Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 10894

Maybe the only way isn’t up after all: newly released concept drawings by a Greek architect for a skyscraper in Manhattan bend more than just minds.

According to architect Ioannis Oikonomou, New York’s zoning laws are prompting developers to explore new ways to maximize a building’s height. To that end, his studio is exploring substituting height with length.

Apart from being a novel addition to Manhattan’s impressive skyline, the structure — dubbed The Beg Bend — could essentially become a viable architectural solution that addresses the height limitations of buildings in the city. It could even be an answer to the city’s expensive housing — giving the building the prestige of a high-rise while maximizing the limited space.

Read more

Scientists in Germany have discovered a protein that can prompt the body’s blood stem cells to act young again, potentially reversing some of the bad aspects of the aging process.

The suggestion that young blood may be the key to reversing some of the negative aspects of aging sounds like the setup to a horror movie. In reality, however, it refers to some groundbreaking work being carried out by scientists at the University of Ulm in Germany.

They’ve been examining the ways that old blood can be made young again, and they hypothesize that it might help fight some of the effects of aging. To achieve this, they’ve discovered a protein capable of boosting blood stem cells, which prompt them to act like the stem cells of younger people.

Read more

Astronomers have uncovered a supermassive black hole that has been propelled out of the center of a distant galaxy by what could be the awesome power of gravitational waves.

Though there have been several other suspected, similarly booted black holes elsewhere, none has been confirmed so far. Astronomers think this object, detected by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, is a very strong case. Weighing more than 1 billion suns, the rogue black hole is the most massive black hole ever detected to have been kicked out of its central home.

Researchers estimate that it took the equivalent energy of 100 million supernovas exploding simultaneously to jettison the black hole. The most plausible explanation for this propulsive energy is that the monster object was given a kick by gravitational waves unleashed by the merger of two hefty black holes at the center of the host galaxy.

Read more

I was under the impression that human trials were already underway, but this says they will start in 6 months.

UNSW researchers have made a discovery that could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing, improves DNA repair and could even help NASA get its astronauts to Mars.

In a paper published in Science today, the team identifies a critical step in the molecular process that allows cells to repair damaged DNA.

Their experiments in mice suggest a treatment is possible for DNA damage from ageing and radiation. It is so promising it has attracted the attention of NASA, which believes the treatment can help its Mars mission.

Continue reading “Scientists unveil a giant leap for anti-aging” | >

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A new propulsion engine with dime-size thrusters could be used to propel a host of spacecraft, from small satellites to crewed ships designed for interplanetary exploration.

The new propulsion engine, called Tile, could serve as an efficient and lightweight way to keep constellations of small satellites in orbit. Spaceflight companies — including OneWeb, Boeing and SpaceX — want to launch hundreds of thousands of these small satellites to provide broadband internet to everyone around the globe. And because several Tiles can be connected to produce more power, the engine has the potential to propel astronauts to Mars, according to Accion Systems, the company that designed Tile.

“Our technology starts on a nanometer scale, and then we can array that and scale that up to serve satellites,” said Natalya Bailey, CEO of Accion Systems. Bailey described the propulsion engine to an audience here at the New Space Age Conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Sloan School of Management on March 11. [Superfast Spacecraft Propulsion Concepts (Images)].

Read more

Stephen Marr had his suspicions when he photographed a mysterious piece of equipment atop SpaceX’s drone ship at Port Canaveral on Monday.

“I knew there was something different there,” Marr, 34, said.

So he did what any lover of space and social media would do: He posted it online. Reddit users quickly propelled Marr’s clear, high-resolution photo to the top of the website’s SpaceX community and so began discussion that the object was likely a highly anticipated robot that would interact with Falcon 9 first stages.

Read more