Robots, lacking families and pensions, will rush into scenarios where humans fear to tread, like rescue missions following natural disasters.   So they need our support.  

RoboCup Rescue is a new effort to promote research and development in the field of rescue robotics. Robots for search and rescue missions, the efficient co-ordination of rescue services or decision-support systems are all the practical result of rescue robotics research. Two RoboCup leagues give an insight into digitally supported rescue possibilities: Rescue Simulation and Real Rescue.


Rescue Robot at RoboCup 2009.  Photo: TU Graz

Six groups of scientists from the Departments of Biology and Chemistry at the University of York and the Astbury Centre for Structural and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, at the University of Leeds have set out discover how a group of proteins that are highly effective at killing bacteria could hold the key to developing new types of antibiotics.

Researchers from the Universities of York and Leeds have been awarded £3.3m from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to find out how a family of proteins known as colicins force their way into bacterial cells before destroying them.

Philosophers have the embarrassing habit of apologizing for formal logic. Mathematicians don’t bother because they don’t care -- they’re just interested in the pretty pretty symbols and waste no part of their lives checking to see if their activities actually mean anything. But philosophers worry about everything, and the more obvious a thing or its explanation might be, the more worrisome it becomes to them. And since a particularly large part of philosophy in the last 140 years has specifically centered itself around the importance of formal logic -- which is “obviously” important -- this becomes especially problematic.

As I promised a week ago, I am posting answers to a few of the 42 questions which constituted the first part of an the exam selecting experimental particle physicists for the INFN (the italian institute of nuclear physics) four years ago. Next week, a similar exam will take place to "qualify" post-doctoral scientists which aspire at a temporary position with INFN.

Have a really smart kid who loves big trucks but you can't stand loud, growling voices with too much reverb in stadiums?   You're in luck.    MANTRA (The Manufacturing Technology Transporter) is a specially modified monster truck that is packed with the latest machinery and simulators rather than baseball caps and flannel shirts.

The 14 meter long MANTRA truck will take to the road with a dedicated team to demonstrate the manufacturing and assembly line technology of the future and help to inspire young people to take up careers in engineering.

Paperless office?  An optimistic pipe dream.    We use more paper documents than at any time in history despite the prevalence of the Internet and digital technology.    Part of the reason is lousy copy protection of scanned documents and storing them online.

But a new approach to archiving scanned documents that makes the text searchable and adds a watermark to images for copy protection and validation reported in the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems may herald some forward progress.

If you read internet science in 2006, you'd have thought former president George W. Bush's limitations of use of embryonic stem cell lines had killed science.  In reality, embryonic stem cell research only received $15 million in US funding when the restrictions were imposed and it grew to billions per year during his presidency so some of that rhetoric was designed simply to engage in cultural spin and mobilize votes for Democrats.

With a Democrat president and a bulletproof majority in the Senate, culturally-inclined science bloggers can now instead focus on religion and maybe the few Republicans still out there and the rest of us can tackle serious issues, like how to educate people on stem cell research so they can make informed policy decisions.

TEL AVIV and BERLIN, July 3 /PRNewswire/ -- German-Israeli cooperation brings together two complementary
approaches to the advancement of commercialization of tomorrow's
technologies. Germany Trade & Invest, the Israeli-German Chamber of Commerce,
and several partners will be hosting the 1st Israeli-German Conference on the
commercialization of future technologies in Tel Aviv on July 6, 2009. The
event is a response to the high level of Israeli interest in German high-tech
R&D.

ZÜRICH, July 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Solianis recently signed an investment agreement with a Swiss foundation
which invests its assets in Swiss companies. According to the agreement, this
foundation will put CHF 5 million, while the previous investors in Solianis
are investing another CHF 3 million.

"The CHF 8 million invested will enable us to increase our efforts to
complete the prototype of our non-invasive glucose monitoring device and to
prepare the clinical trials required for CE certification. The realisation of
our innovative product concept is now assured", says Mario Stark, managing
director at Solianis.

House of Straw
Use six straws to create the classic house shape (a rectangular body with two straws forming the roof, all laying flat on the table). Bet that you can make four equal triangles by moving only three straws. Try it! To all but the most creatively freethinking, this is impossible. The trick is to go 3D—pick up the three straws that make the bottom and sides of the rectangle and replace them so that one end of each straw is rooted in a corner of the triangle with all three moved straws touching above the center of the original triangle, like a tent or teepee—four, equal triangles, each the size of the original roof.

Paper Match