Advanced Concepts Team

Drones for microgravity.

Sterilizing food with solar wind??

I guess this is for data what oil tankers vs. pipelines are for hydrocarbons. Isn't ESA doing something similar for satellite data? I seem to remember that Leopold mentioned that at some point.

Abstract: The "Magnificent Seven" (M7) are a group of radio-quiet Isolated Neutron Stars (INSs) discovered in the soft X-rays through their purely thermal surface emission. Owing to the large inferred magnetic fields ($B\approx 10^{13}$ G), radiation from these sources is expected to be substantially polarised, independently on the mechanism actually responsible for the thermal emission.

Memristor-Based Artificial Neural Networks, huge potential for true, high-power AI

Memristors (for memory purposes - RRAM type) on the pipeline to be launched in orbit on a cubesat http://thewhitonline.com/2016/03/news/nasa-initiative-chooses-rowan-to-launch-satellite/

Technion researchers have demonstrated, for the first time, that laser emissions can be created through the interaction of light and water waves, in practice mechanical oscillations in fluids at the nanoscale. Interesting concept on the verge of two so far different fields!

Thermoelectric paint allows for harvesting of thermal losses.

Hydrothermal deposits on Mars may provide the best opportunity to find Martian biosignatures. Ruff and Farmer report that silica structures created by biotic and abiotic process in hot springs at El Tatio, Chile resemble those found in Gusev crater, thus making it an ideal location for future missions.

In Israel, a new way to hack by turning speakers into microphones.

An intermediate level discussion of those results by Scott Manley (Physicist, Kerbal Space Program YouTuber): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGcvxg7jJTs

Ants found in the Pacific islands of Fiji behave as miniature farmers, carefully sowing and fertilising the seeds of at least six types of plant, a study said Monday.

Maybe of interest for the ever lasting discussion around the coffee machines of our meeting room... :) paper at http://epubs.siam.org/doi/pdf/10.1137/15M1036658

It's proven, sleepiness is genetic.

Why it is written 0 views if I read it ?!

A light-bulb moment? Plants seem to pipe sunlight directly down into underground roots to help them grow. Light receptors in stems, leaves and flowers have long been known to regulate plant growth. Roots also have these receptors, but it has been unclear how they sense light deep in dark soil.

In case you are interested in Martin's past project, this article covers his master thesis. Potential for space? One of the biggest challenges with swarms of robots is manufacturing and deploying the swarm itself. Even if the robots are relatively small and relatively simple, you're still dealing with a whole bunch of them, and every step in building the robots or letting them loose is multiplied over the entire number of bots in the swarm.

Extension of standard model to explain a number of unexplained phenomena.

Meet the incredible shrinking material. Most things swell when they warm up, creating engineering headaches, but now a 3D-printed material has been configured to contract instead. When two interlinked materials expand at different rates, they can warp or crack. It's a problem in buildings, bridges, electronics and anything else that is exposed to a wide temperature swing.

"You won't believe this one weird quantum mechanical trick Begonia uses!"

If I remember correctly there was a presentation at the ACT in 2014(?) about the quantum-mechanical effects essential to photosynthesis by an external speaker.

Larval Therapy known over centuries

The Rayleigh criterion specifies the minimum separation between two incoherent point sources that may be resolved into distinct objects. Here, a strategy to break the limits of this criterion for the first time, some small allusion to telescopic systems.

Can it also be applied for infrared imagery?