Lifeboat Foundation

Waymo, the newly-minted Alphabet company that was previously Google’s self-driving car project, has a new addition to its vehicle fleet: 100 Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans, which were produced by Fiat Chrysler specifically for the purpose of making them fully autonomous using Waymo’s tech, onboard computer power, sensors and telematics. The 100 new cars will join Waymo’s other self-driving vehicles in active service on public roads for more testing starting early next year.

These vehicles were created through a close partnership between Waymo and FCA that actually saw engineering teams from both companies co-located at a Michigan engineering site, and testing of tech through the development process happened both in Chelsea, Michigan, and Yucca, Arizona on the FCA side, and at Waymo’s own test facilities in California.

While the Chrysler Pacificas used are based on the 2017 production model that consumers can buy, changes were made to the vehicles’ electrical, powertrain and structural systems, as well as to the vehicle chassis itself, in order to make them better suited for using Waymo’s tech. This results in a much tighter integration than if the Alphabet company had just purchased Chrysler vehicles off the line and done their own aftermarket modifications on stock vehicles. Still, from project outset to these being ready to enter service took only six months, according to FCA.

Continue reading “Here’s our first look at Waymo’s new self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans” »

Verlinde’s emergent gravity theory makes one very important implication: dark matter does not exist. His research makes sense of the behavior of gravity without the need for the existence of a dark matter particle.

Researchers from the Leiden Observatory have studied more than 33,000 galaxies to see if Verlinde’s theory checks out—and the results show that it is, in fact, more accurate at confirming the universe’s gravity distribution than Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Continue reading “A New Theory of Gravity Just Passed its First Test. Here’s What This Means for Physics” »

Millennium Space Systems have reached a major development milestone for their ALTAIR satellite ahead of a proposed launch in March 2017. They have announced that the first satellite has completed development and been shipped. The satellite was enabled by additive manufacturing and has now gained flight qualification.

Paul Swanson, Millennium Space’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations program manager, explained the importance of reaching this target,

This flight qualification of our ALTAIR™ spacecraft represents a key milestone in providing low-risk and very high-platform performance coupled with affordability as the company transitions to full-scale manufacturing of our ALTAIR™ product line and anticipated ALTAIR™ constellations.

Continue reading “3D printing enabled ALTAIR satellite ready to launch in 2017” »

Tissue engineering and Stem cells are a large part of the rejuvenation biotechnology toolkit. Here we have yet more progress and this time the pacemaker cells are replicated for possible use in biological pacemaker therapies.

“Scientists from the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University Health Network, have developed the first functional pacemaker cells from human stem cells, paving the way for alternate, biological pacemaker therapy.”

From navigating turbulence, to sleeping midflight, to soaring without a sound, animals’ flight adaptations are helping scientists design better flying robots.

Airborne drones and the animals they mimic are featured in 18 new studies published online Dec. 15 in the journal Interface Focus. This special issue is intended “to inspire development of new aerial robots and to show the current status of animal flight studies,” said the issue’s editor, David Lentink, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University in California.

Though humans have been building flying machines since the 18th century, these new studies revealed that there is still much to be learned from looking closely at how birds, insects and bats take flight, keep themselves aloft and maneuver to safe landings. [Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature].

Continue reading “New Flying Robots Take Cues From Airborne Animals” »

According to recent studies, the Moon houses an abundance of precious minerals on its surface, and an estimated 6 billion tons of water ice at its poles. In particular, water can be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen to produce efficient rocket fuel. With a fuel station established in space, the world will witness a revolution in the space transportation system.

To achieve this, ispace is developing micro-robotic technology to provide a low-cost and frequent transportation service to and on the Moon, conduct lunar surface exploration to map, process and deliver resources to our customers in cislunar space.

Lysosomes originally thought to be the dust bins of the body have recently been found to have some constructive roles too.

A new role has been discovered for a well-known piece of cellular machinery, which could revolutionise the way we understand how tissue is constructed and remodelled within the body.

Lysosomes are small, enzyme-filled sacks found within cells, which break down old cell components and unwanted molecules.

Continue reading “New construction role found for cell demolition tool” »

JAXA has signed a memo of understanding with iSpace to create moon mining industry.

(FoxNews.com) — Food producer Del Monte has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to start selling a genetically engineered pineapple with pink flesh.

The new species Ananas comosus has been given the more consumer-friendly name of the “Rosé” and, according to The Packer, Del Monte has quietly been working on the fruit’s development since 2005.

So what makes the usually golden-colored fruit pink? The patened pineapple DNA is injected with a healthy dose of lycopene, the bright red pigment found in tomatoes and watermelons.