Category Archives: Research

Open Access Article Advantage

Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles by Gunther Eysenbach:

While more work remains to be done to evaluate citation patterns over longer periods of time and in different fields and journals, this study provides evidence and new arguments for scientists and granting agencies to invest money into article processing fees to cover the costs of OA publishing. It also provides an incentive for publishers seeking to increase their impact factor to offer an OA option.

I agree with all of that. More study should be done. And scientists and sponsors that want the papers they wrote, or funded, to have maximum influence should invest in OA publishing now.

See previous: Britain’s Royal Society Experiments with Open Access

The Future of Science

Speculation on the Future of Science, summary of a Kevin Kelly speech by Stewart Brand (co-founder and co-chairman of The Long Now Foundation. He is the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog).

The articles notes steps along the path to the current state of science, including:

1590 — Controlled experiment (Roger Bacon)
1609 — Telescopes and microscopes
1665 — Repeatability (Robert Boyle)
1665 — Scholarly journals
1687 — Hypothesis/prediction (Isaac Newton)
1926 — Randomized design (Ronald Fisher)
1950 — Double blind experiment

Then he discusses 5 ideas for the next 100 years.

1) “There will be more change in the next 50 years of science than in the last 400 years.”
2) “This will be a century of biology.”
3) “Computers will keep leading to new ways of science.”
4) “New ways of knowing will emerge.”
5) “Science will create new levels of meaning.”

It is wonderful to see such interesting ideas online and easily accessible to over one billion people. Yes there is a great deal of worthless stuff avoid (and some worthless stuff to enjoy) to find all the wonderful stuff. But the amount of wonderful science and engineering material available online provides great hope for what the future will bring.

update: see Kevin Kelly present at Google – more Google Engineering talks.

Singapore Supporting Science Researchers

Grooming research talent seen as crucial for Singapore by Jeana Wong

And to attract overseas talents, it will need to build world-class facilities, attract skilled mentors and focus its research spending on clear areas in which it has a strong hold.

He says it is not unusual for governments to develop infrastructure and talent in the basic sciences at the tertiary education level.

Singapore reportedly is even looking at proposing a grand management plan for an Indonesian island.
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China challenges dominance of USA, Europe and Japan

China challenges dominance of USA, Europe and Japan in scientific research according to UNESCO Science Report 2005

The report says that “the most remarkable trend is to be found in Asia, where gross expenditure on R&D has grown from a world share of 27.9% in 1997 to 31.5% in 2002”.

This hardly seems impressive compared to the growth of Google say. However the amounts of money for global R&D are huge and so changes as less dramatic than other areas. Still this is significant and seems likely to continue to move in this direction.
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The Brine Lake Beneath the Sea

This stunning octopod, Benthoctopus sp., seemed quite interested in ALVIN’s port manipulator arm. Image courtesy of Bruce Strickrott, Expedition to the Deep Slope – larger photo.

The Brine Lake by Harry Roberts:

As we took the sub into the brine lake, the pressure wave from the sub’s movement across the lake created waves on the interface between the brine and the overlying normal-density sea water.

We watched these waves break on the “beach” like storm waves approaching and breaking on a sandy coastline.

NOAA researchers include a video from the adventure. Also read more about the Expedition to the Deep Slope, in the Gulf of Mexico.

Wind Power Technology Breakthrough

China Makes Huge Breakthrough in Wind Power Technology by Zijun Li:

Chinese developers unveiled the world’s first full-permanent magnetic levitation (Maglev) wind power generator at the Wind Power Asia Exhibition 2006 held June 28 in Beijing, according to Xinhua News.
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The Maglev generator is expected to boost wind energy generating capacity by as much as 20 percent over traditional wind turbines. This would effectively cut the operational expenses of wind farms by up to half, keeping the overall cost of wind power under 0.4 yuan (5 cents US), according to Guokun Li, the chief scientific developer of the new technology. Further, the Maglev is able to utilize winds with starting speeds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s), and cut-in speeds of 3 m/s, the chief of Zhongke Energy was quoted as saying at the exhibition. When compared with the operational hours of existing wind turbines, the new technology will add an additional 1,000 hours of operation annually to wind power plants in areas with an average wind speed of 3 m/s.

Toyota Robots

photo of Toyota partner robot

Toyota Announces Overview of “Toyota Partner Robot”

Toyota wants its partner robots to have human characteristics, such as being agile, warm and kind and also intelligent enough to skillfully operate a variety of devices in the areas of personal assistance, care for the elderly, manufacturing, and mobility. Furthermore, since each area requires a special set of skills, Toyota is promoting the development of three different types of partner robots (walking, rolling, and mountable), each with its own areas of expertise.

Read posts about the Toyota Productions System (TPS) on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog.

Others are making progress on human like robots including Sony and Honda. See Sony QRIO Robots in action in this flash video below:

And read more about Honda Robots: ASIMO and P3.

Psychology Experiment

Not Your Average Summer Camp by Marisa Brook

They would be pitted against each other in a lengthy tournament of sports and other challenges; the winner would be awarded a medal and a pocketknife. The psychologists’ aim was to prompt each team to see the other as an ‘enemy’ of sorts, and test the second part of the hypothesis.
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Overall, the experiment was seen as a success. Not only had both aspects of Sherif’s hypothesis been verified, but several further conclusions had been reached.

Ants on Stilts for Science

Ant on stilts

When Ants Go Marching, They Count Their Steps by Bjorn Carey

One is that they do it like honeybees and remember visual cues, but experiments revealed ants can navigate in the dark and even blindfolded. Another disproved hypothesis was that because ants scurry at a steady pace, they could time how long it took them to get to and fro. Other studies have shown that once ants find a good source of food, they teach other ants how to find it.

The ant “pedometer” technique was first proposed in 1904, but it remained untested until now.

Scientists trained desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis, to walk along a straight path from their nest entrance to a feeder 30 feet away. If the nest or feeder was moved, the ants would break from their straight path after reaching the anticipated spot and search for their goal.

A simple example of the scientific process (another one posted yesterday about birds and global warming).
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Tour the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab

Robert Scoble videotaped his visit to the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab and posted the video to Microsoft’s channel 9 – which has quite a few interesting videos.

They have some of the coolest people I’ve ever met and the robotics might surprise you (two of the students were building soccer-playing robots on top of Segways, other students were building surgery tools, really great stuff).

More robotics webcasts from Channel 9.