Space idea factory & brainstorming school

•Make nuclear fuel in space: Nuclear power may be the best viable solution for long-distance space travel. But where should the nuclear fuel be produced? Grad student Jake Dodd proposes a system to create it in space. This would avoid risks posed by creating it on Earth and use rockets to launch radioactive fuel through the atmosphere. Dodd named his idea SNAP: Space-based Nuclear Activision Plant. From a constant position in space, SNAP would “ingest fertile materials shipped from Earth, transmute them into useable nuclear fuels, and aid in the manufacture and distribution of space based nuclear fuel,” Dodd said. He suggests that SNAP might use nuclear power technologies such as molten salt reactors or nuclear-pumped lasers.

•Build an industrial research park on the moon: The U.S. – especially the private sector – could provide communications, navigation and lunar ground infrastructure for China, India and other nations to send their own vehicles to the moon and back.

•Use the space station to build space ships: Use the International Space Station as a scaffold to build the next-generation lunar orbiting station. Use the lunar station to develop and build a manned spacecraft called the Cosmic Mariner, which would journey to targets like Mars, the asteroid belt and the outer planets.

•Build orbiting “filling stations” for rockets: Rockets could fill up at these floating “gas stations” so they could use their powerful engines to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere instead of the traditional method of “falling” through the atmosphere at high speeds.

•Commercial astronauts build energy satellites: The private sector and NASA should develop a commercial astronaut corps program to start training crew who can go out on weekly missions to build, among other projects, satellites that would create microwave energy from the continually available sunlight and beam it to Earth. Such projects would create high-paying jobs and help bolster the sagging world economy

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Stratolaunch Systems, A Paul G. Allen Project

Stratolaunch Systems is pioneering innovative solutions to revolutionize space transportation. Watch the video or visit http://www.stratolaunch.com to learn more.

Has The 'God Particle' Been Found?

Science gossip!

Rumors are flying, ABC News reports, that scientists who operate the Large Hadron Collider will meet next week to discuss an "update" on the search for the Higgs boson, a particle that is part of the same field that gives mass matter. Even the attribution of the rumors (they aren't the first that the Higgs boson has been discovered) is deliciously nerdy.

According to PhysicsWorld.com, CERN's Scientific Policy Committee will be meeting on Tuesday (Dec. 13) to discuss, amongst other things, an update on the search for the Higgs boson. Teams from the LHC's ATLAS and CMS experiments will be in attendance.

Interestingly, as noted by the Guardian.co.uk's science correspondent Ian Sample, the head scientists of the two groups will be there to give the Higgs update. "That in itself is telling – usually more junior researchers present updates on the search for the missing particle," Sample pointed out in his Dec. 6 article.

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Earth-like planet found in distant sun's habitable zone

For the first time, astronomers using NASA's Kepler space telescope have confirmed a roughly Earth-size planet orbiting a sun-like star in the so-called "Goldilocks" zone where water can exist in liquid form on the surface and conditions may be favorable for life as it is known on Earth.

Along with the confirmed extra-solar planet, one of 28 discovered so far by Kepler, researchers today also announced the discovery of 1,094 new exoplanet candidates, pushing the spacecraft's total so far to 2,326, including 10 candidate Earth-size worlds orbiting in the habitable zones of their parent stars.

Additional observations are required to tell if a candidate is, in fact, an actual world. But astronomers say a planet known as Kepler-22b, orbiting a star some 600 light years from Earth, is the real thing.

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Plan to establish first lunar base and gas stations in space

Imagine if every time you went for on a trip, you had to carry all the fuel required to get you to your destination and back - even if that trip was to a place far, far away, like say Mars. In space there are no refueling options available (yet), and given that propellant makes up over 90 percent of the weight of a spacecraft, this issue is fundamental to saving costs and driving future space exploration. Now the Shackleton Energy Company (SEC) is looking to establish the first operational base to mine ice on the Moon that will be used to produce liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants for distribution to spacecraft via the first gas stations in space ... and the plan is to be open for business by 2020.

