth handles heat input from the sun. The latent heat that you mention actually cools Earth: solar energy that would otherwise heat Earth's surface is ABSORBED as latent heat by water which consequently evaporates - the same water condenses into rain drops at high altitudes and releases this stored heat. In effect the water cycle is a mechanism of heat transport from low altitude to high altitude where the chance of infrared radiation escaping into space is much higher due to the much thinner layer of atmosphere above (including the smaller abundance of greenhouse gasses). Also, as I know you are well aware, the cloud cover that results from water condensation in the troposphere dramatically increases albedo which has a cooling effect on climate. Furthermore the heat capacity of wet air ("humid heat") is much larger than that of dry air - so any advective heat transfer due to air currents is more efficient in wet air - transporting heat from warm areas to a natural heat sink e.g. polar regions. Of course there are also climate heating effects of water like the absorption of IR radiation. But I stand by my statement (as defended in the above) that rain cools the atmosphere. Oh and also some nice reading material on the complexities related to climate feedback due to sea surface temperature: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0442(1993)006%3C2049%3ALSEOTR%3E2.0.CO%3B2

I enjoy trolling conversations when there is a gain for both sides at the end :-) . I had to check upon some of the facts in order to explain my self properly. The IPCC report states the greenhouse gases here, and water vapour is included: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-2-1.html Honestly, I read only the abstract of the article you posted, which is a very interesting hypothesis on the mechanism of regulating sea surface temperature, but it is very localized to the tropics (vivid convection, storms) a region of which I have very little expertise, and is difficult to study because it has non-hydrostatic dynamics. The only thing I can comment there is that the authors define constant relative humidity for the bottom layer, supplied by the oceanic surface, which limits the implementation of the concept on other earth regions. Also, we may confuse during the conversation the greenhouse gas with the Radiative Forcing of each greenhouse gas: I see your point of the latent heat trapped in the water vapour, and I agree, but the effect of the water is that it traps even as latent heat an amount of LR that would otherwise escape back to space. That is the greenhouse gas identity and an image to see the absorption bands in the atmosphere and how important the water is, without vain authority-based arguments that miss the explanation in the end: http://www.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.solarchords.com/uploaded/82/87-33833-450015_44absorbspec.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.solarchords.com/agw-science/4/greenhouse--1-radiation/33784/&h=468&w=458&sz=28&tbnid=x2NtfKh5OPM7lM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=96&zoom=1&usg=__KldteWbV19nVPbbsC4jsOgzCK6E=&docid=cMRZ9f22jbtYPM&sa=X&ei=SwynUq2TMqiS0QXVq4C4Aw&ved=0CDkQ9QEwAw

"Developers, designers, innovators all kinds of creative thinkers" aka "nerd objective-C programmers with no life"?

Well, the ACT actually proposed a few of the topics (BEWARE, THERE BE CUCUMBERS!). Some are not necessarily software based, like creating a LEGO model of the ExoMars rover (although they stripped LEGO from the challenge description and now it just says "create an ExoMars rover from hardware" ... ). Also we had no clue that they would host part of the challenge here at ESTEC - so our 5 or 6 challenges will all be hosted in Rome... ...

skype alternative - open source, no central server, encryption built in ....

its open source - go check it :-)

my ID: 7C53B574D888EE0E2A97FCD62B144DD14730E45C1B7158D4ED3EBCCB920CB93A68C62E6C9385

Darn... Another field taken by NN.. paul?

Liked for veridicity! :) In the end, for science, having models would be nice in order to promote understanding. But for practical applications? Neaaah

Metasurfaces have been made, but the problem is that they usually are static and for quantum optic applications the question is how to make a rapidly configurable metasurface. for this Harvard has initiated a multidisciplinary team that involves theoretical physics, metamaterials, nanophotonic circuitry, quantum devices, plasmonics, nanofabrication, and computational modeling

Reading "wavefront engineering" in the title I thought it had to do with wave manipulation in the sea. Nothing to do though. As I read further in this article, Harvard thrives in forming multidisciplinarity groups. Their practice is to call the best team in each expertise they need to merge. Not one researcher from each discipline, but teams of experienced professors and a series of graduate students. Maybe we could discuss it in the retreat!