Category: News

At a celebration attended by Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, the European Patent Office marked the 40th anniversary of the European Patent Convention (EPC). On 5 October 1973, the EPC was signed in Munich, establishing a legal framework for the transnational grant of patents in Europe.

The Convention was inspired by the vision of a group of convinced Europeans, who had personally suffered from the war and thought, like the founding fathers of the European Economic Community, that the establishment of a supranational patent system would significantly strengthen the European economy, forge closer bonds between Europeans and help to shape a peaceful and prosperous Europe.

“After forty years, we can say that the EPC, which created the European Patent Office, has provided the ground for building a real success, not only from a technical point of view but also in its European and political dimension,” declared EPO President Benoît Battistelli. “The high quality of products and services delivered by the EPO is acknowledged across the globe. Ever since it was set up, the EPO has played an active role in fostering innovation and has given Europe a strong voice in its ongoing dialogue with the other world leaders in technology,” he added.

The European patent system will be further improved by two major projects recently adopted by the EU institutions: the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court. “The unitary patent marks the end of a forty-year odyssey and opens new horizons for European entrepreneurs,” said Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council.

The European Patent Organisation, starting with seven member states, now comprises 38 countries, including all the 28 EU members. It represents a single entry point to a market of 600 million inhabitants. This framework has proved capable of integrating countries which differ widely in terms of size, economic significance and industrial development.

The growth in the number of patent applications filed has been dramatic, from 4 000 in 1978 to some 260 000 in 2012. Moreover, most of the electronic tools and services developed by the European Patent Office to conduct patent activities – such as prior art search engines, machine translation facilities and classification for technical documents – have become world standards and are used by dozens of patent offices around the world. The international reputation of the EPC system, based on the unique expertise of the EPO, significantly strengthens Europe’s position in co-operation with other major regions, such as the US and Asia.

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A paper in recent issue of the journal Science [18 October] pits the front-running ideas about the growth of supermassive black holes against observational data — a limit on the strength of gravitational waves from pairs of black holes, obtained with CSIRO’s 64-m Parkes radio telescope in eastern Australia.

The study was jointly led by Dr Ryan Shannon, a Postdoctoral Fellow with CSIRO, and Mr Vikram Ravi, a PhD student co-supervised by the University of Melbourne (Australia) and CSIRO.

“For the first time, we’ve used information about gravitational waves as a tool in astrophysics,” said Dr Shannon.

“It’s a powerful new tool. These black holes are very hard to observe directly, so this is a new chapter in astronomy.”

“One model for black-hole growth has failed our test and we’re painting the others into a corner. They may not break, but they’ll have to bend,” said Mr Ravi.

Einstein predicted gravitational waves — ripples in space-time, generated by bodies changing speed or direction. Bodies, for instance, such as pairs of black holes orbiting each other.

When galaxies merge, their resident central black holes are doomed to meet. They first waltz together then enter a desperate embrace and merge.

“Theorists predict that towards the end of this dance they’re growling out gravitational waves at a frequency we’re set up to detect,” Dr Shannon said.

Played out again and again across the Universe, such encounters create a background of gravitational waves, like the noise from a restless crowd.

Astronomers have been searching for gravitational waves with the Parkes radio telescope and a set of 20 small, spinning stars called pulsars.

Pulsars act as extremely precise clocks in space. We measure when their pulses arrive on Earth to within a tenth of a microsecond.

As gravitational waves roll through an area of space-time, they temporarily swell or shrink the distances between objects in that region. “That can alter the arrival time of the pulses on Earth,” said Dr Michael Keith of the University of Manchester in the UK.

The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project and an earlier collaboration between CSIRO and Swinburne University together provide nearly 20 years’ worth of timing data.

“We haven’t yet detected gravitational waves outright, but we’re now into the right ballpark to do so,” said the project leader, CSIRO’s Dr George Hobbs.

Combining pulsar-timing data from Parkes with that from other telescopes in Europe and the USA — a total of about 50 pulsars — should give us the accuracy to detect gravitational waves “within ten years”, he said.

Meanwhile, the PPTA results are showing us how low the background rate of gravitational waves is.

The strength of the gravitational wave background depends on how often supermassive black holes spiral together and merge, how massive they are, and how far away they are. So if the background is low, that puts a limit on one or more of those factors.

Armed with the PPTA data, the researchers tested four models of black-hole growth. They effectively ruled out black holes gaining mass only through mergers, but the other three models “are still in the game”, said Dr Sarah Burke-Spolaor of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

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CSIRO scientists have custom made and 3D printed a set of titanium shoes for one Melbourne race horse in a first for the sport.

The horse, dubbed by researchers as ‘Titanium Prints’, had its hooves scanned with a handheld 3D scanner this week.

