Lifeboat Foundation

The week’s top Science news.

Organoids grown from genetically edited stem cells are giving scientists a new tool to screen drugs and test treatments.

Hydro powered spacecraft to be the first to mine an astroid.

A few months back, Luxembourg—a tiny country better known for world-class pastries— announced its intention to become a leader in asteroid mining. Now, Luxembourg has revealed the first step in its plan to fill the banking vaults with space-grade platinum: a small, water-powered spacecraft.

http://gizmodo.com/luxembourg-wants-to-be-a-world-leader-in-…1756860361

Continue reading “A Tiny, Water-Powered Spacecraft Could Be the First to Mine Asteroids” »

Ready for your new RFID chip; if you fly Delta you will need one for your luggage.

Delta Airlines is trying to prevent lost luggage by using technology to track bags from start to finish… KGUN 9 On Your Side — Tucson’s Source for Local News, Sports, and Weather” lang=” en-US.

Eventually it will be in everything tech. This version by IBM; is not for the masses. However, don’t worry; it’s coming.

Users will eventually be able to contribute and review results in the coming community, which will be hosted on the IBM Quantum Experience. So kudos to IBM for properly managing expectations.

The researchers at IBM have created a quantum processor, made up of five superconducting quantum bits (qubits).

Continue reading “IBM’s Quantum Computing Is For ‘Anyone’, But Is It For Everyone?” »

Interesting approach.

Stump up for science.

I will admit that was a smart move for Amazon.

Amazon has hired an artificial intelligence executive from Xerox’s Parc to head artificial intelligence research and development for its Alexa interactive voice technology.

Nice; let’s hope they hit the right target.

“I need a stealth bomber that’s going to get close, and then it’s going to drop a whole bunch of smalls – some are decoys, some are jammers, some are [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] looking for where the SAMs are. Some of them are kamikaze airplanes that are going to kamikaze into those SAMs, and they’re cheap. You have maybe 100 or 1,000 surface-to-air missiles, but we’re going to hit you with 10,000 smalls, not 10,000 MQ-9s. That’s why we want smalls.”

SAMs stands for “Surface-to-Air Missile,” and they’re one of the reasons that the Air Force has invested so much in stealth technology over the years: if a missile can’t see a plane, it can’t hit it. The problem is that the economics don’t quite work that way: it’s easier to make a new, better missile than it is to make an existing airplane even stealthier, and modern Air Force fighters serve for around 30 years each—longer if they’re bombers. Missiles are generally cheaper than airplanes, so anyone who wants to protect against aerial attack just needs to invest in a lot of missiles.

Continue reading “Air Force wants swarms of small ‘kamikaze’ drones to defeat missiles” »

Hmmm;

The intelligence community’s research arm released its annual solicitation looking for the most innovative ideas the private sector has to offer.