• Scientists build battery in a nanowire
  
• Solar cells get a boost from bouncing light
  
• Graphene used to increase storage density and speed of electronic memory devices
  
• Exploring space with chip-sized satellites
  
• Sun-free photovoltaics powered by heat
  
• ‘It’s Alive! It’s Alive!’ Maybe right here on Earth
  
• Researchers develop mouse with ‘off switch’ in serotonin-producing brain cells
  
• How to make solar power available 24/7
  
• GE pushes ahead with 500GB holographic disc storage
  
• 2011 State of the Future
  

any of these Science and Technology stories catch your eye ?????

Everyone ... please feel to post a comment in this thread ... or rant and rave ... or what ever :) - nothing is off the topic ... the more the merry ;)

OK ... let's start posting!

• Scientists build battery in a nanowire
  
• Solar cells get a boost from bouncing light
  
• Graphene used to increase storage density and speed of electronic memory devices
  
• Exploring space with chip-sized satellites
  
• Sun-free photovoltaics powered by heat
  
• ‘It’s Alive! It’s Alive!’ Maybe right here on Earth
  
• Researchers develop mouse with ‘off switch’ in serotonin-producing brain cells
  
• How to make solar power available 24/7
  
• GE pushes ahead with 500GB holographic disc storage
  
• 2011 State of the Future
  

• Metamaterial allows for switching light like electronic ircuits
  
• Simple new method of writing magnetic data
  
• Progress hits snag: tiny chips use outsize power
  
• New IEEE standard allows for broadband wireless access 100 km from a transmitter
  
• Are you ready for a robot that learns on the Internet?]
  
• 3-D printing and the replicator economy
  
• Conjuring music, sans instruments
  
• Foxconn to replace workers with one million robots in three years
  
• New high-speed 3-D imaging system holds potential for improved cancer screening
  

• Photographer Gary Crabbe captured this beautiful image of the Hat Creek Radio Observatory
  
• Do Planets Rob Their Stars of Metals?
  
• NASA Unveils Thrilling First Full Frame Images of Vesta from Dawn
  
• Japanese Astronomy Pushes on After Hard Year
  
• Chasing Rockets, Chasing History: One Journalist’s Video Reflections
  
• New Impact Rate Count Lays Nemesis Theory to Rest
  

• Cassini Captures a Menagerie of Moons
  
• MeteorWatch is Coming! Look for Perseids With the Rest of the World
  
• Activity Heating Up on the Sun!
  
• Atlantis Final Crew and NASA thank Shuttle Workforce with space flown Tribute Banner
  

• The Russian Hubble?
  
• Juno Jupiter Orbiter poised at Launch Pad for Aug. 5 Blastoff
  
• New Evidence for Flowing Water on Mars
  
• Coming To A Solar System Near You… Super-Earth!
  
• Astronomy Without A Telescope – A Photon’s Point Of View
  
• Recent Active Sun Prompts Stunning Auroras Over England
  

• Increase Data Quantity: A factor of 2 to 3 increase in navigation and radio science data quantity by allowing coherent tracking to extend over the full view period of Earth stations.
  
  
• improve Data Quality: Up to 10 times more accurate navigation, gravity science, and occultation science at remote solar system bodies by using one-way radiometric links.
  
  
• Enabling New Missions: Shift towards a more flexible and extensible one-way radio navigation architecture enabling development of capable in-situ satellite navigation systems and autonomous deep space radio navigation.
  
  
• reduce Proposed Mission Costs: Reduce mission costs for using the Deep Space Network (DSN) through aperture sharing and one-way downlink only time.
  
  
• Benefits to GPS: Improve clock stability of the next GPS system by 100 times.
  
  

One example use for the DSAC is for a future mission that is a follow-up to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). A spacecraft equipped with the DSAC could avoid reliance on two-way communications using NASA’s Deep Space Network to perform orbital determination.

One of the benefits of avoiding said reliance on two-way communications would allow the mission to only require the DSN for one-way communication to transmit scientific data to Earth. Reducing the reliance on two-way communications would provide an additional benefit of cost savings.

In the previous example, the DSAC team estimates an $11 million dollar reduction in network operational costs, as well as a 100% increase in the amount of usable science and navigation data that could be received.

read more ...

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/crosscutting_capability/tech_demo_missions.html
Source: NASA Technology Demonstration Mission Announcements

Quantum theorem shakes foundations:

The wavefunction is a real physical object after all, say researchers.

Mathematical device or physical fact?

The elusive nature of the quantum wavefunction may be pinned down at last

By: Eugenie Samuel Reich

The wavefunction of quantum mechanics is not simply a statistical tool that reflects our ignorance of the particles being measured, but is physically real, according to physicists at Imperial College London

Action at a distance occurs when pairs of quantum particles become entangled. The paper suggests that if a quantum wavefunction were purely a statistical tool, even quantum states that are unconnected across space and time would be able to communicate with each other. As that seems very unlikely, the researchers conclude that the wavefunction must be physically real after all.

Theoretical physicist Antony Valentini believes that this result may be the most important general theorem relating to the foundations of quantum mechanics since Bell’s theorem.

