After the curtain drew on the European fiscal pact meeting in Brussels on March 2, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced that Spain would miss its European-imposed government budget deficit target of 4.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Instead, he said, Spain’s national government would aim for a 2012 deficit of 5.8 percent of GDP, down from 8.5 percent under his predecessor in 2011. Some Spaniards described his announcement as an assertion of Spanish sovereignty and a rebuff of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s continual demands for austerity. Outside observers speculated that Spain, the second-biggest economy of the so-called PIIGS countries, might lead a revolt against new fiscal rules. Continue reading Deficit Theatre
Category Archives: Outlets
Dispatching the middleman
MANY cabbies pay a dispatcher to keep the fares coming. The dispatchers are an information clearing-house, offering customers a central point of contact and offering on-the-move drivers directions to the nearest prospective passenger. But location-enabled smartphones in the pockets of more customers, and on the dashboards of more drivers, offer a tempting way to skip the middleman. If, that is, customers and drivers can find a handy way to share their locations.
Enter the app developer. In Sweden, Germany, Spain and Britain this new breed of middleman has released a slew of taxi-finding apps in recent years. When a customer requests a taxi, the applications ping the nearest available driver. He can accept the fare, paying a small commission, or skip it. Some applications offer customers an estimate of the fare, ratings of potential drivers or, once a match is made, a moving blip on the map, showing their drivers’ progress. All this is especially useful for visitors unfamiliar with a city or late-night revellers uncertain of their street address.
Carbon Sampling Takes Flight
Last month, aerial photographer and biologist Matevž Lenarčič flew a single-seat airplane across 2000 kilometers of airspace between Easter Island and Totegegie Airport in French Polynesia (right). That lonesome leg was one hop on a 3-month journey around the world, during which Lenarčič and his tiny, lightweight aircraft, a Pipistrel Virus (inset), also touched down on Antarctica, a rare solo feat. Between piloting the plane and collecting photographs for an upcoming book on water, Lenarčič has also collected data on black carbon, or soot, concentrations in the atmosphere. His 290-kilogram plane carries a much-lighter-than-normal Aethalometer, designed by aerosol scientist Griša Močnik of Aerosol in Ljubljana, Slovenia, that measures the optical absorption of the atmosphere and converts it to a rough estimate of soot concentration. Continue reading Carbon Sampling Takes Flight
Mobility funding catches up to Spanish researchers abroad
Astronomer Diego de la Fuente’s bet on Spanish science funding has paid off. Last week Nature reported that the graduate student from the National Aerospace Technical Institute in Madrid, along with many other provisional winners of mobility grants, was using his own money to fund his research abroad while he waited to hear whether or not Spain’s Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness would come through with the grants. Continue reading Mobility funding catches up to Spanish researchers abroad