Lifeboat Foundation

In experiments at two Department of Energy national labs – SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – scientists at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) have experimentally confirmed critical aspects of how a new type of microelectronic device, the memristor, works at an atomic scale.

This result is an important step in designing these solid-state devices for use in future computer memories that operate much faster, last longer and use less energy than today’s flash memory. The results were published in February in Advanced Materials.

“We need information like this to be able to design memristors that will succeed commercially,” said Suhas Kumar, an HPE scientist and first author on the group’s technical paper.

Continue reading “X-ray Experiments Show Hewlett Packard Team How Memristors Work” »

Interesting…

Last month, we reported on a new Salt Lake City-based startup, Nikola Motor, unveiling the design of its first product; an electric truck with a natural gas range extender called ‘Nikola One’. The company attracted a lot of attention for having a name reminiscent of Tesla Motors – both inspired by the physicist Nikola Tesla – but it also unveiled serious ambitions to revolutionize the trucking industry.

The ‘Nikola One’ will be equipped with a massive 320 kWh battery pack and the company hopes that it will be able to travel up to 1,200 miles with the natural gas range extender. Now the company announced that it received over 7,000 pre-orders with deposits for its electric truck since the unveiling of the concept last month. CEO Trevor Milton says that the pre-orders are worth over $2.3 billion.

Continue reading “Nikola Motor claims it received over 7,000 pre-orders worth over $2.3 billion for its electric truck” »

Scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center found something very unexpected in a Martian crater.

Using the Curiosity Rover, the scientists detected a mineral called tridymite that, until now, they thought could only be created in extremely hot temperatures.

The discovery of this tridymite might rewrite the history of the planet, suggesting that it might once have been hotter than we previously thought, and home to monstrous volcanoes.

Continue reading “Scientists found something extremely unexpected on Mars – and it could require us to rethink the planet’s history” »

Mind = BLOWN

A jaw-dropping new photo shows a probable alien planet orbiting a star that lies 1,200 light-years from Earth.

The potential planet appears as a brownish dot to the left of the bright bluish-white star CVSO 30 in the newly released image, which was captured by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Continue reading “Amazing Photo Shows Likely Alien Planet 1,200 Light-Years Away” »

Scientists are pushing to perfect a genetically identical meat that would be better for the environment than cows are.

Elizabeth Rushe is a writer and photographer from Ireland who is based in Berlin. Her work has been published by NPR, Paste Magazine, Vice, and Marie Claire.

Originally published on Gas2.

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) says it has created a new material that is ten times stronger than steel but 5 times lighter than aluminum. Think about that for a minute. Assuming those claims can be verified, and also assuming the material is not otherworldly expensive, it may take the place of carbon fiber the way Saran Wrap displaced waxed paper.

Continue reading “Hyperloop Company Claims New Material Is 10X Stronger Than Steel, 5X Lighter Than Aluminum” »

Get this: The renowned paleontologist who inspired ‘Jurassic Park’ is attempting to recreate dinosaurs by reversing the evolution of the modern-day chicken.

Small electrical currents appear to activate certain immune cells to jumpstart or speed wound healing and reduce infection when there’s a lack of immune cells available, such as with diabetes, University of Aberdeen (U.K.) scientists have found.

In a lab experiment, the scientists exposed healing macrophages (white blood cells that eat things that don’t belong), taken from human blood, to electrical fields of strength similar to that generated in injured skin. When the voltage was applied, the macrophages moved in a directed manner to Candida albicans fungus cells (representing damaged skin) to facilitate healing (engulfing and digesting extracellular particles). (This process is called “phagocytosis,” in which macrophages clean the wound site, limit infection, and allow the repair process to proceed.)

“Managers, hoping to avoid such jolts, spend too much time focusing on short-term performance. ”

Read more