feed on feeds - 2015/01/12 - items 0 to 15

Stormen Egon drog inte bara ned träd. På ön Tån vid Brofjordens inlopp, nära Lysekil i Bohuslän, drogs en åtta meter hög fyr ned, rapporterar lokala medier.

Runt 25 000 personer samlades på måndagskvällen för en marsch organiserad av den anti-islamistiska rörelsen Pegida i Dresden, uppger polis. Det är rekord, men omkring hundratusen människor runt om i Tyskland deltog under dagen också i manifestationer mot Pegida och för ett mångkulturellt samhälle och ökad tolerans.

romanval sends word that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will become the new chairman of the subcommittee that oversees NASA and government scientific research. Cruz has both spoken in favor of NASA and attempted to cut its budget, but he's most notable for his opposition to the science supporting climate change. From the article: His vociferous opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and his support of extreme budget cuts could spell trouble for NASA's less prominent programs, such as its own climate research and sophisticated supercomputers. His role on the front lines of the 2013 government shutdown, which critics say had lasting negative effects on public safety, NASA research and EPA scientists' ability to visit contaminated sites, also suggests at best a narrow focus on NASA's largest projects and at worst a disregard for agencies that require science funding.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

romanval sends word that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will become the new chairman of the subcommittee that oversees NASA and government scientific research. Cruz has both spoken in favor of NASA and attempted to cut its budget, but he's most notable for his opposition to the science supporting climate change. From the article: His vociferous opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and his support of extreme budget cuts could spell trouble for NASA's less prominent programs, such as its own climate research and sophisticated supercomputers. His role on the front lines of the 2013 government shutdown, which critics say had lasting negative effects on public safety, NASA research and EPA scientists' ability to visit contaminated sites, also suggests at best a narrow focus on NASA's largest projects and at worst a disregard for agencies that require science funding.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Omkring hundratusen människor runt om i Tyskland deltog på måndagskvällen i manifestationer för ett mångkulturellt samhälle och mot antimuslimska marscher.

Frankrike sätter in tusentals soldater för att skydda känsliga platser mot nya dåd. Samtidigt fortsätter jakten på eventuella medskyldiga till terrorattackerna förra veckan. Den misstänkta Hayat Boumeddiene bekräftas nu ha tagit sig till Syrien.

En god nyhet för barn som drabbades av narkolepsi efter svininfluensavaccineringen 2009: gränsen för att få ersättning förlängs från åtta till 16 månader, enligt Svenska Dagbladet.

'The EnOcean technology is an energy harvesting wireless technology used primarily in building automation systems; but is also applied to other applications in industry, transportation, logistics and smart homes,' says Wikipedia. There's also a Siemans spinoff company called EnOcean, and today's video is an interview with its president, Jim O'Callaghan. But EnOcean technology is the real star here. The idea is that energy-efficient sensors can be powered by energy harvesting, i.e. drawing energy from their surroundings, including such low-level sources as light, temperature changes, and pressure, which can be the pressure of your finger on a switch or even changes in barometric pressure. The EnOcean Alliance has a professionally-produced video that describes their technology and notes that self-powered wireless sensors not only save energy but save miles of wire between sensor nodes and controllers, which means it's possible to install more sensors sensing more parameters than in the past. (Alternate Video Link)