Lifeboat Foundation

Exactly one month ago today, Elation Hypercars threw its hat into the ring and unveiled its first four-wheeled beast known as Freedom. The all-electric hypercar, which promises a staggering 1,400 horses and a 400-mile range, is due to be delivered in 2022 and now has its first prototype.

It was named after a hunting dog and is equally fierce.

With an end goal of turning deserts into lush green landscapes, A’seedbot drives around autonomously using solar energy, and planting seeds in the sand.

For more than 50 years, near space has been viewed as a vast resource to exploit with few limits. In reality, near space is a very scarce resource. While international agreements such as the Outer Space Treaty and the Registration Convention take steps to protect this precious resource, no single global body is responsible for ensuring the long-term sustainability and safety of near space.

The current surge in the exploitation of outer space means that this lack of a global framework for space sustainability must be addressed immediately, or it will be too late; near space will be cluttered and unrecoverable. We are seeing increased use of near space for tourism and other business ventures and the deployment of megaconstellations comprising tens to hundreds of thousands of satellites. And this is just the start. Last month, we witnessed a Russian anti-satellite test that left portions of near space cluttered with orbital debris. Failure to implement a global framework with an enforcement mechanism for space sustainability could severely impact the ability to fully utilize the resource in the near future.

Today near space activities are subject to disparate space sustainability requirements, generally reliant on the requirements of the object’s launching state or conditions imposed by countries in which entities have market access. Some countries have developed well-crafted requirements for at least some space objects, but others have not. In addition, except for the items covered in existing treaties, like launching state liability, there is almost no harmonization on requirements, which further jeopardizes space sustainability.

Created from five shipping containers, Debbie Glassberg’s home, constructed with the help of BNIM, is a dreamy, two-story residence that looks nothing like the containers it began life as. With two bedrooms, three bathrooms, a garden, and a patio, the home is obviously on the bigger side, but it’s such a luxurious and beautiful space that it truly deserves a tour.

Glassberg, an industrial designer who works for Mattel, wanted to create a sustainable, energy-efficient, affordable, and gorgeous home, so using shipping containers was the right idea. The planet-friendly home uses features like geothermal heating and plant foam insulation to lessen its carbon footprint. The home is drenched in color, and each room has its own feel, creating a stylish, chic setting for everyday life. From the moment you enter the home, it’s evident that someone who knows about style lives here.

On December 15, NASA announced that SpaceX submitted a new proposal to build a Starship launch site at Launch Complex-49 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Previously, SpaceX officials mentioned plans to build a Starship launch tower at historic Launch Complex-39A, the launch site from where NASA Apollo astronauts lifted off atop Saturn V on a voyage to the Moon half a century ago. NASA and SpaceX are working to return humans to the lunar surface by 2025. SpaceX is developing a lunar-optimized Starship Human Landing System (HLS) to land astronauts on the moon as part of the Artemis program that aims to build a sustainable presence on our closest celestial neighbor.

The unbuilt Launch Complex-49 is an 175-acre land located north of Launch Pad-39B and Pad-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center premises. The agency released a map of the region, pictured below, that outlines the locations of each launch site. “LC-49 has been a part of Kennedy’s master plan for several years,” said Tom Engler, Kennedy’s director of Center Planning and Development. “The Notice of Availability was updated in 2014.”

“Every new construction project, whether government or commercial, goes through a comprehensive environmental review process,” said Don Dankert, technical lead for the Kennedy Environmental Planning Office. “This ensures that we are able to identify potential environmental impacts and define any associated mitigations prior to project implementation.”

OneZoom is a one-stop site for exploring all life on Earth, its evolutionary history, and how much of it is threatened with extinction.

The OneZoom explorer – available at onezoom.org – maps the connections between 2.2 million living species, the closest thing yet to a single view of all species known to science. The interactive tree of life allows users to zoom in to any species and explore its relationships with others, in a seamless visualisation on a single web page. The explorer also includes images of over 85,000 species, plus, where known, their vulnerability to extinction.

Continue reading “‘The Google Earth of Biology’ — Visually Stunning Tree of All Known Life Unveiled Online” »

The resulting solar cell exhibits a power conversion efficiency of 15.2% and almost 80% transparency.

Researchers make the case for a semisolid electrochemical compound as a cost-efficient, grid-scale battery backup for wind and solar power.

Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, is defending himself once again against public criticism. It is time for Tesla CEO Elon Musk to answer to questions regarding his income tax bill.

“If you opened your eyes for two seconds, you would know that I will pay more taxes than any American in history this year.” Musk tweeted earlier this week.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted a reaction to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s criticism of him as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for not paying his taxes.