Lifeboat Foundation

We’re heading northwest for the 11^th flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which will happen no earlier than Wednesday night, Aug. 4. The mission profile is designed to stay ahead of the rover – supporting its future science goals in the “South Séítah” region, where it will be able to gather aerial imagery in support of future Perseverance Mars rover surface operations in the area.

Here is how we plan to do it: On whatever day the flight takes place, we will start at 12:30 p.m. local Mars time (on Aug. 4, this would be 9:47 p.m. PDT/Aug. 5, 12:47 a.m. EDT). Ingenuity wakes up from its slumber and begins a pre-programmed series of preflight checks. Three minutes later, we’re off – literally – climbing to a height of 39 feet (12 meters), then heading downrange at a speed of 11 mph (5 meters per second).

And while Flight 11 is primarily intended as a transfer flight – moving the helicopter from one place to the other — we’re not letting the opportunity go to waste to take a few images along the way. Ingenuity’s color camera will take multiple photos en route, and then at the end of the flight, near our new airfield, we’ll take two images to make a 3D stereo pair. Flight 11 – from takeoff to landing –- should take about 130 seconds.

Scientists from Cambridge University and NTU Singapore have found that slow-motion collisions of tectonic plates drag more carbon into Earth’s interior than previously thought.

They found that the carbon drawn into Earth’s interior at subduction zones — where tectonic plates collide and dive into Earth’s interior — tends to stay locked away at depth, rather than resurfacing in the form of volcanic emissions.

Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.

Researchers uncover new chinese spyware is being used in wide-scale cyber espionage attacks.

An Australian mathematician has discovered what may be the oldest known example of applied geometry, on a 3700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet.

Known as Si.427, the tablet bears a field plan measuring the boundaries of some land.

Tesla Cybertruck pre-orders have exceeded 1.25 million according to unofficial data coming from a fan-sourced online reservation tracker.

And here is a really smart person talking about brain interfaces.

In this talk we introduce Shivon Zilis, Project Director at Neuralink, to her team’s work and the ethical impacts of implanting technology into the brain. We learn about the latest developments in Neuralink’s technology and the goals the team keeps in mind when designing and implementing technology that could change the way humans interact and understand technology.

Continue reading “The Future of Neuralink” »

The sophisticated new research station will allow for better science on the icy continent.

“The reason a glucose-responsive insulin is important is that the biggest barrier to the effective use of insulin, especially in Type 1 diabetes, is the fear of the consequences of blood sugar going too low,” says study author Michael A. Weiss.

For sufferers of diabetes, keeping blood glucose levels within a healthy range can be a difficult and labor-intensive balancing act that often requires regular insulin injections, but some scientists imagine a future where medicine does the heavy lifting for them. A team at Indiana University School of Medicine has taken a promising step towards this future, demonstrating a type of “synthetic hinge” that swings into action when blood glucose levels call for corrective action.

The hormone insulin plays a vital role in keeping glucose at healthy levels in the blood, pulling it out of the bloodstream and helping turn it into energy. In diabetes patients, insufficient amounts or insulin that results in a reduction in effectiveness means that blood glucose levels are left to rise to potentially dangerous levels, which can have serious consequences.

Continue reading “‘Synthetic hinge’ opens a door to smart, glucose-responsive insulin” »