Qwiki - 8 views
The Space Age, as recorded on human written history - 4 views
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Google Books measurements of word frequencies on 15 million books (12% of all the books ever published). More about it in: - Google Opens Books to New Cultural Studies - John Bohannon, Science 2010-12-17 - Slashdot: Google Books Makes a Word Cloud of Human History - http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/info
Gardening in space with HydroTropi - 0 views
Darpa's New Recruits: You, Your Grandpa and Your Dog | Danger Room | Wired.com - 4 views
Why Randomly-Selected Politicians Would Improve Democracy - Technology Review - 4 views
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If Pluchino sounds familiar, it's because we've talked about him and his pals before in relation to the Peter Principle that incompetence always spreads through big organisations. Back in 2009, he and his buddies created a model that showed how promoting people at random always improves the efficiency of the organisation. These guys went on to win a well-deserved IgNobel prize for this work.
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Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1103.1224: Accidental Politicians: How Randomly Selected Legislators Can Improve Parliament Efficiency
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I think I start to understand why Italian politics does so horribly bad...
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... because they don't follow this rule!
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According to the authors we have four types of people in the parlement: 1) intelligent people whose actions produce a gain for both themselves and for other people. 2) helpless/naive people in the top left quadrant whose actions produce a loss for themselves but a gain for others; 3) bandits whose actions produce a gain for themselves but a loss for other people. 4) stupid people in the bottom left quadrant produce a loss for themselves and also for other people. According to the above definition it is clear that their model does not apply to the italian parlament where we only have stupid people and bandits.
Pioneer Anomaly Solved By 1970s Computer Graphics Technique - Technology Review - 4 views
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Now Frederico Francisco at the Instituto de Plasmas e Fusao Nuclear in Lisbon Portugal, and a few pals, say they've worked out where the thermal calculations went wrong. These guys have redone the calculations using a computer model of not only how the heat is emitted but how it is reflected off the various parts of the spacecraft too. The reflections turn out to be crucial.
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Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1103.5222: Modelling The Reflective Thermal Contribution To The Acceleration Of The Pioneer Spacecraft
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This is really cool. I know one of the authors and he is a good guy... the only thing that leaves me unsatisfied is that if the whole issue is related to thermal effects one should have seen the Pioneer effect all the time and not only at about 10 AU... ...or is there some thermal process that kicked in only at this distance?
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Here's an update on this theory: NASA Releases New Pioneer Anomaly Analysis "The mysterious force acting on the Pioneer spacecraft seems to be falling exponentially. That's a strong clue that on-board heat is to blame, says NASA." Heat emission 'most likely cause' of pioneer anomaly "What's more interesting is that, contrary to the original analysis conducted all those years ago, the deceleration does seem to be decelerating at an exponential rate -- just as one might expect from the radioactive decay of plutonium-238, which powers the two spacecraft. Turyshev concludes, "The most likely cause of the Pioneer anomaly is the anisotropic emission of on-board heat.""
Bionische Roboter erkunden fremde Planeten | Technology Review - 4 views
A Fusion Thruster for Space Travel - IEEE Spectrum - 4 views
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Now a NASA engineer has come up with a new way to fling satellites through space on mere grams of fuel, tens of times as efficiently as today’s best space probe thrusters.
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Instead of using deuterium and tritium as the fuel stocks, the new motor extracts energy from boron fuel.
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"And according to his calculations, improvements in short-pulse laser systems could make this form of thruster more than 40 times as efficient as even the best of today's ionic propulsion systems that push spacecraft around. "
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Dejan please have a look at this also ...
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while the nuclear reaction seems to be sound at first view, I am not so sure how this would work: "Electromagnetic forces push the target and the alpha particles in the opposite directions, and the particles exit the spacecraft through a nozzle, providing the vehicle's thrust. "
Pee power: Urine-loving bug churns out space fuel - 4 views
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Scientists on Sunday said they had gained insights into a remarkable bacterium that lives without oxygen and transforms ammonium, the ingredient of urine, into hydrazine, a rocket fuel.
Crowd sourcing site for science funding - 4 views
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nice - and we could be the first ones to propose something in the space category ... good ideas welcome! http://www.rockethub.com/projects/scifund/by_category/35-space
Occupy Federal Science: "Transformative" Research Can't Come From Milquetoast | The Cru... - 4 views
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I like this one "The kind of idle pastime that might amuse physicists is to imagine drafting Einstein's grant applications in 1905. "I propose to investigate the idea that light travels in little bits," one might say. "I will explore the possibility that time slows down as things speed up," goes another. Imagine what comments these would have elicited from reviewers for the German Science Funding Agency, had such a thing existed. Instead, Einstein just did the work anyway while drawing his wages as a technical expert third-class at the Bern patent office. And that is how he invented quantum physics and relativity." There is an even more pointer example of the Prussian academy of sciences reviewing the Dr. application of Hertz ...
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Shocking. What is federal research funding for? No, wrong question. Instead maybe: What is federally funded review for?
SLS Boosters Raise Hope For Kerosene - 4 views
SpaceX-Dragon Capsule - 4 views
Check your country impact on science!!! - 8 views
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Did you know that papers in space science are among the most quoted? Check how your country is doing .... you will be surprised :)
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this might also be an indication / point to an issue with their data concerning space science publications ... quite surprising indeed that all Europeans are doing so well in this field
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Something should be wrong, for Spain I can read: Economics & Business 4.54 -28 Only minus 28!
Artificial Braneworlds Made to Collide In Lab - Technology Review - 4 views
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Physicists have simulated two universes colliding inside a metamaterial-- Now, this is cool (if it is true...)
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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
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Luzi I miss you ...
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