and said they are going to fly to Mars with it. Hutchinson adds: Of course we d be delighted
and this requires action said Efi Foufoula-Georgiou a professor in the Department of Civil engineering and former director of the National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics at the University of Minnesota in an interview after the conference.
Deltas cover about 1 percent of the surface of the earth but they are home to more than half a billion people
Some more far-out ideas for capturing carbon from cement making include using concentrated sunlight to drive the production process (see New Cement-Making Method Could Slash Carbon emissions.
but they have always been too expensive to use outside extreme situations in spacecraft for example.
#Nobel for Brain s Location Code The Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine went to three researchers who made key discoveries about how the brain represents an animal s position in space orienting it
The hope is that it could also be distributed using the same global network of liquid fuel transport that moves petrol around the planet.
This means heating the material to few hundred degrees centigrade in a nitrogen atmosphere which ensures that the carbon retains its porous biological structure.
an Ad-Free Facebook Alternative The first thing I noticed on Ello a new ad-free social network is the abundance of white space.
wel need cheap ways to store energy from the sun when it isn shining. A paper published in the journal Science this week reports a major step toward such a system.
and efficiently converts the energy in sunlight into hydrogen, which can be used as a fuel
The solar water splitter stores 12.3 percent of the energy in sunlight in the form of hydrogen.
but consider that most solar cells convert only 16 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity,
The genes allow the plant to produce a more efficient enzyme for converting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into sugars and other carbohydrates.
They re completely at home in highly connected collaborative spaces like those underlying the Networked Economy.
If there s one area where resource optimization is needed more urgently than any other it s agriculture Projections call for the Earth s population to exceed nine billion by 2050 up by about two billion from today.
So port officials explored ways to become more efficient in their existing space. In 2011 with SAP s help the port developed a cloud-based system to better coordinate both land-side and port-side traffic based on a steady stream of incoming data.
-and-mortar stores could be replaced by smaller, cheaper, simpler spaces whose expensive physical inventory is replaced by virtual designs that can be projected onto just a few floor models.
a holographic-style spaceship from Star wars. Maimone argues that the potential uses for the technology are wide-ranging. love to be able to navigate a city by following some virtual bread crumbs laid down on the sidewalk,
Conventional solar cells convert less than 25 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity. Semprius has come up with three key innovations:
or sunlight and extracting information like heart and respiration rates. With accelerometer and blood-flow data,
#Adaptive Material Could Cut the Cost of Solar in Half A material with optical properties that change to help it capture more incoming sunlight could cut the cost of solar power in half, according to Glint Photonics,
It changes its reflectivity in response to heat from concentrated sunlight in a way that makes it possible capture light coming in at different angles throughout the day.
It well known that focusing sunlight makes it possible to use smaller cheaper solar cells. But this is usually done with lenses or mirrors,
which must be moved precisely as the sun advances across the sky to ensure that concentrated sunlight remains focused on the cells.
The first is an array of thin, inexpensive lenses that concentrate sunlight. The second is a sheet of glass that serves to concentrate that light morep to 500 timess light gathered over its surface is concentrated at its edges.
and reducing the need to keep the apparatus pointed directly at the sun. Glint CEO Peter Kozodoy says solar power from its devices could cost four cents per kilowatt-hour,
a program director at ARPA-E, says the main remaining challenge is increasing the amount of sunlight that makes it to the solar cells,
Each bit requires less space, increasing the amount of information that can be stored in a given area.
#Amazon s Zocalo Cloud Service Casts a Shadow over Startups In the 1990s Microsoft became identified with the Death Star partly by enticing developers to build applications (such as Wordperfect
#How to Build an Evryscope One problem with telescopes is that they can only peer at a tiny piece of sky at any one time.
Astronomers have attempted to get around this by combining many images, each just a few degrees wide, that cover different areas of the sky.
But astronomers very well know that many interesting events occur on much shorter timescales, such as the transit of exoplanets across other stars, binary stars that eclipse, gamma ray bursts and so on.
Capturing the changes associated with these events requires a much more rapid way of photographing the entire sky.
Indeed, this instrument represents an entirely new type of telescope which Law and co call the Evryscope, from the Greek for ide-seeing.
It consists of 23 small telescopes mounted on a hemispherical dome that can rotate to track the sky.
