Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 11247

Fuel/ energy efficient method for travel is my guess.

The US Air Force’s unmanned X-37B space plane has now spent more than 500 days orbiting the Earth, without statement or explanation. The 29-foot unmanned plane is part of the Air Force’s orbital program.

Launched May 20, 2015, it is the program’s fourth flight (hence its other name, OTV-4 for Orbital Test Vehicle-4). The first OTV took flight in 2010 and spent 224 days in orbit; two others brought the total number of OTV days in orbit before 2015 to 1,367, according to the Air Force.

The full purpose or intent of the program? The US Air Force remains mum. The Air Force will only say in its program factsheet that the initiative is to “demonstrate technologies for a reliable, reusable, unmanned space test platform for the US Air Force. The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold: reusable spacecraft technologies for America’s future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth.

Continue reading “US Air Force’s X-37B space plane has been in orbit for 500 days, but why?” | >

Could technology build friendships for Israel across the Middle East?

Israel and Saudi Arabia should form a “collaborative alliance” to become the “twin pillars of regional stability” in the Middle East, a top Saudi lobbyist wrote in The Hill on Tuesday, in what is the latest sign of warming and increasingly-public ties between Arab countries and the Jewish state.

Salman al-Ansari, the founder and president of the Saudi American Public Relations Affairs Committee, asserted that Israel can assist Saudi Arabia in implementing its Vision 2030, the Kingdom’s blueprint to diversify its economy. Al-Ansari specifically mentioned Israel’s expertise in mining and water technology, which makes Israel “extraordinarily qualified to help Saudi Arabia with its ambitious desalination plans.”

Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the man in charge of implementing Vision 2030, “is prepared and willing to develop real, enduring ties with Israel,” al-Ansari wrote, adding, “Any form of normalization between the two countries is also an Arabic and Muslim normalization towards Israel, which will undoubtedly promote security and weaken extremism in the region.”

Continue reading “Saudi Commentator Praises Israel; Latest Sign of Warming Ties Between Jewish and Arab States” | >

New method for information storage via QC uncovered.

Abstract: Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have made a discovery that could lay the foundation for quantum superconducting devices. Their breakthrough solves one the main challenges to quantum computing: how to transmit spin information through superconducting materials.

Every electronic device — from a supercomputer to a dishwasher — works by controlling the flow of charged electrons. But electrons can carry so much more information than just charge; electrons also spin, like a gyroscope on axis.

Harnessing electron spin is really exciting for quantum information processing because not only can an electron spin up or down — one or zero — but it can also spin any direction between the two poles. Because it follows the rules of quantum mechanics, an electron can occupy all of those positions at once. Imagine the power of a computer that could calculate all of those positions simultaneously.

Continue reading “A new spin on superconductivity: Harvard physicists pass spin information through a superconductor” | >

Everything is about cloud computing these days. In fact, there is such an emphasis on stuffing all your applications into the cloud that we’ve managed to create a situation where now we’re having performance issues. So then the tech world came up with another concept called fog computing which means we take everything out of the cloud and move it “to the edge”. It’s only a matter of time before we decide that edge computing isn’t centralized enough and then start moving everything back up to the cloud. All the while, highly paid data consultants are laughing all the way to the bank. The truth is though that cloud based solutions (also called software-as-a-service or SaaS) are here to stay. In many cases, the technology on offer is so complex and resource intensive that it only works with a centralized model. Quantum computing is a good example of this. So is IBM’s Watson cognitive computing solution. The company we’re going to talk about in this article, Cognitive Scale, is taking IBM Watson and making cognitive computing available to anyone via the cloud.

cognitive-scale-logo

Founded in 2013, Texas based startup Cognitive Scale took in $25 million in funding just last week from investors that included Intel, Microsoft, and IBM. Probably the most compelling thing about Cognitive Scale is the pedigree of their leadership. The Company Chairman, Manoj Saxena, was responsible for commercializing IBM’s Watson with a $1 billion investment from IBM. He ended up at IBM because a company he founded called Webify was acquired by IBM in 2006. In fact, he founded and sold two venture-backed software companies in just 5 years’ time. The founder and CTO of Cognitive Scale, Matt Sanchez, was the 3rd employee and Chief Architect of Webify and was responsible for founding the R&D arm of IBM Watson called IBM Watson Labs. See how this all fits together?

Read more

Ok; USA where are you nowdays?

Scientists have shown they can teleport photons across a city, a development that has been hailed as “a technological breakthrough”.

However, do not expect to see something akin to the Star Trek crew beaming from the planet’s surface to the Starship Enterprise.

Instead, in the two studies, published today in Nature Photonics, separate research groups have used quantum teleportation to send photons to new locations using fibre-optic communications networks in the cities of Hefei in China and Calgary in Canada.

Read more

When you read about what some startups are doing these days it seems like you’re reading a sci-fi book. Earlier this year we published an article titled “3 Companies Building Nanorobot Companies” and we talked about using software, robots, and synthetic biology to engineer synthetic organisms (essentially nanorobots) that can be used to create efficiencies. According to BCC Research, the global market for microbes and microbial products was projected to approach $154.7 billion in 2015 and almost double to $306 billion by 2020. Healthcare is largest consumer of microbes (61%) followed by energy (24%) and manufacturing (13%). The massive size of the microbe industry is just begging for a bit of disruptive technology to address it and that’s exactly what Zymergen is getting up to.

Zymergen_Logo

Founded in 2013, San Francisco startup Zymergen has taken in a total of $174 million from a whole slew of investors that include Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Softbank. Their most recent funding round of $130 million closed just last week and was led by Softbank, a publicly traded Japanese technology conglomerate. This should come as no surprise considering Softbank has recently announced their intention to become the world’s number one technology investor with up to $100 billion allocated to investing in future technology companies.

Read more

1st question that comes to mind is why? Then, I think about how this can be used against enemy states or would be criminals who are considering kidnapping or assignation attempts on leaders; then I see opportunity.

In Brief:

  • The robot can stay cooled for nearly 12 hours with a single cup of water.
  • The method is three times more effective that simple air cooling.
Continue reading “Cool Automatons: Humanoid Robots Have Been Given the Ability to Sweat” | >

A webinar presented by: James Goldmeyer, PhD

The use of CRISPR-Cas9 for gene editing has opened up many new avenues for scientific exploration around gene function. The rapid expansion of the field has led to a wide range of technology formats for use in both gene knockout and precision knockin genome engineering experiments. The seemingly ever-increasing toolset has also led to a widening knowledge gap for newcomers to the field to overcome in determining the proper reagents for performing experiments.

During this webinar we will discuss the basics of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and the key criteria and decision points in selecting reagents based on your desired application. We will review all types of guide RN…A and Cas9 nuclease formats and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Read more