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Some pics and movies on insect-inspired Mirco Air Vehicles. Some of the stuff I have seen in Ascona. And we are also mentioned. But only with one sentence...

message from Tamas ... :-)

A method on how to run businesses based on consent (not consensus).

Anyone out there still doing propulsion stuff? Two more papers just waiting to get busted... http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1429v1 http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803

One reply to Pacome, though the discussion exceeds by far the relevance of the topic already. Baryonic DM is strictly limited by cosomology, if one believes in these models, of course. Anyway, even though most DM is cold, we are constantly bombarded by some DM particles that come together with cosmic radiation, solar wind etc. etc. If DM easily interacted with normal matter, we would have found it long ago. In the paper they consider DM as neutralinos, which are neither baryonic nor strongly or electromagnetically interacting.

well then I agree, how the fu.. they want to collect them !!!

an analysis of implications of the Falcon Heavy announcement

Quantum internet will enable perfectly secure communications, but the technology and means to build the required quantum memories and routers are still many years distant. The proposal here is to store qubits and send them in containers over the oceans. Researchers claim that it is possible to send information at bandwidths measured in teraahertz outperforming the predictions of a quantum router internet. It can be thought in space systems as well. Then the problem is still for how long are we able to store a qubit, without dephasing... PS: As a curiosity, you can find a very interesting book about containers and how in some way they changed our world: Mark Levinson's book 'The Box' http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9383.html Maybe they will do it again

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said Friday that it has succeeded in transmitting 10 kW of power through 500 m. An announcement that comes just after JAXA scientists reported one more breakthrough in the quest for Space Solar Power Systems (http://phys.org/news/2015-03-japan-space-scientists-wireless-energy.html). One step closer to Power Generation from Space/

from the press release (https://www.mhi-global.com/news/story/1503121879.html) "10 kilowatts (kW) of power was sent from a transmitting unit by microwave. The reception of power was confirmed at a receiver unit located at a distance of 500 meters (m) away by the illumination of LED lights, using part of power transmitted". So 10kW of transmission to light a few efficient LED lights??? In a 2011 report (https://www.mhi-global.com/company/technology/review/pdf/e484/e484017.pdf), MHI estimated this would generate the same electricity output as a 400-megawatt thermal plant - or enough to serve more than 150,000 homes during peak hours. The price? The same as publicly supplied power, according to its calculations. There are no results to boost these claims however. The main work they do now is focused on beam steering control. I guess the real application in mind is more targeted to terrestrial applications, eg wireless highway charging (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120312-wireless-highway-to-charge-cars). With the distances so much shorter, leading to much smaller antenna's and rectenna's this makes much more sense to me to develop.

laser link on cubesat!

NASA and the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have successfully demonstrated a new nuclear reactor power system that could enable long-duration crewed missions to the Moon, Mars and destinations beyond. Main page for kilopower project: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/kilopower

IBM for the first time ever is making quantum computing available to the public, providing access to a quantum processor via the cloud. Users can create algorithms and run experiments and get inspired by the possibilities of a quantum computer.

Looks interesting.. Have you tried it?

Mathias Troyer from ETH Zurtich gave a talk in Leiden where he showed what he wants to be the replacement to this IBM programming or the best ally of it - program quantum computers with, for instance, python code. Nice developments coming from the quantum coding field, besides the fact we are ages away from a practical quantum computer.

A college course at University of Washington on "Calling Bullshit". We should invite them to give a lunch lecture at ESA... Our aim in this course is to teach you how to think critically about the data and models that constitute evidence in the social and natural sciences. While bullshit may reach its apogee in the political domain, this is not a course on political bullshit. Instead, we will focus on bullshit that comes clad in the trappings of scholarly discourse. Our learning objectives are straightforward. After taking the course, you should be able to: * Remain vigilant for bullshit contaminating your information diet. * Recognize said bullshit whenever and wherever you encounter it. * Figure out for yourself precisely why a particular bit of bullshit is bullshit. * Provide a statistician or fellow scientist with a technical explanation of why a claim is bullshit. * Provide your crystals-and-homeopathy aunt or casually racist uncle with an accessible and persuasive explanation of why a claim is bullshit. We will be astonished if these skills do not turn out to be among the most useful and most broadly applicable of those that you acquire during the course of your college education.

love it: "Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Higher education rewards bullshit over analytic thought. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. Advertisers wink conspiratorially and invite us to join them in seeing through all the bullshit - and take advantage of our lowered guard to bombard us with bullshit of the second order. The majority of administrative activity, whether in private business or the public sphere, seems to be little more than a sophisticated exercise in the combinatorial reassembly of bullshit. We're sick of it. It's time to do something, and as educators, one constructive thing we know how to do is to teach people. So, the aim of this course is to help students navigate the bullshit-rich modern environment by identifying bullshit, seeing through it, and combating it with effective analysis and argument."

OHB and Luxspace venture to ensure human life on the Moon! Research on O2 production and others.....

Has BH at least completed an orbit yet? Or are they still at 10mins in microgravity?