Using 3D modelling software, the scan was used to design the perfect fitting, lightweight racing shoe and four customised shoes were printed within only a few hours.

“3D printing a race horseshoe from titanium is a first for scientists and demonstrates the range of applications the technology can be used for.”

Mr John Barnes, Titanium Technologies Theme Leader, CSIRO Future Manufacturing Flagship

Traditionally made from aluminium, a horseshoe can weigh up to one kilogram but the horse’s trainer, John Moloney, says that the ultimate race shoe should be as lightweight as possible.

“Any extra weight in the horseshoe will slow the horse down. These titanium shoes could take up to half of the weight off a traditional aluminium shoe, which means a horse could travel at new speeds.

“Naturally, we’re very excited at the prospect of improved performance from these shoes,

Twenty years ago we could never imagine using computers as extensively in our daily lives as we do today. With technology evolving at such a fast pace, what could possibly be next? Many believe that brain control interfaces (BCI) are the future of computing – that’s right, we could soon be controlling computers with the power of our minds. Mind blowing, huh?!

What are brain control interfaces?

As the name suggests, brain control interfaces (also known as brain-computer interfaces) work by measuring electrical impulses from the brain, interpreting their meaning and converting these into real. In the latest and most impressive study, researchers at the University of Washington managed to get one person to move another person’s finger using only the power of their brain (and some pretty fancy equipment).

How do brain control interfaces work?

Brain control interfaces work by tapping into the brain’s electrical signals and essentially redirecting them through a computer. Every time we think, electrical pulses are sent between neurons in our brain, most of which are insulated but some do escape – and it’s these ones that we can capture that allow BCI to work. This is best explained in this TED Talk by Tan Le:

While hospitals have been using a piece of equipment called an electroencephalograph (EEG), which can detect brain signals in the brain from the outside, for many years, scientists have now taken it further by attaching electrodes into the inside of the brain.

Regardless of where the equipment is placed – inside or outside of the brain – the process is the same; electrical pulses between the neurons are detected and a computer converts these signals into energy or movement.

What can it be used for?

This technology is already being used for a variety of purposes, including the creation of the bionic eye and brain-controlled human prosthetics. As well as medical purposes, BCI technology could eventually make it into our everyday lives — you can use your own imagination to think about what it could be used for. Computer game lovers could have a field day, and the games are already in development.

Who might it benefit?

The main reason so much time and money is being pumped into the development of BCI technology is the potential benefits it could have for the severely disabled. Already, a form of the technology has been used to create the bionic eye, which has seen positive results in low vision patients.

There are a huge range of exciting possibilities that could lead to significantly better quality of life for the disabled. For example, a quadriplegic who could control a computer mouse cursor with their mind would have a world of possibilities open up to them.

Prosthetics that are controlled by the brain are one of the leading areas of research. While prosthetic limbs have come a long way, there is hope that soon patients will be able to have full control of a new body part in the same way that they would of a fully functioning part.

Not only could BCI technology help the physically disabled, but it could be used with children with ADHD or learning difficulties. With studies already showing that computer games can be used to help improve concentration in children, BCI could further enhance the potential to overcome these problems.

One such game developed by OpenVibe and CLARTE, requires players to focus on a series of tasks in a classroom situation. In the game, there’s an out of focus cartoon playing. In order to view the cartoon the student has to focus on the screen. If they don’t focus, the screen become blurred.

What are the risks?

Until very recently, the only effective way to achieve a useable form of mind control was by first having invasive surgery to implant sensors onto the brain, which naturally posed a lot of risks. Now, with promising research into non-invasive BCI techniques, are there still risks?

Some have called it ‘brain hacking’, which automatically has negative connotations. Comparing it to something out of X-men, they have warned that going forward, BCI technology could be used to steal people’s thoughts. It might sound outlandish now, but then again, 20 years ago, so did the idea of downloading music onto your phone!

An innovative new approach to sugarcane plantation weed management trialled in select Great Barrier Reef (GBR) catchments have shown a dramatic 90 per cent reduction in runoff of highly soluble herbicides into waterways.

In the lower Burdekin region of northern Australia, scientists from CSIRO’s Water for a Healthy Country Flagship trialled a new technique for applying herbicides to raised beds of furrow irrigated sugar cane by using a specially adapted shielded sprayer. The technique minimises the likelihood of PSII herbicides such as diuron, atrazine, ametryn and hexazinone coming into contact with irrigation water.

“The conventional application of herbicides in furrow-irrigated sugarcane production is to broadcast spray across the whole field using boom sprayers, which applies herbicides to both beds and furrows. Irrigation water then carries the herbicides with the tail water into the drainage channels, into nearby creeks and rivers and potentially into the GBR lagoon”, said CSIRO research leader, Dr Rai Kookana.

