Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers use graphene to create a new way of converting electricity into light, delivering the possibility of dramatic speed improvements over today’s chips.

No matter how many books crowded my parents’ living room bookshelves in my childhood home in New York, two always sat at eye level right in the center: Henry Kissinger’s Years of Upheaval and Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock.

The sun is losing its spots, and it’s certainly something that we shouldn’t take lightly. According to news.com.au, our fireball has gone blank for the second time this month, leading Meteorologist Paul Dorian to believe that the next solar minimum is approaching and there will be an increasing number of spotless days over the next few years. This matters because the amount of sun spots reportedly affects our climate.

So, let’s start with solar minimum. What is it exactly? Well, NASA explains it to be when the sun’s natural solar cycle shows the lowest amount of sunspots. You see, when at its best, the sun’s surface is covered in visible dark blemishes, or sunspots. The sun goes through a natural solar cycle approximately every 11 years, and each cycle is marked by the increase and decrease of sunspots – with the highest number of sunspots in any given solar cycle being the “solar maximum” and the lowest number being “solar minimum.”

The sun at its best.

GOLDEN, Colorado — A major American launch provider has outlined a plan that the company says will help enable a space economy based on refueling spacecraft in Earth orbit.

Dubbed the “Cislunar 1,000 Vision,” the initiative foresees a self-sustaining economy that supports 1,000 people living and working in Earth-moon space roughly 30 years from now. The concept stems from an analysis and ongoing technical work by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co. that provides launches aboard Atlas and Delta rockets.

A central element of the plan involves the use of a souped-up Centaur rocket stage called ACES (Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage). This liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen upper stage is designed to be reusable and can be refueled, perhaps by propellant made using water extracted from Earth’s moonor asteroids. [Moon Base Visions: How to Build a Lunar Colony (Photos)].

Continue reading “Inside ULA’s Plan to Have 1,000 People Working in Space by 2045” »

This is very new way of media outreach and news. I’m happy to be a part of it. Featuring Deus Ex too.

This summer, CNN’s brand studio Courageous is partnering with Square Enix®, publisher of SQUARE ENIX interactive entertainment products in the Americas, to host a first-of-its-kind conference on human augmentation. Human by Design will be held at the Paley Center for Media in New York City on August 3, 2016, and explore the intersection of technology and humanity with the objective of bringing together top minds to debate, question, and challenge what it means to be human.

Continue reading “CNN Courageous studio putting on a special conference on human augmentation some transhumanists are part of” »

Although we love them to pieces, eventually smart phones won’t be the only way we communicate and spend our time. Scientists predict we might end up using neural networks to play candy crush, or we could spend all our time using smart eyewear.

They still have a few issues to iron out, but there’s a new reason that smart eyewear might be a good option — night vision! Google’s just submitted a patent that suggests it’s planning on adding the future at some point.

Seriously though, we’re keen for anything to stop us tripping over stuff in the middle of the night.

Continue reading “A new patent means Google Glass might soon have night vision” »

This article is a bit odd to me. Why? Because the way 5D printing is describe is not that much more advance than 3D printing. In fact, 4D printing (as shown by Mitsubishi Lads) prints an object that self evolves/ assembles itself into the object specification submitted to the printer. In another article, it was highlighted that 5D printing would take the 4D printing formation and apply technology that enables the object/s to have intelligence to repair/ evolve over time. So, at this point 5D is still being defined.

3D-printed parts made with five-axis technology are stronger and use less material.

Continue reading “3D Printing + Five Axes = 5D Printing?” »

At some point we could see an EPA in space especially with the mining that will be occurring starting in 2017.

Even the smallest piece of space junk could cause a horrible crash.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has finished its work to integrate live data feeds from several sources into the U.S. Space Surveillance Network run by the Air Force in an effort to help space monitoring teams check when satellites are at risk.

SSN is a global network of 29 military radar and optical telescopes and DARPA added seven space data providers to the network to help monitor the space environment under its OrbitOutlook program, the agency said Wednesday.

DARPA plans to test the automated algorithms developed to determine relevant data from the integrated feed in order to help SSA experts carry out their mission.

Continue reading “DARPA Completes Integration of Live Data Feeds Into Space Surveillance Network; Jeremy Raley Comments” »