Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 11379

The old joke about fusion is that it is 30 years from becoming a reality — and that’s been the case for the last 50 years or more. It’s a joke that may quickly be reaching its sell-by date.

And a good thing too. The promise of fusion is near-unlimited energy that produces almost no waste.

Traditional nuclear reactors split atoms to create energy. These fission reactors run on processed uranium and leave behind radioactive waste. Fusion, on the other hand, is the same process that keeps the sun shining. Fusion reactors would run on abundant hydrogen isotopes and, in theory, create significantly more energy than fission with comparatively little waste.

Read more

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Someday, chemically protective suits made of fabric coated in self-healing, thin films may prevent farmers from exposure to organophosphate pesticides, soldiers from chemical or biological attacks in the field and factory workers from accidental releases of toxic materials, according to a team of researchers.

“Fashion designers use natural fibers made of proteins like wool or silk that are expensive and they are not self-healing,” said Melik C. Demire l, professor of engineering science and mechanics. “We were looking for a way to make fabrics self-healing using conventional textiles. So we came up with this coating technology.”

The procedure is simple. The material to be coated is dipped in a series of liquids to create layers of material to form a self-healing, polyelectrolyte layer-by-layer coating.

Read more

Dark matter, the mysterious substance that constitutes most of the material universe, remains as elusive as ever. Although experiments on the ground and in space have yet to find a trace of dark matter, the results are helping scientists rule out some of the many theoretical possibilities. Three studies published earlier this year, using six or more years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, have broadened the mission’s dark matter hunt using some novel approaches.

“We’ve looked for the usual suspects in the usual places and found no solid signals, so we’ve started searching in some creative new ways,” said Julie McEnery, Fermi project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “With these results, Fermi has excluded more candidates, has shown that dark matter can contribute to only a small part of the gamma-ray background beyond our galaxy, the Milky Way, and has produced strong limits for dark matter particles in the second-largest galaxy orbiting it.”

Dark matter neither emits nor absorbs light, primarily interacts with the rest of the universe through gravity, yet accounts for about 80 percent of the matter in the universe. Astronomers see its effects throughout the cosmos—in the rotation of galaxies, in the distortion of light passing through galaxy clusters, and in simulations of the early universe, which require the presence of dark matter to form galaxies at all.

Read more

Nifty.

Radio communication is a weak point for most military operations — it is often not long enough or strong enough to adequately meet soldiers’ needs. The U.S. Air Force’s “go big or go home” solution to improve their long-distance calls? Supercharge the atmosphere by detonating aerial plasma bombs attached to tiny satellites, reports New Scientist.

The Air Force is asking for help in developing plasma bombs, which would be delivered to the atmosphere by tiny cube satellites and then detonated to release ions upon arrival. The Air Force is working with several research teams, each of which is tasked with coming up with their own design for the plasma bombs. The first stage of the project is theoretical, requiring researchers to come up with an atmospheric plasma delivery method. Selected researchers then will be invited to test their proposal in a vacuum chamber simulator and eventually on exploratory flights.

One team, comprised of researchers from Drexel University and General Sciences, is developing a controlled bomb that uses a chemical reaction to heat a piece of metal beyond its boiling point. Once vaporized, the metal will react with atmospheric oxygen to create the ionized plasma. Another proposal under development by researchers from the University of Maryland and Enig Associates also uses vaporized metals to supercharge the atmosphere. This proposal is much more explosive, though, using mini-detonations to heat pieces of metal rapidly, causing them to vaporize. The amount of plasma produced in this latter reaction can be controlled by changing the intensity and form of the explosion.

Read more

Commercial space travel is about to become a reality brought about by many private companies bent on taking their earthbound successes into space. The FAA is now open to granting permits to private companies to travel into space. It is hoped that this activity will lead to the colonization of Mars.

Elon Musk of SpaceX has the goal of beginning the colonization of Mars in the next decade. He plans to make commercial space travel and colonization a reality in his lifetime, according to The Washington Post. Mr. Musk is the mastermind behind both Tesla and SpaceX. He is one of the most brilliant minds of our time. An innovator and businessman, Elon has a track record of making dreams a reality and turning his plans into tangible results. Comparing his project to the colonization of America, Mr. Musk explains why he thinks people will agree to move to mars.

“The months-long journey is sure to be hard, risky, dangerous, difficult, [but] just as with the establishment of the English colonies, there are people who love that. They want to be the pioneers.”

Read more

Many years ago, Carl Sagan predicted there could be as many as 10,000 advanced extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy.

After nearly 60 years of searching without success, a growing list of scientists believe on Earth only came about because of a lucky series of evolutionary accidents, a long list of improbable events that just happened to come together at the right time and will never be repeated. Is it possible they are right and we are all there is? Highly unlikely.

Earth is a typical rocky planet, in an average solar system, nestled in the spiral arm of an ordinary galaxy. All the events and elements that came together to build our world could happen almost everywhere throughout the galaxy and there should be nothing unusual about the evolution of life on this planet or any others.

Read more

My dispatch for Vice from the recent successful RAAD Festival—a giant gathering of longevity enthusiasts:

In less than a month, I’ll mark the two-year anniversary to my presidential campaign for the Transhumanist Party. My run for the White House was never about winning, but spreading the idea that Americans can achieve indefinite lifespans through science and technology—if only the government were to help out and put significant resources into the anti-aging field.

While the US government still hasn’t shown much interest in supporting longevity research for its citizens, the life extension movement is dramatically expanding around the world. Two years ago, the idea of speaking to 1000 longevity advocates in the same convention hall was a pipe dream. Most transhumanist conferences could barely get 100 people in the same room.

Continue reading “Living Forever Has Never Been More Popular” | >