Forget about 3D printing, the future is 4D printing creates shapes that can assemble themselves into predetermined 3D structures. The structures are made of plastic and smart memory materials that morph into different shapes. Discover more about this amazing technology in A Week in Science by RiAus.
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It is a few years since I posted here on Lifeboat Foundation blogs, but with the news breaking recently of CERN’s plans to build the FCC [1], a new high energy collider to dwarf the groundbreaking engineering triumph that is the LHC, I feel obliged to write a few words.
The goal of the FCC is to greatly push the energy and intensity frontiers of particle colliders, with the aim of reaching collision energies of 100 TeV, in the search for new physics [2]. Below linked is a technical note I wrote & distributed last year on 100 TeV collisions (at the time referencing the proposed China supercollider [3][4]), highlighting the weakness of the White Dwarf safety argument at these energy levels, and a call for a more detailed study of the Neutron star safety argument, if to be relied on as a solitary astrophysical assurance. The argument applies equally to the FCC of course:
The Next Great Supercollider — Beyond the LHC : https://environmental-safety.webs.com/TechnicalNote-EnvSA03.pdf
The LSAG, and others including myself, have already written on the topic of astrophysical assurances at length before. The impact of CR on Neutron stars is the most compelling of those assurances with respect to new higher energy colliders (other analogies such as White Dwarf capture based assurances don’t hold up quite as well at higher energy levels). CERN will undoubtedly publish a new paper on such astrophysical assurances as part of the FCC development process, though would one anticipate it sooner rather than later, to lay to rest concerns of outsider-debate incubating to a larger audience?
Continue reading “The Search for New Physics & CERN's FCC Future Circular Collider” »
The formal handover of the Chinese payload to NanoRacks at the Space Life Sciences Lab in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Photo credit: NanoRacks.
Small effort, big gains
Clearly, a lot of progress has been made toward making the space lab more analogous to the Earth lab in the past few years, and NanoRacks has played no small part in those improvements. Despite the challenges that still remain for microgravity research, some truly significant work has been accomplished. With just a little more investment, Carruthers believes, much larger gains can be made.
Continue reading “From fruit flies to Boy Scouts: A brief history of science in space” »
CERN has revealed plans for a gigantic successor of the giant atom smasher LHC, the biggest machine ever built. Particle physicists will never stop to ask for ever larger big bang machines. But where are the limits for the ordinary society concerning costs and existential risks?
CERN boffins are already conducting a mega experiment at the LHC, a 27km circular particle collider, at the cost of several billion Euros to study conditions of matter as it existed fractions of a second after the big bang and to find the smallest particle possible – but the question is how could they ever know? Now, they pretend to be a little bit upset because they could not find any particles beyond the standard model, which means something they would not expect. To achieve that, particle physicists would like to build an even larger “Future Circular Collider” (FCC) near Geneva, where CERN enjoys extraterritorial status, with a ring of 100km – for about 24 billion Euros.
Experts point out that this research could be as limitless as the universe itself. The UK’s former Chief Scientific Advisor, Prof Sir David King told BBC: “We have to draw a line somewhere otherwise we end up with a collider that is so large that it goes around the equator. And if it doesn’t end there perhaps there will be a request for one that goes to the Moon and back.”
“There is always going to be more deep physics to be conducted with larger and larger colliders. My question is to what extent will the knowledge that we already have be extended to benefit humanity?”
Continue reading “Why it is dangerous to build ever larger big bang machines” »
I’m excited to share my new article from Quartz on how science will make it safer and easier for a 50-year-old woman to have a child in 2028 than a 25-year-old woman today. #IVG and #DelayedFertilityAdvantage are game changers.
Women’s biological clocks drive human conception—and, in turn, human history.
Biology’s inflexible window of female fertility is generally agreed to be between the ages 18 and 35. Any older, and the risk of miscarrying, not getting pregnant at all, or bearing unhealthy children skyrockets. When the average lifespan for a woman in the Western world now hovers at around 80 years old, this means that less than 25% of her life can be spent easily (and safely) procreating.
Continue reading “Transhumanist science will free women from their biological clocks” »
