What happens when your power lines get all kinds of trash hanging from them and it’s not safe to send up a human? In Xiangyang, China, you send in the drones. Specifically, the drones that shoot fire.
Read more
Check out the CellAge campaign at Lifespan.io
https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/cellage-targeting-senescen…c-biology/
Read more
By Kelsey Tollefson | Executive Editor John Lenker
Space suits are iconic—a visual metaphor for the excitement of the original Space Race and mankind’s first forays off our planet. While many still associate space travel with the puffy white suits worn by astronauts in the 1960s, a proliferation of sci-fi movies in the intervening decades has opened our imaginations to a wider array of possibilities. Far from being fantastical, these new spacesuits reflect an evolved understanding of the considerations involved in protecting the human body from harsh environments outside Earth’s atmosphere.
Related: Under pressure: the past, present, and future spacesuit market.
Read more
“Launched in 2007, the Fuller Challenge has defined an emerging field of practice: the whole systems approach to understanding and intervening in complex and interrelated crises for wide-scale social and environmental impact. The entry criteria have established a new framework through which to identify and measure effective, enduring solutions to global sustainability’s most entrenched challenges. The rigorous selection process has set a unique standard, gaining renown as “Socially-Responsible Design’s Highest Award.”
The Fuller Challenge attracts bold, visionary, tangible initiatives focused on a well-defined need of critical importance. Winning solutions are regionally specific yet globally applicable and present a truly comprehensive, anticipatory, integrated approach to solving the world’s complex problems.”
Deadline is March 31, 2017
NASA intends to send astronauts to orbit the moon in 2018 at the apparent request of President Donald Trump, potentially saving taxpayers $10 billion dollars.
Robert Lightfoot, NASA’s acting administrator, sent a letter to the space agency’s employees saying they should “explore the feasibility” of sending astronauts to orbit the moon in 2018, seemingly at the request of the Trump administration.
Speeding up NASA’s plans to orbit the moon with astronauts could save money in the long term.
Read more
MIT has never stood stand still in the presence of change and opportunity. Their Media Lab Currency Initiative is at the forefront of Blockchain and Bitcoin research. With the fracture of the founding core team, MIT stands to become the universal hub for research and 
development.
The initiative now has a team of 22 people and at least
seven ongoing research projects, and it nurtures three startups that use cryptocurrencies and the underlying technology in a variety of ways. Blockchain research now sits alongside transparent robots that eat real-world fish, solar nebula research, and other imaginative, futuristic projects in progress at the university.
The initiative has already funded the work of bitcoin protocol developers and has supported research, going far beyond bitcoin—even partnering with Ripple Labs and developing enterprise data projects.
Now, the MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative is working on 3 big Blockchain ideas:
- Shattering online ‘echo chambers’
- Improving blockchain privacy
- Building central bank currencies
The DCI is led by former White House advisor and research director Neha Narula. Read about the three BIG blockchain projects at CoinDesk.
Philip Raymond co-chairs Crypsa & Bitcoin Event, columnist & board member at Lifeboat, editor
at WildDuck and will deliver the keynote address at Digital Currency Summit in Johannesburg.
A vast patch of abnormally warm water in the Pacific Ocean — nicknamed the blob — resulted in increased levels of ozone above the Western US, researchers have found.
The blob — which at its peak covered roughly 9 million square kilometres (3.5 million square miles) from Mexico to Alaska — was assumed to be mainly messing with conditions in the ocean, but a new study has shown that it had a lasting affect on air quality too.
“Ultimately, it all links back to the blob, which was the most unusual meteorological event we’ve had in decades,” says one of the team, Dan Jaffe from the University of Washington Bothell.
Read more