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China has designated some cities and entities to trial blockchain applications, underscoring the importance Beijing is attaching to this particular technology.

In 2019, President Xi Jinping called on China to “seize the opportunities” presented by blockchain, giving his personal backing to the technology.

The Chinese capital Beijing and mega city Shanghai as well as Guangzhou in the south are all part of the pilot projects. Local government departments, universities, banks, hospitals, car companies and power firms are among the 164 entities chosen by China to carry out trial blockchain applications.

Power companies are having to come to terms with the high cost difference between maintaining poles and wires and installing hybrid power systems at the ends of the long power lines. And when the bushfires burn all the poles, then it makes the decision much easier.

Horizon Power is rolling out standalone off-grid solar and battery powered systems for 19 customers east of the town of Esperance. “Horizon Power first began offering certain remote regional customers the option to be powered by a custom built stand-alone solar and battery power system, or SPS, after bushfires destroyed more than 320 power poles and hundreds of kilometres of power lines in the region in November of 2015.”

At that time, only four landowners took up the offer. Now they expect to deliver more than 1,000 systems to farmers and remote indigenous communities. As part of the Western Australian government’s Recovery Plan, Horizon Power has received $46 million to provide 150 systems across regional Western Australia. Each system consists of solar panels, battery storage, and a backup diesel generator. Connection to HP’s service hub means that any faults can be diagnosed remotely. Service teams can be dispatched if needed.

“The main goal is to build a smart new city, a new city that is competitive at the global level, to build a new locomotive for the transformation… toward an Indonesia based on innovation and technology based on a green economy.”

Environmental groups not on board However, not all are on board with Widodo’s new plans. Environmental groups worry that the new city may disturb the orangutans, leopards, and other wildlife that already live there. There is also the fact that the new development would cost a whopping $34 billion, a price much too high to pay during an already costly pandemic.

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Pretty soon it won’t just be Indonesia’s Navy submarine that will have disappeared. Its capital city Jakarta is also sinking quickly.

Nuclear power could be essential to weaning the world off fossil fuels.

Nuclear power is a powerful form of energy that allows us to produce clean electricity. However, the waste it produces is difficult to tackle and is often the reason nuclear power has not become as popular as perhaps it should be. It is estimated that there are currently around 370,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel in temporary storage around the world, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Now, the Swedish government has just approved a plan by Swedish nuclear fuel and waste management company SKB to develop a storage facility that will keep the country’s spent and highly radioactive nuclear fuel safe for the next 100,000 years.

FeaturedRead our 3 books at https://lifeboat.com/ex/books.

The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards the Singularity.

Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, such as new methods to combat viruses, effective nanotechnological defensive strategies, and even self-sustaining space colonies in case the other defensive strategies fail.

We believe that, in some situations, it might be feasible to relinquish technological capacity in the public interest (for example, we are against the U.S. government posting the recipe for the 1918 flu virus on the internet). We have some of the best minds on the planet working on programs to enable our survival. We invite you to join our cause!

Visit our site at https://lifeboat.com. Participate in our programs at https://lifeboat.com/ex/programs. Follow our Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/LifeboatHQ and our GETTR feed at https://gettr.com/user/LifeboatHQ. Watch our YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/lifeboathq. Read our blog at https://lifeboat.com/blog. Join our LinkedIn group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/35656. Subscribe to our newsletter at https://lifeboat.com/newsletter.cgi.

Japan’s government is expanding a quasi-state of emergency aimed at containing the coronavirus. Infections are surging nationwide at an unprecedented pace, largely fueled by the Omicron variant.

Officials confirmed more than 60,000 new cases on Tuesday. The figure is a record high. A total of 444 people are in serious condition, up five from the day before.

More than half of Japan’s 47 prefectures reported record case counts, including Tokyo.

Circa 2019


The race to engineer the next-generation banana is on. The Colombian government confirmed last month that a banana-killing fungus has invaded the Americas — the source of much of the world’s banana supply. The invasion has given new urgency to efforts to create fruit that can withstand the scourge.

Scientists are using a mix of approaches to save the banana. A team in Australia has inserted a gene from wild bananas into the top commercial variety — known as the Cavendish — and are currently testing these modified bananas in field trials. Researchers are also turning to the powerful, precise gene-editing tool CRISPR to boost the Cavendish’s resilience against the fungus, known as Fusarium wilt tropical race 4 (TR4).

Breeding TR4 resistance into the Cavendish using conventional methods isn’t possible because the variety is sterile and propagated by cloning. So the only way to save the Cavendish may be to tweak its genome, says Randy Ploetz, a plant pathologist at the University of Florida in Homestead. The variety accounts for 99% of global banana shipments.

NEA Scout will visit an asteroid estimated to be smaller than a school bus – the smallest asteroid ever to be studied by a spacecraft.

Launching with the Artemis I uncrewed test flight, NASA

Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. It’s vision is “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.”