Each small telescope has a 7 cm aperture and a field of view of a few hundred square degrees.
so that the fields of view of each of the small telescopes overlap to cover around 10,000 square degrees of sky simultaneously
The small telescopes themselves are simplessentially camera lenses sitting on top of CCD chips. Law and co have been experimenting with Canon 50mm and 85mm F/1. 2 lenses.
And theye had two telescopes with these lenses operating automatically in the Arctic over the last two winters.
Law and co say their Evryscope should be able to search for exoplanets around nearby bright stars
and even look for rocky planets in the habitable zones around nearby M dwarf stars. And because Law and co intend to store all the data produced by the Evryscope,
This will allow astronomers to examine the relevant area of sky in the days, weeks or even months before supernovas or gamma ray bursts, looking for interesting precursor events.
That will be an interesting piece of kit. vryscope systems o er a new capability: a continuously recorded image of a large fraction of the visible sky, with the ability to follow individual events
But in the online world, you have to worry about criminals who may be located anywhere on the planet.
which measures the movement of an entire hand in three-dimensional space. It was launched to great fanfare
But the ability to know its orientation in space is only one part of this device s spec.
#Sharp Demonstrates Ultra-Efficient Solar cells The best solar cells convert less than one-third of the energy in sunlight into electricity
when sunlight strikes a solar cell it produces some very high-energy electrons but within a few trillionths of a second those electrons shed most of their energy as waste heat.
It s far from a practical device it s too thin to absorb much sunlight
#Elon musk Needs a Very Big Factory for His New Solar technology The Tesla founder and private space entrepreneur Elon musk announced yesterday that Solar City,
Its stated aim is to bring affordable Internet access to everyone on the planet an effort that could incidentally supply Facebook with many new customers (see acebook Two Faces.
or satellite (see acebook Drones Will Battle Google Balloons to Spread Internet Accessand ow Google Could Disrupt Global Internet access by Satellite.
and locate public social spaces where the community is coming together. In Paris, the Mobile Experience Lab worked with the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens to create a bus stop designed not just to help people use the bus system itself
but lacking any physical contact with others in a real physical space, is isolating. Instead of sitting down with someone to talk over a cup of coffee, we text, e-mail,
Its reported entry into the satellite Internet business could do the same globally by providing increased competition and better service than existing satellite technologies.
This week the Wall street journal reported that Google will spend more than $1 billion to launch a fleet of 180 satellites.
The company has four satellites in orbit and plans to launch another four next month.
But O3b s satellites already offer a superior and cheaper way to deliver high-speed Internet than conventional satellite services.
Satellite Internet is provided traditionally by geostationary satellites that stay over a given point On earth. These satellites orbit at 35000 kilometers often adding a 600 millisecond delay to the radio signals going back and forth.
Such a delay is considered generally excessive for business use. O3b satellites orbit at a relatively low altitude of about 8000 kilometers and the company says this means a more-tolerable 150-millisecond delay coverage to latitudes up to 45 degrees north
or south of the equator a swath of territory inhabited by 70 percent of the world s population.
what could be the perfect accompaniment way for ordinary headphones to create a realistic illusion of sound coming from specific locations in space.
or characters in a virtual world sound as well as look like they are at a specific point in space,
and separating rare earth oxides from other materials in the ore (other new processes are being developed to address those issuesee he Rare-Earth Crisis. But for metals such as aluminum and magnesium,
chief entrepreneur officer at 3d Systems. his brings that kind of ability right down into the consumer space,
In addition to founding Tesla, he started his own rocket company, Spacex, which now delivers supplies to the International space station.
But even for him the igafactory, as he calls it, seems audacious. First, Tesla sold 23,000 cars last year.
they shouldn expect what they get on an iphone or a Galaxy phone. GM expects to provide just 10 apps initially, most of them mapping, news,
as a result of increased exposure to the sun in younger generations who have benefitted from easier access to sunnier climates on holiday.
as a result of increased exposure to the sun in younger generations who have benefitted from easier access to sunnier climates on holiday.
enabling us to fit more electronics in a smaller space, "Hamedi said. A 3d structure enables storage of significantly more power in less space than is possible with conventional batteries,
enabling us to fit more electronics in a smaller space, "Hamedi said. A 3d structure enables storage of significantly more power in less space than is possible with conventional batteries,
Professor Wass and his team have been working with aerospace engineers at the university, who wanted to know
which are used widely in the aerospace industry but also have many other applications.**The BMW i8 electric sports car has a carbon fibre passenger compartment to make up for the weight of its heavy battery.
