Lifeboat Foundation

With the recent use of genetically engineered mosquitoes in Brazil to halt the spread of the Zika virus, we might be beginning to see some major health improvements as a consequence of the genetics revolution. A world in which mosquitoes were all but eliminated from the ecosystem would look quite different from the world of today, especially for people living in the tropics where the threat of mosquito transmitted infections does more than just mar an otherwise tranquil margarita sipped from the veranda of a beach resort. This is not to beggar the more mundane advantages of a mosquito-free habitat, but rather call attention to the fact that for large parts of the world, including Brazil, mosquitoes can be the difference between life and death.

Ironically, the genetic changes made to the Aedes aegypti mosquito in order to halt the spread of the Zika virus are deceptively simple. The company behind the project, Oxitec, used a modified version of something called the “Sterile Insect Technique” to create their hybrid specimens. The end goal of this process is to produce a male mosquito possessing a “self-limiting gene.” When these males mate with wild female mosquitoes, they create non viable offspring that perish soon after the birth. The end result is a rapid drop in the mosquito population of a given area.

When compared with some of the more hazardous forms of mosquito control currently in use such as massive spraying of DEET and chemical infusers popular throughout Asia, sterilizing mosquitoes sounds like an imminently reasonable approach. As a journalist who once saw his roadside samosa blasted by a massive spray of DEET from an oncoming municipal vehicle in India, I can personally attest to a preference for a genetic solution.

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In a first, a driverless bus will now have to undergo real world traffic while shuttling passengers as a public trial on Dutch roads begins.

While Google and Uber are currently experimenting with self-driving cars, other companies are adapting the same idea to public transportation. Trials for driverless buses and trains are currently ongoing across the world.

Continue reading “This Driveless Shuttle Bus Will Soon be on Dutch Public Roads” »

Hope it is a success; he will need it.

Reports claim that the Tesla Model 3, the Palo Alto automaker’s long-awaited electric car for the masses, will be unveiled in March. Better yet, the company also has a Model Y compact crossover planned for the future, though details on this vehicle are largely limited to the type of vehicle it would be.

March’s Model 3 launch will focus exclusively on the new EV – an electric sedan like the Model S, but this time sold at a more affordable price point. Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk called the vehicle “probably the most profound car that we make” and a “very compelling car at an affordable price,” and that only adds to the hype of a car that’s expected to drive Tesla sales to 500,000 in 2020, from a mere 50,000 in 2015.

Continue reading “Tesla Model 3 will be unveiled in March, with budget Model Y CUV to follow” »

But a carbon nanotube coating (shown in clear jacket) replaces the tin-coated copper braid that serves as the outer conductor, ordinarily the heaviest component. Created by researchers at Rice University, the coating was tested by a collaborative group including NIST, which has more than 10 years of expertise in characterizing and measuring nanotu…bes. The coating, only up to 90 microns (millionths of a meter) in thickness, resulted in a total cable mass reduction of 50 percent (useful for lowering the weight of electronics in aerospace vehicles) and handled 10,000 bending cycles without affecting performance. And even though the coating is microscopically thin, the cable transmitted data with a comparable ability to ordinary cables, due to the nanotubes’ favorable electrical properties.

Credit: J. Fitlow/Rice University See More

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We hardly need superheroes anymore: engt.co/1JLE7im

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Researchers at Harvard are working to identify the brain processes that make humans so good at recognising patterns. Their ultimate goals is to develop biologically-inspired computer systems for smarter AI. Computers inspired by the human brain could be used to detect network invasions, read MRI images, and even drive cars.

Their ultimate goals is to develop biologically-inspired computer systems for smarter AI.

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Scalpers offered contact lenses guaranteed to fool any ocular-based biometric ticketing technology.

He was right, of course, which explains all those people arriving at the stadium in all the usual ways. Some came by autonomous cars that dropped them off a mile or more from the stadium, their fitness wearables synced to their car software, both programmed to make their owner walk whenever the day’s calories consumed exceeded the day’s calories burned. Others turned up on the transcontinental Hyperloop, gliding at 760 miles per hour on a cushion of air through a low-pressure pipeline, as if each passenger was an enormous bank slip tucked into a pneumatic tube at a drive-through teller window in 1967. That was the year the first Super Bowl was played, midway through the first season of Star Trek, set in a space-age future that now looks insufficiently imagined.

And so hours before Super Bowl 100 kicked off—we persist in using that phrase, long after the NFL abandoned the actual practice—the pregame scene offered all the Rockwellian tableaux of the timeless tailgate: children running pass patterns on their hoverboards—they still don’t quite hover, dammit—dads printing out the family’s pregame snacks, grandfathers relaxing in lawn chairs with their marijuana pipes.

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Self driving cars to reach a $4bil revenue target within 10 yrs.

The White House wants to spend nearly $4 billion on self-driving cars, a move some experts say could help put extra horsepower behind autonomous vehicles and have them cruising America’s streets within the next 10 years.

“That is a serious amount of money,” Wendy Ju, executive director of Stanford’s Center for Design Research, told NBC News.

Continue reading “Self-Driving Cars in 10 Years? How $4B Could Make it a Reality” »

Space Tourism … and Much More.

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