According to SEC founder Bill Stone, such orbital gas stations are (along with economical Earth-to-orbit transport like that being pursued by Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, and places to stay in orbit) one of the three things essential for humans to expand further into space. It is this need that SEC aims to meet while becoming the "world's foremost space-based energy company providing rocket propellants, life support, consumables, and services in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and on the Moon to all spacefarers."

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Neutrino experiment repeat at Cern finds same result

The team which found that neutrinos may travel faster than light has carried out an improved version of their experiment - and confirmed the result.

If confirmed by other experiments, the find could undermine one of the basic principles of modern physics.

Critics of the first report in September had said that the long bunches of neutrinos (tiny particles) used could introduce an error into the test.

The new work used much shorter bunches.

It has been posted to the Arxiv repository and submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physics, but has not yet been reviewed by the scientific community.

The experiments have been carried out by the Opera collaboration - short for Oscillation Project with Emulsion (T)racking Apparatus.

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“Revenge of the Electric Car”: Why the automakers went green

Where the electric car is going

Once doomed by automakers, EV's are flourishing in cities that plan ahead

Chris Paine’s newest film, “Revenge of the Electric Car,” is rolling out across the country with a buzz that seldom accompanies the release of a documentary. That’s because Paine’s follow-up to 2006’s “Who Killed the Electric Car,” which told the story of GM’s recall of the EV1 electric car program in the 1990s, is something of a victory.

Watch the film’s trailer and it’s clear that Paine’s intention is just that: to tell the story of the forgotten underdog who has returned. Only, this time, we’re not talking about Rocky Balboa. We’re talking about a car.

It is, of course, more than a car. The electrification of the vehicle powertrain presents not only a new standard for mobility, but also how we think about energy in general. If widely adopted, electric vehicles could improve air quality, reduce dependence on oil, and spur domestic economic development.

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All-new ASIMO (Nov 2011)

Honda unveiled "All-new ASIMO", a new version of their humanoid robot. It can run at 9kph and hop on one or both legs, and more.

Will almost free energy be available in the near future?

There has been some debate in recent months between those who argue that in the near future -in months- there will be available on the market products based on “Cold Fusion” or “Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR).” Such devices would supposedly be able to produce energy at a very low cost. Specifically, there have been several public demonstrations of a device called “E-Cat” by an Italian entrepreneur named Andrea Rossi. Apparently there are several different research groups competing at the same time for bringing to market the first product based on this technology. Among them are Brillouin Energy, Francesco Piantelli, and others. Apparently even NASA is seriously considering the feasibility of the technology.

Source

Dylan Ratigan campaigns for constitutional amendment

The TV host has called on Icahn Associates LLC lobbyist Jimmy Williams, a regular guest of his, to draft his constitutional amendment language. The easiest way to get around the land’s law that spending money on politics is a 1st Amendment right is to undo that link. “We’re basically saying, ‘money isn’t speech,’” Williams said.

Hence, their draft amendment reads:

"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."

Source

Americans urged to live MLK's ideals at memorial dedication

Will the Singularity lead to the demise of capitalism or will it somehow thrive?

Ray Kurzweil argues that technology will help to turn everyone into an entrepreneur either by strong AI equipped virtual assistants guiding people to innovate, or by prudent investing of the virtual assistant in the stock market. Is this the way we are headed or will post scarcity lead to the end of capitalism and the rise of a technocracy, resource based economy, or other type of system?

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Recommended site: Singularity Hub

Singularity Hub is a blog and news network covering the latest in robots, genetics, longevity, artificial intelligence, aging, stem cells, and more.

The singularity is the point in mankind’s future when we will transcend current intellectual and biological limitations and initiate an intelligence and information explosion beyond imagining.

The impossible is becoming possible. The future that you thought would not come in your lifetime is coming sooner than you thought. Singularity Hub is here to tell you about it.