CSIRO scientist Ms Danni Oliver said “The geography of the region means that almost the entire flow from the Burdekin River Irrigation Area in the dry season (from July to January) is made up exclusively of irrigation water from sugarcane and other cropping.”

According to Jon Brodie of James Cook University, “the amount of some herbicides in creek and estuarine waters during this period regularly exceeds Australian water quality guidelines and could potentially affect, for example, coastal seagrass.”

Many of the herbicides used in the region are PSII herbicides that are known to negatively impact reef ecosystems. These waters discharge into the internationally recognised Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and subsequently into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Improved farming techniques such as the shielded sprayer help keep herbicides on-farm have potential to have a significant and positive impact on water quality in the GBR.

“The trials show that while there will certainly be some herbicide loss following the first irrigation or rainfall event, the marked decreases in losses documented in this study – a reduction of to 90 per cent – could lead to significant improvements in off-site water quality, particularly during the dry season”, said Ms Oliver.

“Given the importance of improving GBR water quality additional testing and demonstration of these technologies across different soil types, farming systems – and possibly with different combinations of chemicals – would provide valuable additional testing of the approach from an industry perspective”, said Dr Kookana.

“These trial results are extremely encouraging, and clearly demonstrate that the use of precision herbicide application technologies by the industry, including using shielded sprayers for furrow-irrigated sugarcane cultivation, can be highly effective in reducing herbicide run-off.”

The results of the study have been published in the international journal Science of the Total Environment.

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The widespread introduction of a clean-burning synthetic fuel, dimethyl ether (DME), is a step closer following the announcement of a A$6 million partnership between CSIRO and its Indian equivalent, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

The project will focus on improving processes involved in the production of DME, which is a liquid fuel produced from natural gas (NG), coal, biomass, or even directly from carbon dioxide.

Both Australia and India are currently unable to meet demand for petroleum products with domestic production alone. DME could help meet demand and consequently reduce both nations’ reliance on imported petroleum products.

According to CSIRO’s Dr Nick Burke, “There are over half a million vehicles currently using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in Australia – all of which could be powered using DME. The fact that DME can be used as a blend in existing LPG engines makes it an effective transitional fuel

This weekend happened something that attracted our attention. Namely, Danielle N. Lee, Ph.D, the Urban Scientist blogger at Scientific American, has been mistreated twice: once by the blog editor at biology-online.org and now by SciAm itself. The blog editor asked Dr. Lee to contribute a blog post at Biology-Online, and when she declined, the blog editor asked her whether she was ‘an urban scientist or an urban whore.’ Then, SciAm deleted her blog post, in which she wrote about the incident.  Below is her original post with the video response.

I got this wrap cloth from Tanzania. It’s a khanga. It was the first khanga I purchased while I was in Africa for my nearly 3 month stay for field research last year. Everyone giggled when they saw me wear it and then gave a nod to suggest, “Well, okay

A new study published this month in Science concludes that you may get something unexpected from reading great literary works: more finely-tuned social and emotional skills.

Conducted by Emanuele Castano and David Comer Kidd (researchers in the psych department at the New School for Social Research), the study determined that readers of literary fiction (as opposed to popular fiction or non-fiction) find themselves scoring better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence. In some cases, it took reading literary fiction for only a few minutes for test scores to improve.

The New York Times has a nice overview of the study, where, among other things, it features a quote by Albert Wendland, an English professor at Seton Hall, who puts the relationship between literature and social intelligence into clear terms: “Reading sensitive and lengthy explorations of people’s lives, that kind of fiction is literally putting yourself into another person’s position — lives that could be more difficult, more complex, more than what you might be used to in popular fiction. It makes sense that they will find that, yeah, that can lead to more empathy and understanding of other lives.

A bad night´s sleep, a nervous stomach and sweaty hands. This scenario that students typically face before their obligatory English exam may be a thing of the past at the University of Wismar, Germany. Since June 2012, over 90 students from various degree programmes have produced podcasts – or vodcasts – as part of their assessed course requirements in the ESP module (English for Specific purposes). The result? Involvement, enthusiasm and students who confess to enjoying their learning.  And what´s more, engaging and educational teaching and learning material for the following courses. 

The project was kick-started by our increasing frustration with the lack of stimulating, authentic teaching and learning material in the field of ESP. Motivated by the success of a method called ‘learning through teaching’, in which students address a certain topic and give so-called mini-lessons for their peers, we started wondering whether students couldn’t also create tailor-made language learning content themselves.

