Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Tourists normally have to pay big money and brave cold climates for a chance to see an aurora, but last weekend many people around the world simply had to look up to see these colorful displays dance across the sky.

Usually banished to the poles of Earth, the auroras strayed as far as Mexico, southern Europe and South Africa on the evening of May 10, delighting skygazers and filling social media with images of exuberant pinks, greens and purples.

But for those charged with protecting Earth from powerful solar storms such as the one that caused the auroras, a threat lurks beneath the stunning colors.

Read more | >

Many people associate aging with a decline in cognitive function, health issues, and reduced activity. Uncovering mental processes that can boost the well-being of the older adults could be highly beneficial, as it could help to devise more effective activities aimed at improving their quality of life.

Researchers at University of Brescia and the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart recently carried out a study investigating the contribution of creativity and humor to the well-being of the elderly. Their findings, published in Neuroscience Letters, show that these two distinct human experiences share common psychological and neurobiological processes that promote well-being in older adults.

“Our recent study belongs to a line of research aimed at investigating the cognitive resources which are still available to elderly people and at understanding how such resources can support well-being,” Alessandro Antonietti, co-author of the paper, told Medical Xpress.

Read more | >

From Meta Reality Labs, Fair Meta, & HKUST CRAG — Comprehensive RAG Benchmark.

From meta reality labs, fair meta, & HKUST

CRAG — Comprehensive RAG Benchmark.

https://huggingface.co/papers/2406.

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has recently emerged as a promising solution to alleviate Large Language Model (LLM)’s deficiency in lack of knowledge.

Continue reading “CRAG — Comprehensive RAG Benchmark” | >

Demonstration of RAF jackal drone firing missiles.

This footage shows a demonstration where a new RAF ‘Jackal’ drone fires missile at a target. The missile can be seen launching out the new drone as it flies above the ground.

The JACKAL drone capability has been designed and developed by experts from UK-based Flyby Technology, with Turkish partners FlyBVLOS Technology and Maxwell Innovations providing design engineering and prototyping expertise, to fill a recently discovered gap in modern combat operations.

Continue reading “New RAF ‘Jackal’ drone fires missiles in demonstration” | >

Yale researchers are using chemical “chameleons” to sneak up on drug-resistant brain tumors.

A Yale Cancer Center team has synthesized a compound, KL-50, that they say selectively targets drug-resistant glioblastomas while leaving healthy tissue alone.

Yale scientists say KL-50, their lead “chameleon” compound, effectively targets tumors without harming healthy surrounding tissue.

Read more | >

Quantum field theory reveals potential flaws in models predicting numerous primordial black holes, suggesting fewer exist, which may impact theories of dark matter and the universe’s structure.

Researchers have applied the well-understood and highly verified quantum field theory, usually applied to the study of the very small, to a new target, the early universe. Their exploration led to the conclusion that there ought to be far fewer miniature black holes than most models suggest, though observations to confirm this should soon be possible. The specific kind of black hole in question could be a contender for dark matter.

The study, which was published recently in Physical Review Letters, was conducted by researchers at the Research Center for the Early Universe (RESCEU) and Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI) at the University of Tokyo.

Read more | >

NGC 2005, a globular cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud, serves as a crucial piece of evidence supporting the theory of galaxies evolving through mergers.

This mesmerizing image from the Hubble Space Telescope features the globular cluster NGC 2005. While it is not unusual in and of itself, it is a peculiarity in relation to its surroundings.

NGC 2005 is located about 750 light-years from the heart of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), which is the Milky Way ’s largest satellite galaxy and which itself lies about 162,000 light-years from Earth. Globular clusters are densely packed clusters that can constitute tens of thousands or millions of stars. Their density means that they are tightly gravitationally bound and are therefore very stable. This stability contributes to their longevity: globular clusters can be billions of years old, and as such often comprise very old stars.

Read more | >