Professor Wass and his team have been working with aerospace engineers at the university, who wanted to know
which are used widely in the aerospace industry but also have many other applications.**The BMW i8 electric sports car has a carbon fibre passenger compartment to make up for the weight of its heavy battery.
the miracle material that promises to transform everything from smartphones and computers to cars, buildings and satellites.
the miracle material that promises to transform everything from smartphones and computers to cars, buildings and satellites.
The plane was designed by Shenyang Aerospace University and Liaoning general aviation academy in the northeastern Liaoning Province.
while also providing protection from the sun during the course of the day. Each of the 94 modules were 3d printed using a 6-axis robot arm in the Robotic Fabrication Lab at the nearby College of Architecture and Environmental design at Kent State university in Ohio, USA.
Each module was 3d printed with translucent plastic to allow the structure to filter sunlight during the day
Additionally, the arch of the structure follows the path of the sun spanning from East to West for the most amount of solar exposure each day.
and 3d printing space, be sure to check out the rest of their portfolio over at Design Lab Workspace.
2015 By Simonconsidering all of the developments that wee been seeing in the space of both new 3d printers and 3d printing filament in the past six months alone, there a lot for makers, designers, engineers,
Previously, wee seen how Made in Space is making their pace-approvedfilament available to the general public for creating their own pace-readytools
The printer can be designed to any desired build space of up to 6x 6x 4 For those looking for more customized options
and sustainable energy sources including the sun. triving towards a brighter future, (our) innovative technology aims to increase solar cell efficiency
while it all takes less space without a turntable. But the implications of this patent go much further than 3d printing convenience,
With a build space of. 5m x 1. 2m x 1. 8m (or 4ft x 5ft x 6ft
and require large amounts of sunlight to be efficient. According to Scott Watkins, the director of the unit for overseas business at Korean firm Kyung-In Synthetic, these 3d printed solar cells have already been used in India. e witnessed firsthand how the technology has enabled urban poor communities in India
but also pave the way for more complex optical fiber structures that are able to host a variety of applications for industries ranging from telecommunications and aerospace to biotechnologies and more."
physics and astronomy, to bioengineering, pathology and laboratory medicine. The Californa Nanosystems Institute and the Johnsson Comprehensive Cancer Center also contributed, with support from the National Science Foundation and the Howard hughes medical institute.
it also speaks to the growing presence of large companies in the space. While GE, Autodesk, HP, Intel,
#New 3d printed Ceramic Thruster Could Give a Boost to Space travel After watching Space X explode 27 miles in the air over Cape canaveral as it went supersonic,
I looking for some good space news. Fortunately, the initial trials for the first additively manufactured ceramic catalyst bed have been successful.
believe that their new 3d printed ceramic thruster could significantly affect the longevity and the efficiency of space travel.
Now, with funding from the ESA (European space agency), it looks like the University of Birmingham is on the forefront again of manufacturing technology,
but, this time, they have enhanced 3d printed catalyst bed thrusters that could launch us out of orbit.
and creating a new generation of rocket engines. Through years of research into 3d printing practices, the research team has developed a new technique
This 3d printed catalyst bed and all of the additive manufactured parts that are making their way through trials will certainly impact the space industry by encouraging innovative design and material use
and look forward to seeing it make high impacts on the space industry. s
#joimax Receives FDA Approval for 3d printed Spinal Implants 3d printing has begun already to disrupt the medical space,
with low-cost prosthetics acting as a clear example of just how personal and affordable medical devices can be.
The team has been working on the technology over the past three years in partnership with aerospace engineers.
#Aerojet Rocketdyne trials power system for solar electric propulsion spacecraft Aerojet Rocketdyne has completed tests on a prototype Powertrain system designed to improve power capabilities of solar electric propulsion (SEP) spacecraft.
It will enhance power transmission from solar arrays to the high-power electric thrusters on the spacecraft,
The trial is part of an effort to demonstrate the system's capabilities of achieving improved efficiency, over existing power management and distribution (PMAD) approaches on satellites.