How ESP podcasts are produced

Groups of two to four students are tasked with producing a ten-minute video podcast. It has to feature both specific vocabulary and skills practised in the English course, such as negotiating, managing discussions, intercultural communication etc. Students are free to choose the podcast’s format: whether they decide on news productions, talk and reality shows, role-plays and educational lectures – the main objective is for the podcast to be both educational and engaging.

To prepare, students gather information on content and language, create a storyline and practise dialogues. Using props, pictures, background images and sound effects to enrich the impact, the story is adapted as a screenplay and outlined in a storyboard.

For the podcast recording, we are lucky enough to be able to offer students a real studio experience on our production site for elearning applications (PELA). Many students use the studio to record their podcasts, where they get a 90-minute recording slot as well as support in the postproduction process. But you do not need a studio to produce impressive results. We have seen some great productions from students using just a smart phone!

Finally, students are asked to reflect on the results: they provide feedback on their peers’ podcasts and submit a written analysis of their own. Grading creative group work is not easy. But clear structures and transparent criteria go a long way. We are using a concept for productassessment, which differentiates between information, subject-specific quality, which in this case is mainly the language, and design, which is the creative aspect. We also apply a mix of individual and group assessment.

Benefits

For me personally, there are two extremely valuable aspects of the project. First there is the educational and fun value of tailor-made teaching and learning content for future generations of students, as the material produced can be reused again. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, students really enjoy the project, as these two comments show:

“This exciting and fun project combines many aspects: text, speaking, organisation, preparation and group processes. We are still talking about the project many months later and enjoy the memories.

King’s College London is celebrating the award of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics to its alumnus, Fellow and Honorary Doctor Professor Peter Ware Higgs CH CBE FRS FRSE FKC, jointly with François Englert.

The award is the 11th Nobel Prize awarded to a member of King’s or its associated institutions, and it also highlights the remarkable tradition of discoveries in physics by members of the College, starting with James Clerk Maxwell in the 1860s.

Peter Higgs came to King’s as an undergraduate in 1947 to read natural sciences in the field of physics. After graduating with a first-class BSc in 1950 he took an MSc in physics in 1952 and studied for his doctorate in molecular physics under the supervision of Charles Coulson and Christopher Longuet-Higgins. He was awarded his PhD in 1954 for a thesis entitled ‘Some problems in the theory of molecular vibrations’: a work that signalled the start of his life-long interest in the application of the ideas of symmetry to physical systems. He was a senior student at King’s and had already published four scientific papers by the time he left the College in 1954 to take up a post at the University of Edinburgh.

Among the many honours and awards Professor Higgs has received are the Fellowship of King’s in 1998 and the College’s Honorary Doctorate of Science in 2009.

The College’s tradition of world-changing discoveries in physics began in the19th century. In particular, the great 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell was Professor of Natural Philosophy at King’s from 1860 to 1865. During this time he demonstrated that magnetism, electricity and light were different manifestations of the same fundamental laws, taking a major step towards a theory unifying the forces of nature.

150 years later, the discovery in July 2012 by teams at CERN of a new particle consistent with the Higgs boson followed pioneering research on this particle by King’s current James Clerk Maxwell Professor of Theoretical Physics, John Ellis CBE FRS. Professor Ellis is considered one of the UK’s most influential and eminent particle physicists, and he has also made important contributions to astrophysics, cosmology and quantum gravity. He has been influential in setting CERN’s strategic direction over recent decades.

In 2012 King’s inaugurated an annual Higgs Lecture in the School of Natural & Mathematical Sciences, with Professor Higgs giving the inaugural Higgs lecture on the theme ‘Putting Maxwell in his place’ on 10 December 2012 at the Strand Campus to an audience of King’s staff and students, science professionals and colleagues from other universities, and engaging in a lively question and answer session. A short video of the highlights and the full length video can beviewed online.

Professor Sir Richard Trainor, Principal of King’s, said: ‘This is wonderful news and we send our warmest congratulations to Professor Higgs. King’s is extremely proud and honoured that our alumnus has been awarded the world’s greatest scientific prize, and we look forward to being able to congratulate him in person in the near future.’

Professor John Ellis said: ‘In 1964 Peter Higgs was among the theoretical physicists who discovered a way to give masses to elementary particles. This is now the basis for the Standard Model that describes immensely successfully all the visible matter in the Universe. Peter Higgs pointed out that this theory required the existence of a new kind of particle, commonly called the Higgs Boson, which was discovered by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN in 2012, providing dramatic experimental confirmation of his theoretical ideas.

‘We are proud that Peter Higgs was a student in the King’s Physics Department, and that his links with King’s continue. Research on the properties of the Higgs Boson and related aspects of particle physics is an active theme of research in the King’s Physics Department.’

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