Lifeboat Foundation

Absolutely, undeniably awesome.

We got about a minute of footage last week, and now the full trailer for the movie adaptation of Ted Chiang’s “Story Of Your Life” is here. And it is tense.

Whereas before, the footage ended with Amy Adams’ Dr. Banks getting her first look inside one of the weird alien monoliths that have appeared, the trailer goes much further. We see her actually communicating with the aliens, while the rest of the world goes appropriately batshit. There’s a lot less action in this sci-fi movie than there is drama, and it all looks great.

Continue reading “The First Arrival Trailer Makes Talking to Aliens Terrifying” »

Prof. Lupin of UCSB recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to create “Voices of Humanity”, a project aimed at equipping all future missions to space with a digital archive of humanity!

Next to the medical field, as we follow the significant impacts 3D printing is making on the world, that of aerospace is right at the top of the list. While some are still confused about the actual importance of 3D printing as it hasn’t really affected them personally yet, it’s important to think on a much bigger scale. And there’s not much of a bigger scale than space.

For those who are cynical about the technology, pointing back to the continual supply of keychains and figurines (we all have to start somewhere, thank you!) being pumped out in plastic at the desktop, when you take a look at how long NASA has been involved with additive manufacturing—and how many parts they are using now—well, that’s impressive. Not only that, because of numerous 3D printed parts, larger components are being made that would not have been possible previously, and certainly not with such a level of customization, speed, and affordability.

Continue reading “Aerojet Rocketdyne to Mature 3D Printed MPS-130 CubeSat Propulsion System for NASA” »

We consider a solution of the Einstein equations for a system comprised of merging black holes and show that the solution contains a term which represents a repulsive force. This repulsive term is proportional to 1/r, where r is the distance from the system, and it is additional to the common Newtonian term which is proportional to 1/r². This repulsive force acts as an effective dark energy if the total mass of the Universe is decreased.

As seen below, a shape of the gravitational potential is often illustrated by a funnel made of rubber film where a heavy ball (blue) is located in the center. In this model, a fast decrease of the gravitational mass corresponds with a sharp ascent of the ball. The film attached to the ball forms a cone-type hill in the center of the funnel. Light balls (green) on the central cone run away from the center. The central cone expands fast but keeps it exterior slope; this corresponds to long-term repulsive force.

A mechanism of the repulsive force may be applied to a model of the expanding Universe. This may imply that the Big Bang and accelerated expansion of the Universe is not related to current processes in the Universe but to a relic repulsive gravitational force or to a configuration of space-time that originates in the previous cycle of the Universe when at the last stage of a collapse the intensive generation of gravitational waves resulted in sharp decrease of the gravitational mass of the Universe. This process generated a powerful repulsive force that transformed the Big Crunch into the Big Bang. Because the repulsive acceleration decreases with time, the current Universe expands with lower acceleration. Decreasing acceleration of the Universe can be verified by observations. Gravitational waves caused by the compression of the Universe may not disappear at the stage of expansion and form the relic gravitational radiation.

Aether 1 is a sub-$9,000 3D bioprinter set to make its debut later this year. It promises to outperform some bioprinters that cost over $250,000.

At 1.40am this morning, China launched a new Space Race with the world’s first quantum satellite, recently named Micius after an ancient Chinese philosopher and engineer, who, more than 2,400 years ago, proposed that light always travelled in a straight line and that the physical world was made up by particles. Quantum teleportation technology would be able to eliminate the 20-minute time delay in communication between earth and Mars and would allow tiny spacecraft to send back images and videos of planets many light years away without the need to carry a huge antenna. It could even give us a glimpse of what’s inside a black hole.

“Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a lithium-ion battery made entirely of solid material: it contains neither liquids nor gels. The battery cannot ignite, even at very high temperatures, giving it a safety advantage over conventional batteries. In addition, they allow new forms of battery design.”

Read more

Doctors have come a long way from the old-fashioned electric shock therapy. Today’s electro-neural reset devices can help with PTSD, depression, and multiple movement disorders.

The Intelligence Community’s research agency is exploring the use of role-based virtual environments to enhance security.