Again bio-photonics. Cool subject, should have a look into.

Roots can call predators to kill their enemies.

A short overview on cool experiments with flies.

This is an idependent organisation reviewing healthcare studies and basically judging the results. Something like the ACT for international medicine. Sounds interesting in the approach. Their suggestion for swine-flu prevention: wash your hands frequently. Nothing helps better.

This is the Web 3.0-version of a bullshit generation. Much fun though. Here an article about it: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/20/iwise-is-twitter-for-dead-people/

A paper about evolutionary algorithms. Could be something for Dario or Christos. Also has some space things in it.

The information processing performance of a network can be enhanced by a sparse or low-cost configuration with disproportionately high efficiency. --> any ideas?

Is this bullshit or really useful?

The Millennium Project is a global participatory futures research think tank of futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities. The Millennium Project manages a coherent and cumulative process that collects and assesses judgements from its several hundred participants to produce the annual "State of the Future", "Futures Research Methodology" series, and special studies such as the State of the Future Index, Future Scenarios for Africa, Lessons of History, Environmental Security, Applications of Futures Research to Policy, and a 700+ annotated scenarios bibliography.

If electronics are soft and rubbery, would they maybe also tolerate launch- or landing-related vibrations better? Could we pack things more robust? Probably things get too fluffy for space engineers?

Unfortuantely only in german. Apparenly Ludwig 2.0 is an amazing piece of software able to compose songs make arrangements etc. From the same guy who programmed crazy chess software.

The biomechanics of serpentine locomotion have been examined. Apparently it is very similar to legged locomotion. In the unlikely case ESA wants to build a serpentine robot, this paper should be a first read.

Some interesting results concerning tissue regeneration. One day, astronauts will be doing it as well...

This is about biological and technical hygromorphs, i.e. structures that change shape according to humidity. Next to pine cones, there is also a cool study on wheat awns which drill themselves into the soil just by daily variance of air humidity. Biomimetics would be passively controlled acutators or humidity driven valves in space station to open/close dehumidification devices.

Not yet. There is also some other nice mechanism of wheat awns and how they use changes in humidity to anchor in soil. Would maybe fit with the above mentioned work of oisin.

A toc of a spcial issue on synthetic biology: How to assemble organisms from scratch. Could one day be intersting for large scale deterministic self assembly or some other crazy idea...

Cool map of the earth from NASA

Unfortunately in German: A frog which is able to survive for years in the mud by using a technique calle Mitochondriatic coupling. And I should have gone to that conference!