Lifeboat Foundation

However, the gap from Cape Campbell, where the main rupture ended in the South Island, and the New Zealand capital Wellington at the bottom of the North Island is still more than 50km.

At least 25 fault lines ruptured in the 2016 quake, which earthquake geologist Rob Langridge from the government’s geoscience research organisation GNS Science said made it one of the most complex earthquakes observed anywhere in the world.

Fellow GNS scientist Sigrun Hreinsdottir told the Stuff website on Friday that the sheer number of faults made it difficult to distinguish which was responsible for the post-quake creep.

Continue reading “2016 New Zealand earthquake moved islands closer together and lowered a city” »

Even with government and industry working on quantum-resistant encryption, getting any solutions rolled out will take time and a massive effort.

Billionaire entrepreneurs are trying to create rockets fit for human travel, while government agencies spend billions furthering their explorations. But we are still a long way off from making our way to the red planet by Oliver Holmes.

Government representatives from nearly 170 countries will this month consider whether to temporarily ban the release of organisms carrying gene drives — a controversial technology that can quickly propagate a chosen gene throughout a population. The technique has the potential to eradicate disease, control pests and alter entire ecosystems, but with unpredictable consequences — leading some groups to call for a global moratorium on its field applications.

Research is moving fast on the divisive genetic technology, which could help to eradicate diseases but also risks altering ecosystems in unpredictable ways.

A tiny transparent worm could be the key to finding out how to stop the frailty and ill health which often comes with old age.

British scientists are sending tens of thousands of worms into space in a government backed project to see if two drugs can prevent or slow down muscle wasting brought on by microgravity.

In space, the 1mm long c-elegans worms have nothing to push against to maintain their muscle mass and so quickly start losing strength, mirroring the effect experienced by elderly people back on Earth or those with conditions like muscular dystrophy.

Continue reading “How blasting worms into space could help slow down the ageing process” »

Google’s services went down for an hour yesterday after its IP addresses were routed way from normal paths to Nigeria, China and Russia. Google told Ars Technica it doubted the leak was malicious, despite the fact that government-owned China Telecom was recently caught routing Western carrier traffic through mainland China. Some of Google’s most sensitive data, including its corporate WAN infrastructure and VPN, were reportedly redirected.

Bullets that never miss, super soldiers with extreme strength and robot warriors capable of rising up against humans may sound like the stuff of science fiction… but the truth is that they have all already been developed.

A top-secret US government body called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is behind these space-age innovations, which it has developed as part of its mission to revolutionize the way America fights the wars of the future. (Just think of Q’s lab in James Bond, but for the US army).

Ever since it was established in 1958, DARPA has been the subject of conspiracy theories claiming — among other things — that the agency was covering up UFO landings, trying to develop mind control and working on Earth-shattering super-weapons like death rays.

Continue reading “Bullets that don’t miss, weaponized insects and more: Innovations from DARPA, America’s secret lab” »

The faces of Capitol Hill are changing.

When the 116th Congress heads to Washington in January, there will be a record number of women in the ranks — at least 123, according to the news website Axios, including the first Muslim women, the first Somali-American, and the first Native American women.

There will be more scientists too.

Continue reading “The US just elected 9 new scientists to Congress, including an ocean expert, a nurse, and a biochemist. Here’s the full list” »

Preprogrammed AI definitely won’t.