Click to visit the site

Universal charging system developed for EVs

While the thought of building a worldwide infrastructure of charging stations for electric vehicles may seem daunting, you know what would make it even more challenging? If each station had to separately cater to each make of EV on the road - think of how many different styles of mobile phone chargers are currently out there, for instance, and then picture that applying to cars. Fortunately, however, a consortium of automakers has developed the Combined Charging System - it will allow any one vehicle to charge its batteries using a variety of different charging methods.

The system was developed by Germany's Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche, and Volkswagen, working in partnership with America's Ford and General Motors.

It consists of a single interface on the vehicle, which is compatible with methods such as one-phase AC-charging, fast three-phase AC-charging, DC-charging at home and ultra-fast DC-charging at public stations. This is intended to make EV development a less complex process, as vehicles won't need to incorporate multiple inlets, nor will their drivers need to seek out specific charging stations. Instead, all electric vehicles will be able to recharge at all stations.

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SpaceX's Plans for the Future

Reusability is key to the dramatic cost savings that will enable advancements in human exploration of space. The Dragon spacecraft is a fully reusable and SpaceX is working toward the goal of delivering the world's first fully reusable launch vehicle. Check out the animation for a sneak peek at SpaceX's exciting plans for the future.

Quantum computer on the anvil?

Washington: Physicists have moved one step closer to building a quantum computer by creating a tiny "electron superhighway" which they claim could be useful in producing the new computer that will use quantum particles in place of digital transistors found in today's microchips.

A team at Rice University says the tiny device, calleda "quantum spin Hall topological insulator", which acts as an electron superhighway, is one of the building blocks needed to create quantum particles that store and manipulate data.

Today's computers use binary bits of data that are either ones or zeros. Quantum computers would use quantum bits, or "qubits", which can be both ones and zeros at the same time, thanks to the quirks of quantum mechanics.

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In switch, cable operators want to go "a la carte"

* Operators want to give consumers choice to lower costs

* Programmers will resist attempts to unbundle programs

* Sports rights and retransmission fees are biggest costs

By Yinka Adegoke

NEW YORK, Sept 27 (Reuters) - U.S. cable operators are privately working on a plan to force programmers to unbundle their networks and allow customers to subscribe to channels on an individual basis.

The plan represents a complete reversal from cable operators' long-held opposition to what is known as "a la carte" programming. Over the last decade, the cable industry battled ferociously with regulators to protect the right to bundle programming, arguing it offered customers the best value.

But executives now say the change is a necessary response to shifting dynamics such as higher carriage costs and using the Web to watch programs, as well as a weak economic recovery that has forced many consumers to cancel cable television subscriptions.

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Women in Saudi Arabia to vote and run in elections

Women in Saudi Arabia are to be given the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, King Abdullah has announced.

He said they would also have the right to be appointed to the consultative Shura Council.

The move was welcomed by activists who have called for greater rights for women in the kingdom, which enforces a strict version of Sunni Islamic law.

The changes will occur after municipal polls on Thursday, the king said.

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Baffling CERN Results Show Neutrinos Moving Faster Than the Speed of Light

Don’t go throwing out your physics texts just yet, but there’s some strange and unprecedented news brewing at CERN today that could potentially undo large parts of the Standard Model, and it has nothing to do with particle collisions at the LHC or elusive god particles. Physicists running routine neutrino experiments between CERN’s Geneva HQ and the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy 455 miles away have found that their neutrinos seem to be traveling faster than the speed of light. That’s right: faster than the fastest known speed in the universe. It's certainly not something we could have predicted when putting together our latest FYI, which investigates whether anything can move faster than light.

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Palestine: 'After 63 years' suffering – enough, enough,' says Abbas

It was the United Nations that determined the fate of the Palestinian people more than six decades ago – and on Friday it was the UN that heard an impassioned plea to change the destiny of Palestine once more.

It came from Mahmoud Abbas, who was 12 years old when the UN general assembly of November 1947 voted to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab.

Abbas's predecessors, the Palestinian leaders of that earlier generation, famously rejected the partition plan – which envisaged a state on 44% of the land. So the Palestinian president came back to the same body on Friday, asking the UN to bless a Palestinian state on a terrain about half that size.

