Defending champsLast Thursday at the Zandvoort racetrack, TU Delft’s Nuon Solar Team unveiled it’s new solar-powered car, Nuna II. The 12-person team of students from TU Delft and Rotterdam’s Erasmus University is preparing to defend its title at Australia’s World Solar Challenge race, which it won in 2001 with its Nuna car.
The 3,000-kilometer race begins on October 19th, with the solar-powered cars racing from Darwin to Adelaide along Australia’s desolate Stuart Highway. The Nuon team expects its greatest competition to come from cars representing MIT, and Australia’s Aurora, whose car finished second by only 30 minutes in 2001. The new Nuna II car uses expensive triple-junction solar cells developed by the European Space Agency. Nuna II weighs 270-kg and has a top speed of 170-kmph, although Nuna II is expected to average 100-kmph, or eight kmph faster than its predecessor Nuna, whose 92 kmph average set a race record.
Grim forecast
Jobs are getting harder to find and a majority of Dutch students expect to be dependant on unemployment welfare payments when they graduate, according to a survey conducted by Nobiles Media, a publisher of student publications. Only one-fifth of the 750 students surveyed believed that they’d find jobs before or shortly after graduating. One in three students expected to need three months to find a job; one in twelve expected to be unemployed for six months; and one in ten expected to be unemployed for more than six months.
Nano walker
It’s not only TU Delft%s nanotechnologists who are winning awards this week. An international team of researchers from Twente University and Groningen University have won Germany’s prestigious Körber European Science Award, worth 750,000 euros. The research team is aiming to make a nano machine that is powered by light. Their so-called %walker% should be able to be turned on and off, change directions and to move across a surface in a programmed direction.
Solar Miner IV
A team from the University of Missouri (UM) has won the USA’s Solar Challenge race for solar-powered cars. UM’s car drove for nearly 52 hours, covering 3,600 kilometers from Chicago to Los Angeles, which also included a section of the famed US highway, Route 66. The winning car, ‘Solar Miner IV’ was five hours faster than the runner-up, ‘Borealis II’ from the University of Minnesota. 20 solar-powered cars competed in the race.
www.americansolarchallenge.org . .
World-class
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to found a world-class university, which women will be allowed to attend. The university, which will enroll its first students next year in the city of Sharjah, will initially have two faculties: one for technology and public policy, and one for the arts. The UAE hopes to attract many students from China, India and surrounding Arabcountries. A team of western advisers, including professors from Harvard, MIT and Cambridge, are overseeing the project.
Idioteque
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is refusing to name a student who is illegally sharing music files via the Internet. The RIAA, an organization representing music producers, had asked the university to identify the student who, under the name “Crazyface”, had put “at least five” songs on the Internet, including Radiohead’s “Idioteque”.
Defending champs
Last Thursday at the Zandvoort racetrack, TU Delft’s Nuon Solar Team unveiled it’s new solar-powered car, Nuna II. The 12-person team of students from TU Delft and Rotterdam’s Erasmus University is preparing to defend its title at Australia’s World Solar Challenge race, which it won in 2001 with its Nuna car. The 3,000-kilometer race begins on October 19th, with the solar-powered cars racing from Darwin to Adelaide along Australia’s desolate Stuart Highway. The Nuon team expects its greatest competition to come from cars representing MIT, and Australia’s Aurora, whose car finished second by only 30 minutes in 2001. The new Nuna II car uses expensive triple-junction solar cells developed by the European Space Agency. Nuna II weighs 270-kg and has a top speed of 170-kmph, although Nuna II is expected to average 100-kmph, or eight kmph faster than its predecessor Nuna, whose 92 kmph average set a race record.
Grim forecast
Jobs are getting harder to find and a majority of Dutch students expect to be dependant on unemployment welfare payments when they graduate, according to a survey conducted by Nobiles Media, a publisher of student publications. Only one-fifth of the 750 students surveyed believed that they’d find jobs before or shortly after graduating. One in three students expected to need three months to find a job; one in twelve expected to be unemployed for six months; and one in ten expected to be unemployed for more than six months.
Nano walker
It’s not only TU Delft%s nanotechnologists who are winning awards this week. An international team of researchers from Twente University and Groningen University have won Germany’s prestigious Körber European Science Award, worth 750,000 euros. The research team is aiming to make a nano machine that is powered by light. Their so-called %walker% should be able to be turned on and off, change directions and to move across a surface in a programmed direction.
Solar Miner IV
A team from the University of Missouri (UM) has won the USA’s Solar Challenge race for solar-powered cars. UM’s car drove for nearly 52 hours, covering 3,600 kilometers from Chicago to Los Angeles, which also included a section of the famed US highway, Route 66. The winning car, ‘Solar Miner IV’ was five hours faster than the runner-up, ‘Borealis II’ from the University of Minnesota. 20 solar-powered cars competed in the race.
www.americansolarchallenge.org . .
World-class
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to found a world-class university, which women will be allowed to attend. The university, which will enroll its first students next year in the city of Sharjah, will initially have two faculties: one for technology and public policy, and one for the arts. The UAE hopes to attract many students from China, India and surrounding Arabcountries. A team of western advisers, including professors from Harvard, MIT and Cambridge, are overseeing the project.
Idioteque
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is refusing to name a student who is illegally sharing music files via the Internet. The RIAA, an organization representing music producers, had asked the university to identify the student who, under the name “Crazyface”, had put “at least five” songs on the Internet, including Radiohead’s “Idioteque”.
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