Lifeboat Foundation

CHINA’S NEW THORIUM-BASED NUCLEAR REACTOR is well situated for being adopted for Space applications.

China is slowly but steadily positioning itself to leap ahead of the US Space program. It is doing this without pomp and fanfare, and without the idea of a “space race,” simply based upon what it requires for its future.

1) Recent noteworthy progress on molten salt thorium reactors could be a key component of future Chinese space-worthiness. Originally designed by the USA’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960’s, they were planned to be used for nuclear powered strategic bomber planes, before the nuclear submarine concept became adopted as more feasible. They were chosen because they can be miniaturized to the size of an aircraft. By the same token, they could conceivably be used in advanced atmospheric or space propulsion.

Continue reading “China unveils design for first waterless nuclear reactor” »

Nick Saraev is 25 years old, far too young, it would seem, to be thinking about death. And yet, since he turned 21, he has taken steps to prevent the infirmities of old age. Every day, he takes 2000 mg of fish oil and 4000 IU of vitamin D to help prevent heart disease and other ailments. He steams or pressure-cooks most of his meals because, he says, charring meats creates chemicals that may increase the risk of cancer. And in the winter, he keeps the humidity of his home at 35 percent, because dry air chaps his skin and makes him cough, both of which he considers manifestations of chronic inflammation, which may be bad for longevity.

Based on the life expectancies of young men in North America, Saraev, a freelance software engineer based near Vancouver, believes he has about 55 years before he really has to think about aging. Given the exponential advances in microprocessors and smartphones in his lifetime, he insists the biotech industry will figure out a solution by then. For this reason, Saraev, like any number of young, optimistic, tech-associated men, believes that if he takes the correct preventative steps now, he might well live forever. Saraev’s plan is to keep his body in good enough shape to hit “Longevity Escape Velocity,” a term coined by English gerontologist Aubrey de Grey to denote slowing down your aging enough to reach each new medical advance as it arrives. If you delay your death by 10 years, for example, that’s 10 more years scientists have to come up with a drug, computer program, or robot assist that can make you live even longer. Keep up this game of reverse leapfrog, and eventually death can’t catch you. The term is reminiscent of “planetary escape velocity,” the speed an object needs to move in order to break free of gravity.

The science required to break free of death, unfortunately, is still at ground level. According to Nir Barzilai, M.D., director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, scientists currently understand aging as a function of seven to nine biological hallmarks, factors that change as we grow older and seem to have an anti-aging effect when reversed. You can imagine these as knobs you can turn up or down to increase or decrease the likelihood of illness and frailty. Some of these you may have heard of, including how well cells remove waste, called proteostasis; how well cells create energy, or mitochondrial function; how well cells implement their genetic instructions, or epigenetics; and how well cells maintain their DNA’s integrity, called DNA repair or telomere erosion.

A new way of producing coherent light in the ultra-violet spectral region, which points the way to developing brilliant table-top x-ray sources, has been produced in research led at the University of Strathclyde.

The scientists have developed a type of ultra-short wavelength coherent light source that does not require laser action to produce coherence. Common electron-beam based light sources, known as fourth-generation light sources, are based on the free-electron laser (FEL), which uses an undulator to convert electron beam energy into X-rays.

Coherent light sources are powerful tools that enable research in many areas of medicine, biology, material sciences, chemistry, and physics.

Soldiers and Marines teamed up to test new tactical biological detection and chemical contamination systems that aim to keep service members safe. The systems indicate when chemical agents are present so decontamination can take place.

DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah — Soldiers from Fort Drum and Joint Base Lewis-McChord teamed with Marines from Camp Pendleton to test new tactical biological detection and chemical contamination indicator systems here.

Soldiers with the 59th Hazard Response Company and 13th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion along with Marines from the 3rd Marine Air Wing went hands-on with the Joint Biological Tactical Detection System (JBTDS) and the Contamination Indication Disclosure Assurance System (CIDAS), which indicates chemical agent contaminants so proper decontamination can take place.