He did it with a flourish, holding up the formal letter of application he had submitted that hour to the UN secretary general, asking for full membership of the United Nations – a gesture that brought sustained applause from some delegates, impassive silence from others, including the United States and, inevitably, Israel.

"It is a moment of truth and my people are waiting to hear the answer of the world," Abbas said. "After 63 years of suffering: enough, enough, enough."

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NASA's New Heavy-Lift Rocket - Animated Look

Deep space manned exploration just moved a little closer to reality with the announcement of that development is beginning on the new Space Launch System (SLS). The first developmental flight is targeted for end of 2017.

Sen. Bernie Sanders on how taxing the rich will protect Social Security

Internet-Based Political Movement Aims To Put Presidential Ticket On Ballots For The 2012 Election

The response to the recent debt ceiling fiasco underscores how Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the U.S. government. Though many feel we are stuck with a two-party system after numerous attempts to elect a viable alternative candidate have failed, a new Internet-based political movement is emerging. The goal? To put a presidential nomination on the 2012 ballot derived completely from open voting on the Internet. Called Americans Elect, the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization isn’t a traditional new political party, although it must register as one. Instead, it’s a way to nominate candidates in a more democratic fashion. So far, the group has submitted the required number of signatures to put a nomination on the ballot in eight states and has plans to be on 18 by year’s end. Democratic representation is an old idea that modern technology is reinventing, and the movement has the potential to change American politics forever…and that means 2012 will be an even wackier election year than it is already shaping up to be.

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IBM produces first 'brain chips'

IBM has developed a microprocessor which it claims comes closer than ever to replicating the human brain.

The system is capable of "rewiring" its connections as it encounters new information, similar to the way biological synapses work.

Researchers believe that that by replicating that feature, the technology could start to learn.

Cognitive computers may eventually be used for understanding human behaviour as well as environmental monitoring.

Dharmendra Modha, IBM's project leader, explained that they were trying to recreate aspects of the mind such as emotion, perception, sensation and cognition by "reverse engineering the brain."

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Virgin Galactic Inside the spaceship

Colony on Mars? SpaceX Preps for Red Planet Living

At this point, the idea of a settlement on Mars is mainly limited to Hollywood movies like "Total Recall," but if Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has his way, a trip to Mars will be as commonplace as a trip to Europe in just several decades.

At this point, SpaceX is focusing its efforts on commercial spaceflights to the International Space Station, the first of which will hopefully take place in December, Musk said today during an appearance at the AIAA propulsion conference. But in the coming years, Musk has high hopes for commercial journeys—and settlements—on places like the Moon and Mars.

"Ultimately, the thing that is super important in the grand scale of history is—are we on a path to becoming a multi-planet species or not? If we’re not, that’s not a very bright future. We’ll just be hanging out on Earth until some eventual calamity claims us," Musk said.

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Biographer predicts News Corp. will oust Murdochs within 60 days

Rupert Murdoch's biographer and Vanity Fair scribe Michael Wolff predicts that both Rupert Murdoch and his son James will be out of power at News Corp within sixty days, according to a Retuers report.

Wolff says that the recent phone-hacking and police bribery scandals that have roiled the company put the family's dominance at the company in doubt and may bring it entirely to an end. "To restore credibility and to restore trust to this company," he said, "the newspapers have to go and the Murdochs have to go."

He claims that the Murdoch name is now "toxic" and that if the company retains members of the Australian media dynasty at its helm, News Corp will face "a lifetime of litigation."

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Higgs boson particle near discovery

Scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) expect to discover – or disprove - the existence of a key particle in Big Bang theory by 2012.

Cern director Rolf Heuer says the latest findings from the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, have been enough to convince the centre that progress is being made in their hunt for the most sought-after of particles – the Higgs boson.

"I would say we can settle the question, the Shakespearean question - 'to be or not to be' - end of next year," he told reporters at a major conference in Grenoble, France on Monday attended by around 700 leading particle physicists.

