Lifeboat Foundation

This giant floating solar panel is saving a water company millions of dollars.

A controversial climate change catastrophe study has now made its way through peer review.

A chemical compound named Perovskite could be the next big innovation in solar power technology. http://voc.tv/14JQHoo

A far-out plan to create swarms of self-replicating solar panel satellites.

Airless tires.

#Airless_tires are the next generation of tires waiting to take over the world. Recently, #Hankook_iFlex_tire underwent a series of high speed tests and that has helped us take a step closer to a future where tires without air would become a reality. It was company’s fifth attempt at launching #airless_tires into the market. Why is the company trying to do so and that too this religiously? Because of the multiple benefits that this gadget brings in comparison to the traditional tires.

#Hankook’s tire is far more energy efficient and can be recycled as well. The material that has been used by Hankook allows the company to reduce the production steps into half as compared to a conventional tire.

Continue reading “Hankook iFlex Tire The Future of Tyre Design” »

Even if we don’t create a true AI for a thousand years, these algorithms, pared with our exponentially increasing computing power, could have much of the same effect on our civilization as the more traditional, AI-centric type Singularity. Very, very soon.

Replacing inefficient experimentation, UConn researchers have used machine learning to systematically scan millions of theoretical compounds for qualities that would make better materials for solar cells, fibers, and computer chips.

Continue reading “Using machine learning to rationally design future electronics materials” »

Cape Coral, FL-based Ecological Laboratories Inc. has received organic certification for Quantum Light, its flagship beneficial bacteria product specifically formulated to improve soil biodiversity and increase crop yields. With this certification, Ecological can now support the rapidly growing organic farming and lawn care markets with its all-natural product technologies.

“Our objective continues to be the development of products focused on improving crop yields which at the same time contribute to the protection of farms, and the land and water surrounding them,” said Alan Schatten, chief operating officer of Ecological. “This certification is the first of many steps we intend to take to further our mission.”

“Our technology platform, which has been used to solve environmental problems worldwide for over 40 years, continues to grow and improve,” said Delvia Lukito, assistant vice president of research, development and laboratory operations. “Our team will continue to focus its efforts on developing products to support the good work being carried out by the organic farming community.”

Continue reading “Soil Biodiversity Product Earns Organic Certification” »

ARPA-E creating sustainable energy crops for the production of renewable transportation fuels from biomass.

In Washington, the DOE’s ARPA-E TERRA projects seek to accelerate the development of sustainable energy crops for the production of renewable transportation fuels from biomass. To accomplish this, the projects uniquely integrate agriculture, information technology, and engineering communities to design and apply new tools for the development of improved varieties of energy sorghum. The TERRA project teams will create novel platforms to enhance methods for crop phenotyping (identifying and measuring the physical characteristics of plants) which are currently time-intensive and imprecise.

The new approaches will include automated methods for observing and recording characteristics of plants and advanced algorithms for analyzing data and predicting plant growth potential. The projects will also produce a large public database of sorghum genotypes, enabling the greater community of plant physiologists,

Bioinformaticians and geneticists to generate breakthroughs beyond TERRA. These innovations will accelerate the annual yield gains of traditional plant breeding and support the discovery of new crop traits that improve water productivity and nutrient use efficiency needed to improve the sustainability of bioenergy crops.

Continue reading “DOE’s ARPA-E TERRA projects seek to accelerate sustainable energy crop development” »

The legendary hacker George Hotz, known by his nom de guerre “geohot,” who first came to public attention by hacking Apple’s (AAPL) first iPhone, spoke this morning at the South by Southwest conference about taking on Tesla’s (TSLA) self-driving car initiatives with his own garage efforts, a talk titled “I built a better self-driving car than Tesla.”

By the end of the talk, it was clear he had numerous targets, including Alphabet’s (GOOGL) self-driving car efforts, despite mighty respect for the search giant.

Hotz’s achievement, rigging up home made parts to an Acura ILX to make it self-driving, first came to prominence with an article in mid-December by Bloomberg’s Ashlee Vance.

Continue reading “We Are Coming for You, Tesla, And You, Too, Google, Says Hacker Hotz” »