MIT Discovers Way to Store Solar Energy Efficiently

Almost all the power we consume on Earth can be traced back to the sun, but ironically consuming solar power directly has been difficult. Until now. MIT’s discovery opens to way to solar revolution:

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn’t shine.

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today’s announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Amazing. If this discovery leaves up to its promise, we won’t worry about lack of energy in the coming decades.

Martian Water is Confirmed by Phoenix Mars Lander

The way to finding Martian life gets an exciting boost today with the confirmation of water in Mars:

Laboratory tests aboard NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander’s robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

“We have water,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. “We’ve seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted.”

It’s interesting to see how this discovery will lead to in the future.

X-37B Robot Military Spaceplane to Launch in November

Robot military spaceplane is an interesting new weapon and it will launch in November:

The X-37B robotic military spaceplane will launch on an Atlas V out of Cape Canaveral this November. The U.S Air Force and Boeing are currently preparing for the Orbital Test Vehicle’s (OTV) launch. Well, now we know just who had enough clout to bump the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)/LCROSS Atlas V launch into 2009. There had been talk of a "black" program that was going to launch ahead of LRO, but I didn’t realize it was going to be more than a satellite…

The original X-37 is a demonstration spaceplane:

The Boeing X-37 Advanced Technology Demonstrator is a demonstration spaceplane that is intended to test future launch technologies while in orbit and during atmospheric reentry. It is a reusable robotic spacecraft that is a 120%-scaled derivative of the X-40A. It flew its first flight as a drop test on April 7, 2006 at Edwards AFB.

Stopping Earth-Bound Asteroids: Nukes or Not Nukes?

What is the best way to stop asteroids coming to the Earth? NASA released a report that the best way to do so is by using nukes:

Scientists have sent Congress a report on ways to prevent an asteroid from hitting Earth. Among the proposals: Use nuclear weapons to nudge a big space rock off a collision course. Some scientists don’t think much of that idea.

But there are gentler alternatives:

The venerable scientist explained that all but the largest heavenly bodies can be redirected by rear-ending or towing them with an unmanned spacecraft.

The Cause of Aurora Borealis - the Northern Lights - is Discovered by NASA

Ever wonder about how a phenomenon called "aurora borealis", also known as the Northern Lights, happens? NASA has found the answer:

The culprit turns out to be magnetic reconnection, a common process that occurs throughout the universe when stressed magnetic field lines suddenly snap to a new shape, like a rubber band that’s been stretched too far.

Just in case you are curious, here is more explanation about aurora:

Auroras (North/South Polar Lights; or aurorae, sing.: aurora) are natural colored light displays in the sky, usually observed at night, particularly in the polar zone. They typically occur in the ionosphere. Some scientists[who?] call them "polar auroras". In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis, named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas. It often appears as a greenish glow or sometimes a faint red, as if the sun was rising from an unusual direction.

iTunes U: A Good Place to Learn - Now With 60 Second Lectures

If you love learning, one of the best places to go is iTunes U which offers a lot of educational materials for free:

While an episode of "Desperate Housewives" will cost $1.99, a series of lectures by renowned University of California-Berkeley philosophy professor Hubert Dreyfus is absolutely free. A single song by pop diva Rihanna is 99 cents. The price of a course on modern theoretical physics by Stanford University quantum mechanics professor Leonard Susskind? Nada.

Recently it added a new podcast called 60 Second Lectures:

Got a minute? Then you have time to enjoy a lecture from a faculty member at the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Speaking on a wide range of topics — from enthography to philosphy to music — the lecturers offer insight, whimsy, and, above all, brevity.

Nokia E71 Launched in the U.S.

Nokia just launched its new cell phone Nokia E71 for the US market:

An eager crowd greeted the official arrival of the highly anticipated Americas version (GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 850/1900) of the Nokia E71 at a private event in the Nokia Flagship Store in midtown Manhattan on the evening of Thursday, July 24th. Attracted by its balance of style, features and services, the invited guests had each signed up to ensure that they would be among the first people in the United States to bring home this exciting new device. The Nokia E71, which at .39 inches thick, is the slimmest QWERTY device on the market, is now available to the general public through a variety of consumer electronics, wireless and online retailers, and at the Nokia Flagship Stores in Chicago and New York

Nokia E71 looks promising in the U.S. market, but its not without its defects:

A tougher call is for those buying the E71 for personal use, as the smallest qwerty-equipped S60 device. While the keyboard is very useable for anyone with nimble fingers, I found the multimedia side of the E71 disappointing, from the relatively low (compared to other recent S60 mainstays like 2006’s N95) camera quality to the undistinguished audio and video playback

Microsoft Achieved Record-Breaking Annual Revenue of $60 Billion

Looks like the world is bright for Microsoft right now. Their annual revenue is whopping $60 billion:

For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2008, Microsoft announced revenue of $60.42 billion, an 18% increase over the prior year. Operating income and diluted earnings per share for the year were $22.49 billion and $1.87, representing yearly growth of 21% and 32%, respectively.

What had caused this strong growth? Here it is:

This fiscal year marked the launch of Microsoft’s flagship server products: Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. Revenue growth was primarily driven by continued customer demand for all products, including Windows Vista, which has sold over 180 million licenses since launch, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, server software, and Xbox 360 consoles and games.

Touch-Based Illusion by MIT Team: Closer to a Holodeck?

An MIT team reportedly created touch-based illusion:

"The most familiar illusions involve vision," explains Christopher Moore, a principal investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and an assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. "But we’re interested in discovering general principles of perception, and we wanted to see whether similar illusions can occur in the tactile domain."

This is how they did it:

To create a tactile version of this illusion, Olivia Carter, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University, and Talia Konkle, a graduate student in Moore’s MIT lab, used a new piezoelectric stimulator device developed by Qi Wang and Vincent Hayward at McGill University. This device, originally designed as a computer Braille display, uses a centimeter-square array composed of 60 "tactors" to deliver precisely controlled touch stimuli to the finger tips of volunteer subjects.

If we can have good touch-based illusion in addition to good vision-based illusion, the dream of having a holodeck as in Star Trek is not impossible.

Secret Nuclear War Bunkers

Wired recently wrote two interesting stories about secret nuclear war bunkers. The first one is about SiteR, Pentagon’s secret bunker:

Site R is not secret, but details of what’s inside are hidden from view. The agenda provides some hints about what’s there: a presidential weather support facility (presumably for Air Force One) and construction related to electromagnetic pulse protection. But perhaps the most eye-catching item on the agenda is a “Gorilla Rock Update” provided by miners, suggesting that there is new construction going on inside the mountain.

The second story is about Plan Mercator, Australia’s secret nuclear war bunker:

Australian media is reporting that the government there has built a classified facility designed to house top leaders in the event of a terrorist attack. "Protected by heavy gates, a high-security fence and an array of CCTV cameras, the Symonston facility is discreetly located at 24 Wormald Street next to the Canberra office of the Aristocrat gaming machine company," The Canberra Times reports.

Apparently there are more secret bunkers than these two, but they offer good glimpse to what nuclear war bunkers look like.