Lifeboat Foundation

Every day, modern society creates more than a billion gigabytes of new data. To store all this data, it is increasingly important that each single bit occupies as little space as possible. A team of scientists at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University managed to bring this reduction to the ultimate limit: they built a memory of 1 kilobyte (8,000 bits), where each bit is represented by the position of one single chlorine atom.

“In theory, this storage density would allow all books ever created by humans to be written on a single post stamp”, says lead-scientist Sander Otte.

Continue reading “Atomic data storage is still way off from practicality — 500 Terabits per square inch at -196˚C in a vacuum chamber” »

Computadores qu nticos a temperatura ambiente.

É aí que entra a naftalina — mais especificamente, o material resultante da queima do naftaleno. A combustão gera um material à base de carbono, um pó fino que pode ser disperso em solventes como água ou etanol e depositado diretamente sobre uma pastilha de silício — depois de seco e visto ao microscópio o material se transforma em uma série de nanoesferas.

Bálint Náfrádi, da Universidade Politécnica Federal de Lausane, na Suíça, juntamente com colegas da Austrália e da Alemanha, descobriu que esse material consegue manter estáveis os spins dos elétrons em seu interior por até 175 nanossegundos — considera-se que a computação qu ntica pode se tornar prática a temperatura ambiente com qubits que sejam estáveis por mais do que 100 nanossegundos.

Continue reading “Naftalina viabiliza computador quântico a temperatura ambiente” »

SENS has a fund match for its current campaign on lifespan.io, if you are concerned about cancer like me and you want to help directly fund a lab working on solutions please think about donating. smile

There is a month left to go in the SENS crowdfunding campaign that aims to accelerate development of an important component of a universal cancer therapy, a way to block the mechanisms of telomere lengthening that every type of cancer depends upon. The SENS Research Foundation and Lifespan.io volunteers are looking for donors to put up matching funds of a few thousand dollars or more, in order to take that news and that inducement to a number of conferences and other events over the next few weeks. More than 150 people have donated to the campaign to date, and we’d like to triple that number in the next 30 days.

To start things off, I’ll offer up $2,000 of my own funds: the next $2,000 in donations to this SENS cancer research initiative will be matched dollar for dollar. That is a start, and if you can join in to help out, please contact me to let me know. Can you help to make a difference here?

Continue reading “Matching Fund Donors Sought for SENS Universal Cancer Therapy Crowdfunding” »

Light-absorbing glow-in-the-dark road markings have replaced standard street lighting on a 500 meter stretch of highway in The Netherlands. This project is the first stage of a concept first unveiled back in 2012 by designer and innovator Daan Roosegaarde, who presented his ‘Smart Highway’ plans during Dutch Design Week. Roosegaarde’s design took top honors in the 2013 INDEX: Awards, and we’re excited to see it finally hit the streets!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=XzTXaUltXUA

In 2011, two visionary doctors from the Texas Heart Institute successfully replaced a dying man’s heart with a ‘continuous flow’ device they developed.

Arthritis sufferers have been offered new hope after scientists grew a ‘living hip’ in the lab which not only replaces worn cartilage but stops painful joints returning.

Researchers in the US have used stem cells to grow cartilage in the exact shape of a hip joint while also genetically engineering the tissue to release anti-inflammatory molecules to fend off the return of arthritis.

The idea is to implant the perfectly shaped cartilage around the joint to extend its life before arthritis has caused too much damage to the bone.

Continue reading “‘Living hip’ grown in lab genetically engineered to stop arthritis” »

The portable battery can be fully recharged within 15 minutes, about 20 times faster than a Li-ion battery.

This artificial kidney could be implanted directly into the patient.

Powered by developments in exponential technologies, the cost of housing, transportation, food, health care, entertainment, clothing, education and so on will fall, eventually approaching, believe it or not, zero.

People are concerned about how AI and robotics are taking jobs, destroying livelihoods, reducing our earning capacity, and subsequently destroying the economy.

In anticipation, countries like Canada, India and Finland are running experiments to pilot the idea of “universal basic income” — the unconditional provision of a regular sum of money from the government to support livelihood independent of employment.

Continue reading “Why the Cost of Living Is Poised to Plummet in the Next 20 Years” »