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Domain: vub.ac.be

Stories and comments across the archive that link to vub.ac.be.

Stories · 5

  1. Electric Cars Emit 50 Percent Less Greenhouse Gas Than Diesel, Study Finds (theguardian.com)

    Hardware · Transportation · · posted by BeauHD · from the energy-consumption dept. · 239 comments
    entirely_fluffy shares a report from The Guardian: Electric cars emit significantly less greenhouse gases over their lifetimes than diesel engines even when they are powered by the most carbon intensive energy, a new report has found. In Poland, which uses high volumes of coal, electric vehicles produced a quarter less emissions than diesels when put through a full lifecycle modeling study by Belgium's VUB University. CO2 reductions on Europe's cleanest grid in Sweden were a remarkable 85%, falling to around one half for countries such as the UK. The new study uses an EU estimate of Poland's emissions -- at 650gCO2/kWh -- which is significantly lower than calculations by the European commission's Joint Research Centre science wing last year. The VUB study says that while the supply of critical metals -- lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite -- and rare earths would have to be closely monitored and diversified, it should not constrain the clean transport transition. As battery technology improves and more renewables enter the electricity grid, emissions from battery production itself could be cut by 65%, the study found.

  2. Activists Destroy Scientific GMO Experiment

    Science · Science · · posted by samzenpus · from the not-in-my-garden dept. · 1,229 comments
    Freggy writes "In Belgium, a group of activists calling themselves the Field Liberation Movement has destroyed a field which was being used for a scientific experiment with genetically modified potatoes. In spite of the presence of 60 police officers protecting the field, activists succeeded pulling out the plants and sprayed insecticides over them, ruining the experiment. The goal of the experiment was to test potato plants which are genetically modified to be resistant to potato blight. It's a sad day for the freedom of scientific research."

  3. Adapting a Webcam for Astrophotography

    Science · Space · · posted by timothy · from the astounding-imagery dept. · 74 comments
    Alien54 writes "Here's a guy who has done well taking digital photographs of the planets using not only a regular digital camera, but also using an old greyscale Quickcam. Lots of pics, of course, and some very nice shots of Mars and all the rest. He also has some higher end gear. See also these other related pages (link 1, link 2, link 3) Also worth looking at is the website of the QuickCam and Unconventional Imaging Astronomy Group"

  4. More on Bayesian Spam Filtering

    It · Spam · · posted by michael · from the snake-eyes dept. · 251 comments
    michaeld writes "The "Bayesian" techniques for spam filtering recently publicized in Paul Graham's essay A Plan for Spam doesn't actually seem to have anything Bayesian about it, according to Gary Robinson (an expert on collaborative filtering). It is based on a non-Bayesian probabilistic approach. It works well enough, because it is frequently the case that technology doesn't have to be 100% perfect in order to do something that really needs to be done. The problem interested Robinson, and he posted his thoughts about trying to fix the problems in the Graham approach, including adding an actual Bayesian element to the calculations."

  5. Terminus Demo Released

    Games · Games · · posted by Hemos · from the bring-out-yer-games-bring-out-yer-games dept. · 57 comments
    Geert-Jan writes: "The Linux version of the Terminus demo is now available at Maximum Linux. I also have a mirror up at A Talent For War. The Windows and Mac versions should be out later today at the Adrenaline Vault and Inside Mac Games, respectively."