Robert Spekkens, a physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, says he expects the theorem to have broader consequences for physics, as have Bell’s and other fundamental theorems. No one foresaw in 1964 that Bell’s theorem would sow the seeds for quantum information theory and quantum cryptography — both of which rely on phenomena that aren’t possible in classical physics.

Free software activists have released a peer-to-peer search engine to take on Google, Yahoo, Bing and others.

The free, distributed search engine, YaCy, takes a new approach to search. Rather than using a central server, its search results come from a network of independent "peers," users who have downloaded the YaCy software. The aim is that no single entity gets to decide what gets listed, or in which order results appear.

"Most of what we do on the Internet involves search. It's the vital link between us and the information we're looking for. For such an essential function, we cannot rely on a few large companies and compromise our privacy in the process," said Michael Christen, YaCy's project leader.

The project is supported by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), which is concerned that dominant search engines have too much control and power over what information Internet users can find online. "That company will also know what you're currently interested in. The search terms used tell others a lot about what you're up to. Targeted advertising is only the most benign use of this data," explained Karsten Gerloff, FSFE president.

"We are moving away from the idea that services need to be centrally controlled. Instead, we are realizing how important it is to be independent, and to create infrastructure that doesn't have a single point of failure," added Gerloff.

The YaCy network currently has around 600 'peers', but project organizers expect this to grow along the lines of other free software projects that aim to replace centrally-run services. For example, identi.ca (status.net) offers a free software alternative to Twitter; diaspora (joindiaspora.com) and many others provide a free, distributed alternative to Facebook.

As is often the case in the early stages of a new technology, results are better on some topics than on others -- mainly computer-related issues.

The YaCy peers create individual search indexes and rankings, so that results better match what users are looking for over time. Each instance of the software contains a peer-to-peer network protocol to exchange search indexes with other YaCy search engines.

Everyone can try out the search engine at http://search.yacy.net/. Users can become part of YaCy's network by installing the software on their own computers. YaCy is free software, so anyone can use, study, share and improve it. It is currently available for GNU/Linux, Windows and MacOS. The project is also looking for developers and other contributors.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

Imagine the historic moment when the first Earth-like planet -- Kepler-22b: A ‘Super-Earth’ in the Habitable Zone -- is detected deep across interstellar space. Like an inaccessible jewel it will beckon us. Is this a future home for humanity? What forms of life are already there? How do we get there? What happens when we arrive?

Based on today's technology, traveling to the stars is a long-term proposition. While existing space agencies grapple with sending astronauts beyond Earth orbit, and entrepreneurial firms bring the thrill of spaceflight to the people, no one has taken on the challenge of reaching other habitable worlds; until now.

The Tau Zero Foundation is a volunteer group of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and writers who have agreed to work together toward practical interstellar flight and to use this quest to teach you about science, technology, and our place in the universe. By posting the latest developments and unfinished advancements here, we give students the starting materials to begin their own discoveries. By showing both how daunting and incredible this challenge is, we hope to increase attention on protecting the habitability of Earth while planning journeys into the galaxy. By reaching for the stars we will create benefits every step of the way.

Here is how you can help with this ambition. With enough support we can competitively award grants and scholarships. Help us create a future worth striving for, where humanity can survive and thrive into the heavens. Let's make this dream a reality together.

Henry Markram’s controversial proposal for the Human Brain Project (HBP) — an effort to build a supercomputer simulation that integrates everything known about the human brain, from the structures of ion channels in neural cell membranes up to mechanisms behind conscious decision-making — may soon fulfill his ambition.

The project is one of six finalists vying to win €1 billion (US$1.3 billion) as one of the European Union’s two new decade-long Flagship initiatives.

The HBP would integrate these discoveries, he said, and create models to explore how neural circuits are organized, and how they give rise to behavior and cognition. Ultimately, said Markram, the HBP would even help researchers to grapple with disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

He proposed to model everything, “from the genetic level, the molecular level, the neurons and synapses, how microcircuits are formed, macrocircuits, mesocircuits, brain areas — until we get to understand how to link these levels, all the way up to behavior and cognition.”

The computer power required to run such a grand unified theory of the brain: roughly an exaflop, or 1018 operations per second, to be available in exascale computers by the 2020s.

So far, his team at he Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) has simulated 100 interconnected columns.

The Blue Brain Project is the first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain, in order to understand brain function and dysfunction through detailed simulations.

Once you start building a brain in a box you get two things: admission into the Mad Scientists’ Club, and a chance to speak at TED. Henry Markram is the director of the Blue Brain Project, a collaboration between European scientists and IBM that aims to construct a life-like simulation of a brain using a supercomputer. Earlier this year Markram spoke at TED Global discussing how most of human perception is based on decision making within the brain.....

read more here:

http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/
http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/

http://singularityhub.com/2009/11/13/the-brain-according-to-henry-markram-video/
http://singularityhub.com/2009/11/13/the-brain-according-to-henry-markram-video/


Henry Markram's model of a brain is built one neuron at a time

10 Year Documentary To Follow Bluebrain Project (Video) Singularity Hub Feb. 12, 2010

Humans have long wondered whether we are alone in the universe. According to scientists working with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, the question may be answered in the near future.