"For high-power SEP modules such as those that Nasa envisions for transporting cargo to Mars, it will be critical to efficiently process
and deliver the power from the advanced solar arrays to the high-power electric propulsion thrusters on spacecraft."
"This is a critical step toward achieving that goal as we prepare to journey further into space."
Aerojet Rocketdyne develops the majority of International space station power-system hardware at its Los angeles facility. Earlier this month, the company completed initial on-orbit validation testing of XR-5a Hall Thruster on the unmanned X-37 spacecraft t
#NASA Microsoft collaboration will allow scientists to#work on Mars#NASA and Microsoft have teamed up to develop software called Onsight,
a new technology that will enable scientists to work virtually on Mars using wearable technology called Microsoft Hololens.
Developed by NASA Jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, Calif, . Onsight will give scientists a means to plan and,
along with the Mars Curiosity rover, conduct science operations on the Red planet. nsight gives our rover scientists the ability to walk around
and explore Mars right from their offices, said Dave Lavery, program executive for the Mars science laboratory mission at NASA Headquarters in Washington. t fundamentally changes our perception of Mars,
and how we understand the Mars environment surrounding the rover. Onsight will use real rover data
and extend the Curiosity mission existing planning tools by creating a 3-D simulation of the Martian environment where scientists around the world can meet.
Program scientists will be able to examine the rover worksite from a first-person perspective, plan new activities and preview the results of their work firsthand. e believe Onsight will enhance the ways in
which we explore Mars and share that journey of exploration with the world, said Jeff Norris, JPL Onsight project manager.
Until now rover operations required scientists to examine Mars imagery on a computer screen, and make inferences about
what they are seeing. But images, even 3-D stereo views, lack a natural sense of depth that human vision employs to understand spatial relationships.
which surrounds them with images from the rover Martian field site. They then can stroll around the rocky surface
and engineers looking to interact with Mars in a more natural, human way. reviously, our Mars explorers have been stuck on one side of a computer screen.
This tool gives them the ability to explore the rover surroundings much as an Earth geologist would do field work here on our planet,
said Norris. The Onsight tool also will be useful for planning rover operations. For example scientists can program activities for many of the rover science instruments by looking at a target
The JPL team responsible for Onsight specializes in systems to control robots and spacecraft. The tool will assistesearchers in better understanding the environment
and workspace of robotic spacecraft something that can be quite challenging with their traditional suite of tools.
Future applications may include Mars 2020 rover mission operations and other applications in support of NASA journey to Mars. JPL manages the Mars science laboratory Project for NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington,
and built the project Curiosity rover t
#Raytheon acquires Tucson-based Sensintel Inc. Raytheon has acquired privately-held Sensintel, Inc.,a leading provider of unmanned aircraft systems solutions to the intelligence and special operations markets.
Located in Tucson, Ariz. with approximately 50 employees, Sensintel will become part of Raytheon Company Missile Systems business.
#NASA Cubesat initiative aids in testing of technology for solar sails in space With help from NASA, a small research satellite to test technology for in-space solar propulsion launched into space May 20 aboard an Atlas v
rocket from Cape canaveral Air force station, Fla. as part of the agency Cubesat Launch Initiative. The Atlas v sent the U s. Air force X-37b space plane on its fourth mission,
which also is carrying NASA Materials Exposure and Technology Innovation in Space (METIS) investigation that will expose about 100 different materials samples to the space environment for more than 200 days.
The Planetary Society Lightsail satellite is a technology demonstration for using solar propulsion on Cubesats, a class of research spacecraft called nanosatellites.
Using the momentum transferred from solar photons as they strike a large, thin, reflective sail would allow a spacecraft to accelerate continuously using only the sun energy.
NASA is considering the use of solar sails on future exploration mission secondary payloads and data from this mission will advance understanding of this form of propulsion.
This first Lightsail mission specifically is designed to test the spacecraft critical systems, including the deployment sequence for the Mylar solar sail,
which measures 32 square meters (344 square feet). The Planetary Society is planning a second, full solar sailing demonstration flight for 2016.
NASA selected Lightsail as part of the agency Cubesat Launch Initiative, which provides opportunities for small satellites to fly as auxiliary payloads on planned missions.
