Max Goes to Jupiter - Mike Hopkins

NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins read "Max Goes to Jupiter" for the Story Time from Space activity.

Crew members on the space station host Story Time from Space by videotaping themselves reading children’s books.

They also complete simple demonstrations that accompany the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) concepts in the books.

The videos are edited and posted to an online library with related educational materials for educators and parents to use.

The project aims to bring space station science to communities that have had no other involvement with the space program through the simple beauty of reading a book to the children of Earth from orbit.

The books are delivered to the space station and returned after the videos are completed.

The program will increase awareness of the station, and connects (STEM) concepts with literacy, providing teachers a unique and engaging way to teach.

Scotland's Glasgow firm Clyde Space awarded small share of UK technology funding

Glasgow-based Clyde Space has been awarded funding for two joint space technology development projects.

The firm has secured nearly £70,000 under the UK Space Agency's National Space Technology Programme (NSTP).

The funding will help Clyde further work on miniaturised electric propulsion systems for very small spacecraft.

The other project involves developing attitude planning and control algorithms for low cost spacecraft.

Clyde has been working on tiny electric propulsion systems for very small spacecraft called "CubeSats" and nanosatellites with Southampton University's Mars Space Ltd.

Funding of £24,000 has been awarded for their joint work on a micro pulsed plasma thruster for CubeSats.

Clyde said the project would take the technology forward to a flight-ready prototype.

The UK Space Agency awarded a further £44,000 for a joint project with the Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory at the University of Strathclyde.

That project involves optimising algorithms for control of CubeSat attitude, furthering work already completed at Clyde.

Craig Clark, from Clyde Space, said: "We are up against organisations from all over the world, high technology companies that are doing similar things to us, so this funding will really help towards us maintaining a competitive edge."

Jaguar C-X16: New Jaguar E Type concept

The Jaguar C-X16 concept has a surprise treat under the long bonnet - a new engine that's part of a petrol-electric hybrid drivetrain concept.

The supercharged 3.0-litre V6 engine produces an impressive 380hp (more than the entry-level new Porsche 911), driven through an eight-speed paddle shift automatic. 0-60mph takes 4.4 seconds and it can reach 186mph.

More pics here

BMW i8 Concept Car - YouTube video

The BMW i8 - a sporty, hybrid all-rounder

While the i3 is best suited to round-town usage, the i8 has broader ambitions. It uses the same electric motor as the i3, this time mounted over the front axle, in conjunction with a three-cylinder, 220 horsepower petrol engine over the rear axle. Combined, you're looking at a 354 horsepower all-wheel-drive with 550 Nm of torque.

All wheel drive isn't entirely accurate though - the i8 constantly proportions the power between the front and rear drive systems according to how the car is being driven. With a much smaller battery system than the i3, the i8 can only manage around 35 km (20 miles) in fully electric drive mode - but then, that would cover an emission-free commute for the majority of people.

The real value of the hybrid system comes with longer range driving, where on the EU cycle, the i8 manages a whopping 104 miles per gallon (2.7 liters per 100 km). Driven hard, the fuel consumption will double, but don't forget that the Toyota Prius is advertised as a 50 mpg hybrid and is nowhere near as much fun.

Like the i3, the i8's top speed is electronically governed, but this time at a very sporty 250 kph (155 mph), so it'll hold its head high on any autobahn. The i8 will hit 100 kph (62 mph) in a brisk 5 seconds or less, decent sportscar territory there, and the car's entire underbelly is totally enclosed to boost aerodynamic efficiency and reduce fuel consumption.

‪BMW i3 Concept‬‏ - YouTube

The BMW i3 - all-electric city slicker

First up is the town car getabout - the i3. As a fully electric car, it's mainly aimed at urban commuting, but its battery range is specified to a level a little beyond that. On the FTP72 cycle, it's rated for 225 km (140 miles), but BMW says the car's everyday range, being driven by regular lead-foot clowns like you and I, is more like 160 km (100 miles.) That's heaps for your general commuting duties.

Acceleration is in the range of 8 seconds to 100 kph (62 mph), but it should be fairly zippy off the line, as it develops 100 percent of its torque from a standstill. Top speed should be around 150 kph (93 mph) - but that's electronically limited, because autobahn speeds can be brutally draining on most electric vehicles.

The i3's large battery pack sits under the floor of the vehicle in a slab that's protected from crash damage by a number of buffer zones in the structure. As batteries are typically the most expensive part of an electric vehicle, you'd certainly want to protect them.

The 170 hp electric motor, single-gear drive system and differential are located over the driven rear axle, and there's room there for an optional range extender - a high efficiency petrol engine that putts away and generates electricity to charge the batteries. With the range extender on board, you can roughly double the i3's range, and fill up at any petrol station.

Concorde G-BOAA arrives in Edinburgh

It's the 35th anniversary of the Concorde G-BOAA flight from London to Bahrain on January 21 1976.

It was the first commercial flight by a British Airways Concorde and they're  celebrating with a weekend of fun and celebrations at National Museum of Flight, East Fortune, Edinburgh, Scotland

NASA Reviving its 'Blue Sky' Think Tank

(Illustration: NASA/Pat Rawlings/SAIC)

NIAC has funded research into spacesuits that could be coated with proteins to generate electricity solely through the natural movement of the astronauts wearing them

NASA should revive its Institute for Advanced Concepts, a blue-skies idea mill that closed in 2007, says an expert panel – but it says the new incarnation should have its feet a little closer to the ground.

NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) was founded in 1998 to harvest innovative ideas for spaceflight and aeronautics from outside the NASA community.

It received $4 million a year, about 0.02 per cent of NASA's annual budget, and funded more than 100 futuristic spaceflight and aeronautics projects that no one else would touch. The projects included motion-sensitive spacesuits that generate their own power, techniques to construct buildings in space using radio waves, and spherical robots to explore Mars, among many others.

But in 2007, a combination of budget constraints and internal politics shut the organisation down. On Friday, a committee convened by the US National Research Council released a report suggesting that NASA bring back the think tank.

The committee, which included a mix of people from academia and industry, found that NIAC had been successful right up until its final days. "They were definitely living up to their contract at the time they were terminated," says committee co-chair Robert Braun, a professor of space technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Three NIAC-funded projects are now "on a path toward one day being a NASA mission", Braun says, including a prototype plasma rocket, an X-ray interferometer that is being considered for NASA's Black Hole Imager mission, and a "star shade", which could help existing space telescopes search for extrasolar planets.

Other projects have had unexpected medical spinoffs, like a skin-tight spacesuit that can help children with cerebral palsy walk. "By and large, the topics that they invested in were pushing the state of the art, were very advanced in terms of far-out thinking, and I'd say a decent percentage of them had the possibility of turning into something," Braun told New Scientist.