Sometimes referred to as the “God particle”, the Higgs boson is the linchpin of the Standard Model of particle physics theory on the Big Bang. It is believed to give mass to other objects and creatures in the universe.

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Terrafugia Transition brings flying cars one step closer to reality

It’s the year 2011, and we aren’t commuting in our personal flying cars, which means we are at least 11 years behind everyone’s prediction. Well Terrafugia is trying to change that with a flying car called the Transition. The Transition is basically a plane that folds up into a car-sized vehicle, which allows you to drive and fly in the same vehicle.

The Transition has been in development for quite some time now, but it has been lacking one key feature: legality. Today’s announcement from Terrafugia states that the company has received exemption from certain National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) laws. The two exemptions focus on the tires and the windshield of the Transition. The NHTSA requires that all vehicles that travel on a highway have a windshield that is made out of laminated safety glass, but in order to keep the weight low the Transition needs a polycarbonate windshield. The company claims that not only would a glass windshield be too heavy, but it could also crack and cause a loss of visibility while flying. The Transition’s tires also received an exemption, even though they are highway-rated for speed and weight, but they do not fit into the NHTSA’s definition of “multi-purpose” tires.

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Genetic revolution: Human Genome Project finally offers help against diseases

When the long-awaited Human Genome Project succeeded in 2003, mapping all the DNA, genes and chromosomes that operate the human body, it was hailed as a medical miracle, compared in scientific significance to the Apollo moon landings.

But the glow quickly faded. Progress has been slower and setbacks greater than expected, prompting some to say the whole idea is overblown, and research dollars could be better spent on other ways of fighting disease.

That’s about to change.

Researchers in South Florida and across the nation now are working on advances they say could soon create an explosion of new ways to prevent, detect, treat and someday even cure scores of intractable diseases.

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Iceland's Citizens Are Writing Its New Constitution Online

In the 18th century, if you wanted to draft a democratic constitution you crowded a handful of men into a room and hashed out the finer points of policy and philosophy until you had a document that was declared the law of the land. Same for the 19th and 20th centuries. But nowadays, the Internet--that great democratizer--is bringing a new kind of power to the people. Icelandic authorities overhauling that county’s constitution post-financial meltdown is tapping the power of the Web to allow citizens to give their two cents on how a new governing document should look.

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To Keep Innovating, We Need to Rethink the CPU

And even beyond the preservation of Moore's Law or market relevance, the need for companies pushing CPU design forward is important for the future of science. Take for example, this New Yorker piece on quantum computing and the leading mind behind it, David Deutsch. It's big idea is that if we build a working quantum computer, it could theoretically process more numbers than there are believed particles in the universe.

What's that good for? It could prime factorize absurdly large numbers in a matter of seconds. And it could prove the validity the Many Worlds Interpretation. The theory essentially supposes that there is a different universe for every possible permutation of anything in the universe. One scientist, Peter Shor, developed an algorithm for quantum computers that would potentially support this theory, if we ever had a quantum computer powerful enough to run it on.

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Sending Humans to Mars

SpaceX will send humans to Mars within 10 to 20 years, according to an interview with its CEO in the Wall Street Journal. Elon Musk says his company will send people to space within three years, and he wants to colonize other planets next.

“I want SpaceX to help make life multi-planetary,” he said. “We’re going all the way to Mars, I think. Best case, 10 years, worst case, 15 to 20 years.”

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SpaceX sets launch date for world's most powerful rocket

SpaceX, the American space transport company founded by PayPal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk that is responsible for the Dragon space capsule and Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets, has announced a late 2013 or 2014 launch date for the world’s most powerful rocket, the Falcon Heavy. Overshadowed by only the Saturn V moon rocket that was decommissioned after the Apollo program, the Falcon Heavy will be able to carry payloads of 53 metric tons (117,000 pounds or 53,070 kg) into orbit, which is more than the maximum take-off weight of a Boeing 737-200 loaded with 136 passengers, luggage and fuel.

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Richard Branson's extreme submarine

CNN interview here.