It was assigned to a launch as part of as the 11th installment of the Educational Launch of Nanosatellite (ELANA) mission.
The upper stage of the Atlas v included the National Reconnaissance Office third auxiliary mission to launch Cubesats.
The Ultra Lightweight Technology and Research Auxiliary Satellite (ULTRASAT) carried 10 Cubesats including Lightsail from five organizations.
It was made possible through agreements between NASA the Air force Space and Missile Systems Center and the National Reconnaissance Office to work together on Cubesat integration and launch opportunities.
The cube-shaped satellites measure about four inches on each side, have a volume of about one quart
and weigh less than three pounds each. Lightsail consists of three Cubesats bundled together. Individual Cubesat research projects may address science, exploration, technology development or education.
During the next month, the Lightsail team will receive data from the satellite in space. As part of its agreement with NASA, the Planetary Society will provide the agency a report on outcomes and scientific findings.
Since its inception in 2010 the Cubesat Launch Initiative has selected 110 Cubesats primarily from educational
and government institutions around the United states. NASA will announce the next call for proposals in August 2015
#NASA Chandra captures x-ray echoes pinpointing distant neutron star Astronomers using NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory have discovered the largest and brightest set of rings from X-ray light echoes ever observed.
These extraordinary rings, produced by an intense flare from a neutron star, provide astronomers a rare chance to determine how far across the Milky way galaxy the star is from Earth.
The rings appear as circles around Circinus X-1, a double star system in the plane of our galaxy containing a neutron star,
the dense remnant of a massive star pulverized in a supernova explosion. The neutron star is in orbit with another massive star
and is shrouded by thick clouds of interstellar gas and dust. Circinus X-1 is also the source of a surprisingly powerful jet of high-energy particles. t really hard to get accurate distance measurements in astronomy
and we only have a handful of methods, said Sebastian Heinz of the University of Wisconsin in Madison,
who led the study. ut just as bats use sonar to triangulate their location, we can use the X-rays from Circinus X-1 to figure out exactly where it is.
The light echo shows that Circinus X-1 is located about 30 700 light years from Earth,
and settles the difference in results published in prior studies. The detection and characterization of the rings required the unique capabilities of Chandra the ability to detect fine details combined with sensitivity to faint signals.
Researchers determined that the rings are echoes from a burst of X-rays emitted by Circinus X-1 in late 2013.
The burst reflected off intervening clouds of dust, with some reflected X-rays arriving to Earth from different angles at a time delay of about one to three months,
creating the observed rings. By comparing the Chandra data to prior images of dust clouds detected by the Mopra radio telescope in Australia
the researchers determined that each ring was created by the X-ray reflections off a different dust cloud.
The radio data provides the distance to the different clouds and the X-ray echo determines the location of Circinus X-1 relative to the clouds.
An analysis of the rings with the combined radio data allows researchers to use simple geometry to accurately determine the distance of Circinus X-1 from Earth. e like to call this system the ord of the Rings,
but this one has nothing to do with Sauron, said co-author Michael Burton of the University of New south wales in Sydney,
Australia. he beautiful match between the Chandra X-ray rings and the Mopra radio images of the different clouds is really a first in astronomy.
This new distance estimate means that Circinus X-1 is inherently much brighter in X-rays
and other types of light than some scientists previously thought, and indicates that the star system has passed repeatedly a key threshold for brightness where the outward pressure from radiation by the system is balanced by the inward pull of gravity.
This behavior is something astronomers generally see more often in systems containing black holes than in systems like Circinus X-1 that contain a neutron star.
The researchers also determined that the speed of the jet of high-energy particles produced by the system is at least 99.9%of the speed of light.
This extreme velocity is associated usually with jets produced by a black hole. ircinus X-1 acts in some ways like a neutron star
and in some like a black hole, said co-author Catherine Braiding, also of the University of New south wales. t extremely unusual to find an object that has such a blend of these properties.
Circinus X-1 is thought to have originally become an X-ray source about 2, 500 years ago,
as seen from Earth. This makes Circinus X-1 the youngest so-called X-ray binary known.
The new Chandra data allows astronomers to make a detailed three-dimensional map of the dust clouds between Circinus X-1 and us, providing a valuable probe of the structure of the galaxy.
NASA Marshall Space flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. manages the Chandra program for the agency Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra science and flight operations a
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