Quadcopters playing ping pong and Quadcopter with Kinect Enhancement

Here is a video of quadcopters being used to bounce a ball and then bounce balls between two quadcopters. This video demonstrates an MAV outfitted with a Kinect sensor flying indoors autonomously. This technology was developed at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and University of Washington’s Robotics and States Estimation Laboratory. MIT developed …

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George Monbiot describes the double standard against nuclear power

George Monbiot is a reporter and environmentalist at the UK Guardian. He describes his support for nuclear power and for a clean environment. He lists the double standards against nuclear power Double standard one: deaths and injuries Chinese coal mining alone kills as many people every week as the worst nuclear power accident in history …

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Middle sized cities will be the source of world GDP growth

Today, developed economies such as the U.S., Western Europe and emerging market megacities—cities with more than ten million people—contribute 73 percent of world GDP growth. By 2025, their contribution diminishes to a mere one-third of global GDP. McKinsey has a report – Urban world: Mapping the economic power of cities (62 pages) 23 megacities and …

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India has 1.21 billion people in 2011

India’s census 2011 provisional data, puts the country’s headcount at 1.21 billion. Overall, there has been a decline in the number of children under the age of 6, down 5 million since 2001 to 158.8 million in 2011. During this time, India’s population has increased by more than 181 million. The proportion of children between …

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Lower cost molding of Microstructures at the millimeter to micron scale

They have made 5 micron pillars on copper The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) has selected Hoowaki, LLC as one of the seven recipients for the 4th Annual SME List of Innovations That Could Change the Way You Manufacture. The award was presented for Hoowaki’s surface engineering technology that increases energy efficiency by improving friction, …

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Near Earth Asteroid Surveys and Mission Proposals

Between the Moon and Mars: NEO Redux Part 1 by Rob Landis, Ames Research As of March 30, 2011, 7922 Near-Earth objects have been discovered. Some 824 of these NEOs are asteroids with a diameter of approximately 1 kilometer or larger. Also, 1214 of these NEOs have been classified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs). The …

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Working to increase 90% treatment success against Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia

chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) is currently treated with a class of drugs called Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors and in the majority of cases this treatment is successful, with around 90% of patients recovering from the disease. However in the majority of patients a subset of cancer cells – CML stem cells – are resistant to Tyrosine …

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Samsung is mass producing transparent LCD displays panels that are 90% more power efficient than backlit LCD

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced today that it began mass production of the 22-inch transparent LCD panel in March this year. The panels come in two colors, the black-and-white type and the color type, and they have a contrast ratio of 500:1 with WSXGA+(1680*1050) resolution. Compared with the conventional LCD panels that use back light …

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Berkeley Lab Researchers Make First Perovskite-Based Superlens Follow up

We previously covered the Berkeley Lab development of perovskite superlens that can image 1/14 th of a wavelength Photonics online has some more information Superlenses from perovskite oxides that are simpler and easier to fabricate than metamaterials, and are ideal for capturing light in the mid-infrared range, which opens the door to highly sensitive biomedical …

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