Their submersible, designed by Graham Hawkes, is one of the more interesting parts of the journey. Shaped more like a dolphin than a traditional submarine, the Virgin Oceanic craft has an operating depth of 37,000 feet--about seven miles--which means it has to be able to withstand outrageous pressure, 1,500 times that of an airplane. Constructed of carbon fiber and titanium (with a quartz dome), the craft is currently undergoing tests--at that depth, the smallest crack would result in certain death for the pilots, both due to the immense pressure (13 million pounds) and the simple fact that there exist no other vehicles capable of a rescue mission. The sub travels at a maximum of three knots, and can dive at 350 feet per minute, so a dive to the bottom of the Mariana trench and back would take around five hours.

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Americans of all political stripes are in the throes of a “radical democratic awakening,”

GRITtv: Dennis Kucinich: What Is Economic Democracy?

After Earth: Why, Where, How, and When We Might Leave Our Home Planet

Earth won’t always be fit for occupation. We know that in two billion years or so, an expanding sun will boil away our oceans, leaving our home in the universe uninhabitable—unless, that is, we haven’t already been wiped out by the Andromeda galaxy, which is on a multibillion-year collision course with our Milky Way. Moreover, at least a third of the thousand mile-wide asteroids that hurtle across our orbital path will eventually crash into us, at a rate of about one every 300,000 years.

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Kucinich introduces resolution to end war

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Representatives Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Walter Jones (R-NC) and eight others today introduced a bipartisan, privileged resolution which, if enacted, would require President Barack Obama to withdraw all U.S. Armed Forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2011.

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A post shows how corporate media lies to Americans

Via Crooks and Liars

Jack Cafferty Calls Social Security a 'Social Welfare Program'

You know, I used to have some respect for Jack Cafferty even though I knew back then that we were on primarily opposite ends of the political spectrum because he spoke out against the Bush administration when that wasn't necessarily the most popular thing for a conservative to be doing, but he just lost me completely here. Calling Social Security a "welfare program" is just shameless.

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My comment

Whether you call Social Security welfare or entitlements, as always the Corporate Monopoly Media treats Americans like idiots. It's time to evolve out of a primitive representative republic and into a real Citizen's Democracy with real time Internet based democratic Controls.

Solidarity from coast to coast

IN DOZENS of state capitals and cities across the country, workers from both the private and public sector, political activists, students and community members organized rallies to demonstrate their support for the struggle against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his union-busting attack.

The outpourings of support--from Los Angeles to New York City, and from Boise, Idaho, to Miami--showed how fed up people are around the country with the politicians' pro-corporate, anti-worker agenda, and how much they sense the importance of the fight in Wisconsin.

Read more here

U.S. needs its own democracy movement

The Egyptians want to establish a viable democracy, and that’s a long, hard road. Americans are in the mind-bogglingly self-destructive process of letting a real democracy slip away.

I had lunch with the historian Howard Zinn just a few weeks before he died in January 2010. He was chagrined about the state of affairs in the U.S. but not at all daunted. “If there is going to be change,” he said, “real change, it will have to work its way from the bottom up, from the people themselves.”

I thought of that as I watched the coverage of the ecstatic celebrations in the streets of Cairo.

Read full piece here

Egypt, Jordan, and the Arab world's 'watershed' moment

(CNN) -- The protests that have spread through parts of the Arab world led to dramatic change in another country Tuesday, as Jordan's king dismissed his government.

King Abdullah II made the decision following protests in recent weeks in which several thousand people demanded economic and political reforms.

Experts on the region said Tuesday Abdullah's decision was aimed at warding off larger-scale demonstrations in the wake of the huge protests in Tunisia and Egypt. The Tunisia protests, which began the movement, toppled that country's government. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak has fired his Cabinet, but protesters in massive demonstrations continue to call for his ouster.

The protests -- which have also caught on to various extents in Algeria, Yemen, and Sudan -- have proved to be "a real watershed event for the Arab world," said Blake Hounshell, managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. "It's really unprecedented."

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