Continue reading “Soldiers, Marines test new chemical, biological systems at Dugway” »

Circa 2012 One day ice from could be transformed to metal the be transported anywhere even into space.

Researchers have combined high-powered computing and ‘chemical intuition’ to discover new phases of ice at extremely high pressures nonexistent on Earth, but probably abundant elsewhere in the solar system. (Jan. 16, 2012)

Recently, we found dramatic mitochondrial DNA divergence of Israeli Chamaeleo chamaeleon populations into two geographically distinct groups. We aimed to examine whether the same pattern of divergence could be found in nuclear genes. However, no genomic resource is available for any chameleon species. Here we present the first chameleon transcriptome, obtained using deep sequencing (SOLiD). Our analysis identified 164000 sequence contigs of which 19000 yielded unique BlastX hits. To test the efficacy of our sequencing effort, we examined whether the chameleon and other available reptilian transcriptomes harbored complete sets of genes comprising known biochemical pathways, focusing on the nDNA-encoded oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) genes as a model. As a reference for the screen, we used the human 86 (including isoforms) known structural nDNA-encoded OXPHOS subunits. Analysis of 34 publicly available vertebrate transcriptomes revealed orthologs for most human OXPHOS genes. However, OXPHOS subunit COX8 (Cytochrome C oxidase subunit 8), including all its known isoforms, was consistently absent in transcriptomes of iguanian lizards, implying loss of this subunit during the radiation of this suborder. The lack of COX8 in the suborder Iguania is intriguing, since it is important for cellular respiration and ATP production. Our sequencing effort added a new resource for comparative genomic studies, and shed new light on the evolutionary dynamics of the OXPHOS system.

Keywords: chameleon, oxidative phosphorylation, transcriptome.

Massive parallel sequencing (MPS) enables identifying the entire set of transcribed genes (transcriptome) of understudied organisms, thus providing novel genomic resources. However, because there is no genomic reference to those organisms, the short reads generated by MPS must be de novo assembled in order to form sequence contigs, which in turn could be annotated (Kusumi et al. 2011), thus creating reference sequences for further analyses.

The compounds can form PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” which have been linked to cancer and birth defects. The E.P.A. approvals came despite the agency’s own concerns about toxicity.

Most plastic persists in the environment. A recently developed polymer degrades in a week and doesn’t leave microplastics behind. Image credit: Larina Marina/ Shutterstock.

Plastic trash chokes shorelines and oceans, in part because plastic polymers do not easily decompose. But a new kind of environmentally degradable plastic could help change that: It breaks down in about a week in sunlight and air, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Chemical characterization using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectroscopy, among other techniques, revealed that the plastic decomposed rapidly in sunlight from a petroleum-based polymer into succinic acid, a naturally occurring nontoxic small molecule that doesn’t leave microplastic fragments in the environment.

Although a sun-sensitive plastic might not be a good choice for bottles or bags that need to last more than a week on shelves, integrating the environmentally degradable polymer as a minor ingredient, or with other biodegradable polymers, could help speed breakdown of these materials in landfills, says coauthor Liang Luo, an organic materials scientist at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China. The flexible and degradable material would be potentially useful inside electronics, he says. Sealed inside a cell phone or other flexible electronic device, the polymer could last for years isolated from light and oxygen, Luo notes, while making smartphones easier to dispose of at the end of their service life. And the byproduct succinic acid could be upcycled for commercial uses in the pharmaceutical and food industries, Luo adds.

Data collected can be used to provide new insights into the evolution of the Kuiper Belt, and the larger solar system.

Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), small objects that orbit the sun beyond Neptune, are fossils from the early days of the solar system which can tell us a lot about its formation and evolution.

A new study led by Mohamad Ali-Dib, a research scientist at the NYU Abu Dhabi Center for Astro, Particle, and Planetary Physics, reports the significant discovery that two groups of TNOs with different surface colors also have very different orbital patterns. This new information can be compared to models of the solar system to provide fresh insights into its early chemistry. Additionally, this discovery paves the way for further understanding of the formation of the Kuiper Belt itself, an area beyond Neptune comprised of icy objects, that is also the source of some comets.