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Frightening! In reality, the deal has almost nothing to do with trade: actual trade barriers between these countries are already very low. The TPP is an effort to use the holy grail of free trade to impose conditions and override domestic laws in a way that would be almost impossible if the proposed measures had to go through the normal legislative process. The expectation is that by lining up powerful corporate interests, the governments will be able to ram this new "free trade" pact through legislatures on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

A new type of structure for converting red light into blue has been unveiled by researchers in the US. Known as frequency doubling or second-harmonic generation (SHG), the conversion involves "nanocups", which are tiny, artificially designed 3D structures. SHG is used in light sources and in metrology applications - and the researchers believe that the new structures could be adapted to achieve frequency doubling in parts of the electromagnetic spectrum where it is currently not possible.

A crack team of engineers at the University of Illinois has developed an electronic circuit that autonomously self-heals when its metal wires are broken.

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 ...

any idea how this works - who wants to have a closer look at it?

Wouldn't it be worth having a closer look?

it's still not clear to me how to get electricity in and out of this thing?

A "four-wheel drive car" less than one billionth the length of an average SUV has been built and operated by researchers in the Netherlands and Switzerland.

"Molecular machines are common in nature. Motor proteins, for example, can move along a surface to transport molecular-sized cargo and are often used to build structures within living cells. " reminds me of the fantastic movie on what happens inside a cell ...

interesting reflections by MIT head on innovation in US

interesting, especially since in all COmmission papers US innovation is praised and changes expected are only related to China/India (for the better)... Article mixes a lot talk on innovation with numbers that I do not see necessarily connected (trade deficit, GDP growth etc.). Seems to me the real problematique behind the article is only the next planned distribution of federal funds and where they should cut...

well I understand her point. Spending cuts are only vicious short term solutions against economical downturn since growth (GDP is an interesting measure indeed) comes from innovation, research and production. Nonetheless, what she is describing is happening in EU too. So who will take the lead? I am not certain China is the one. In my view, it has not yet solved its domestic issues... and US still has more Nobel Prize than China. One thing for sure, the way it is EU is only a "wagon" of the train...

http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6389v2 for Guido; an interesting example of "takeover" research

:-)

Well, it's not yet confirmed... That error would be worse than the magnetic moment of the muon about 10 years ago. There, it was "at least" a conflict of conventions used in the computer codes!

In a statement based on an earlier press release from the OPERA collaboration, CERN said two possible "effects" may have influenced the anomalous measurements. One of them, due to a possible faulty connection between the fiber-optic cable bringing the GPS signals to OPERA and the detector's master clock, would have caused the experiment to underestimate the neutrinos' flight time, as described in the original story. The other effect concerns an oscillator, part of OPERA's particle detector that gives its readings time stamps synchronized to GPS signals. Researchers think correcting for an error in this device would actually increase the anomaly in neutrino velocity, making the particles even speedier than the earlier measurements seemed to show. CERN's statement says OPERA scientists are studying the "potential extent of these two effects" but doesn't indicate which source of error (if either) is likely to outweigh the other. However, Lucia Votano, director of the Gran Sasso laboratory, says the "main suspicion" focuses on the optical-fiber connection. She adds that OPERA researchers deserve credit for "having tenaciously followed this particular evidence via checks completed in the last few days." The two effects will get a new round of tests in May, when the two labs are scheduled to make velocity measurements with short-pulsed beams designed to give readings much more precise than scientists have achieved so far.

hey! This is essentially the Probabilistic Computing Ariadna

The link is there but my understanding of our purpose is different than what I understood from the abstract. In any case,the authors are from Palma de Mallorca, Balears, Spain "somebody" should somehow make them aware of the Ariadna study ... E.g somebody no longer in the team :-)

the examples shown there are not overly impressive but we should probably have a closer look at the whole list to see what might be of interest to space - Lionel? Duncan?

Where are the scientists???

"Scientist" is maybe not considered being a real job.

I guess, people working in the really most sleep-deprived areas simply had no time to give an interview... or fell asleep while the first question was asked!

Spacecraft equipped with lasers powered by light from the Sun are our best defence against incoming asteroids, say aerospace engineers

"For the first time, researchers have determined virtually the entire genome of a fetus using only a blood sample from the pregnant woman and a saliva specimen from the father."

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

Scientists in Germany are using artificial nerve cells to classify different types of data. These silicon 'neurons' could recognize handwritten numbers, or distinguish plant species based on their flowers.

Has this not been underway for quite some time now? Not sure if this 'new era' is coming any day soon. Thoughts?

If they want to give the computers "senses" they should also go ahead and give them a body slightly taller than humans ...and guns. So once they reach a critical level of consciousness they can really go to town... http://0-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board/tg/image/1385/54/1385549501025.jpg

Neural networks!!! However, indeed, "senses" will not make any sense towards human-like computing without bodies that physically interact with the world. That's where most of these things are going wrong. Perception and cognition are for action. Without action coming from the machine side all these ideas simply fail.

The WorldView2 satellite has a maximum 50 cm resolution and a water penetrating coastal band in the far-blue part of the spectrum that allows it to see deeper into the water column. Using an image covering 113 km2, we identified 55 probable whales and 23 other features that are possibly whales, with a further 13 objects that are only detected by the coastal band.

"The Man from Earth" is real !! and there are apparently many of them around...

plant intelligence in action (even plants are more intelligent than our AI algorithm)