Lifeboat Foundation

This graph shows the worldwide economic losses from weather-related events, from 1970 through to the present day, with a future trend projected out to 2060.

The data here is from Swiss Re, the world’s largest reinsurer, and is adjusted for inflation at 2021 prices. It excludes non-weather disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions.

A significant gap exists between the total economic damages and the losses protected by insurance. For example, the worldwide figure for weather-related disasters in 2021 amounted to $233.27 billion, of which insurance covered “only” $101.12 billion.

To boost economic activity and food output, China’s ambitious project takes off and might take a decade or more to be completed.

Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he’s got an answer: “536.” Not 1,349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults. But 536. In Europe, “It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year,” says McCormick, a historian and archaeologist who chairs the Harvard University Initiative for the Science of the Human Past.

A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. “For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year,” wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2,300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record “a failure of bread from the years 536–539.” Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, McCormick says.

Historians have long known that the middle of the sixth century was a dark hour in what used to be called the Dark Ages, but the source of the mysterious clouds has long been a puzzle. Now, an ultraprecise analysis of ice from a Swiss glacier by a team led by McCormick and glaciologist Paul Mayewski at the Climate Change Institute of The University of Maine (UM) in Orono has fingered a culprit. At a workshop at Harvard this week, the team reported that a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere early in 536. Two other massive eruptions followed, in 540 and 547. The repeated blows, followed by plague, plunged Europe into economic stagnation that lasted until 640, when another signal in the ice—a spike in airborne lead—marks a resurgence of silver mining, as the team reports in this week.

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The existence of ethical concerns is precisely why it’s important for business owners to understand the different technologies driving the Metaverse forward and what impact they may have on users, the environment, and our society. By understanding these technologies, businesses can find new ways to enrich our society with constructive uses of virtual reality connectivity that enrich our world and keep the digital economy booming.

In addition, understanding these technologies is important because as more advanced techniques are developed for use in Metaverse projects, the average cost of US$48,000 for app design in the USA will undoubtedly go up. Business owners need to understand what they need to focus on when planning their next move.

Continue reading “Top Technologies that are Taking Us to Metaverse in 2022” »

Electrolyzers are machines that have a big future.

The electrolyzer, obscure for decades, sees its sales soar. Here’s how the technology works.

What just happened? In addition to suing Elon Musk, Twitter is also blaming the world’s richest man for its falling revenue. The platform saw its number of users increase in the second quarter of the year, but that hasn’t translated to a healthier bottom line, something it partly blames on the disruption caused by Musk bidding for the company before walking away.

Twitter’s Q2 2022 results show its second-quarter revenue was $1.18 billion, representing both a quarterly and yearly decline, albeit only slightly. However, its average monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) was up 16.6% compared to Q2 2021, reaching 237.8 million globally.

Continue reading “Twitter adds more users but makes less money, blames Elon Musk” »

EPFL researchers have shown that people’s perception of office temperature can vary considerably. Personalized climate control could therefore help enhance workers’ comfort—and save energy at the same time.

Global warming means that heatwaves are becoming ever-more frequent. At the same time, we’re in a global race against the clock to reduce buildings’ energy use and carbon footprint by 2050. This has shone the spotlight on the importance of making the thermal comfort of buildings a strategic and economic priority. And this is the focus of research conducted by Dolaana Khovalyg, a tenure track assistant professor at EPFL’s School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) and head of the Laboratory of Integrated Comfort Engineering (ICE), which is linked to the Smart Living Lab in Fribourg.

In her latest study, published as a brief, cutting-edge report in the journal Obesity, she highlights the benefits of providing personalized thermal conditioning and heating for each office desk, rather than maintaining a standard temperature throughout an open space. Khovalyg and her team came to this conclusion after the human thermo-physiological data they collected showed that individuals display very different levels of thermal comfort under normal office conditions.

The 6 million-square-foot Samsung plant will be located south of Highway 79 and southwest of Downtown Taylor, near Taylor High School. It is expected to bring 1,800 jobs to Williamson County.

The plant is expected to start operations in 2024. The City of Taylor, Williamson County and Taylor ISD all already have economic agreements in place related to Samsung’s development.

Continue reading “Report: Samsung adding land to $17B semiconductor campus in Taylor” »

Live now, on the Space Renaissance YouTube channel.

We are stepping at the gates of a new era in space exploration, one which will finally incorporate the inner solar system to society’s daily life and economics. The first step is the Moon, and the asteroids will probably follow. The surface of those bodies presents special challenges for human and technological activities as well as resource exploitation. These challenges, which include regolith, extreme thermal amplitude, high energy radiation and surface mineral mixing among others, open the door to new operational approaches. COLMENA is the pathfinder of one such avenue: using swarms of micro-rovers for scientific exploration, resource prospection or, eventually, mining The first COLMENA mission will deploy 5 microrovers (56 grams each) on the Moon surface by the end of this year, flying on board a private spacecraft. In the talk I will briefly explain the context, technical characteristics and objectives of the mission, as well as its future.

Continue reading “COLMENA, a new concept on lunar exploration” »