Dubai-Based Emirates Airlines First to Allow Cellphone Calls During Flights

According to the airline, the mobile service will only be activated when the aircraft is at cruising altitude and the cabin crew will be able to monitor and control the use of the system.

Passengers will be able to receive and send text messages, but the crew will be able to prevent voice calls at certain times, such as during night flights.

Passengers will also be requested to keep their phones on “silent” mode, said the airline.

Emirates said it decided to introduce the use of mobile phones in its fleet after experiencing high demand for the phones already installed in aircraft seats.

The airline had to obtain approval from international air safety organisations before adopting the system, which was developed by the AeroMobile company.

“We have gone to considerable lengths to ensure that all safety and regulatory issues have been fully addressed”, said AeroMobile Chief Executive Bjorn-Taale Sandberg.

Emirates flies to more than 60 countries and is owned by the government of Dubai.

Using Mega-Cash Prizes to Incentivize Revolutionary Science

A new paper in Medical Hypotheses suggests that very big cash prizes could specifically be targeted to stimulate ‘revolutionary’ science. Usually, prizes tend to stimulate ‘applied’ science — as in the most famous example of Harrison’s improved clock solving the ‘longitude’ problem. But for prizes successfully to stimulate revolutionary science the prizes need to be three key elements. Details after the jump.

1.) Very large (and we are talking seven figure ‘pop star’ earnings, here) to compensate for the high risk of failure when tackling major scientific problems

2.) Awarded to scientists at a young enough age that it influences their behavior in (about) their mid-late twenties — when they are deciding on their career path

3.) Include objective and transparent scientometric criteria, to prevent the prize award process being corrupted by ‘political’ incentives.

Such mega-cash prizes, in sufficient numbers, might incentivize some of the very best young scientists to make more ambitious, long-term — but high-risk — career choices. The real winner of this would be society as a whole; since ordinary science can successfully be done by second-raters — but only first-rate scientists can tackle the toughest scientific problems.