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SpinLaunch was founded in 2014, and its leadership team has since raised tens of millions of dollars in funding. The company has been working with NASA, Airbus, and Cornell University, launching some of their equipment as part of testing. The tech has so far endured 10,000 Gs, “10,000 times the force of Earth’s gravity,” all per the Space.com report.

If SpinLaunch’s concept proves reliable, it could eliminate the loads of fuel that is burned to launch spacecraft. In 2016, Business Insider noted that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket used more than 900,000 pounds of propellant for each liftoff, for reference. The fuel efficiency may have improved some since then.

CBC News reports that a growing number of launches are starting to draw scrutiny, particularly for ozone layer health. The barrier protects us from some of the sun’s harmful radiation.

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A new method in spectromicroscopy significantly improves the study of chemical reactions at the nanoscale, both on surfaces and inside layered materials. Scanning X-ray microscopy (SXM) at MAXYMUS beamline of BESSY II enables the investigation of chemical species adsorbed on the top layer (surface) or intercalated within the MXene electrode (bulk) with high chemical sensitivity. The method was developed by a HZB team led by Dr. Tristan Petit. The scientists demonstrated among others first SXM on MXene flakes, a material used as electrode in lithium-ion batteries.

Since their discovery in 2011, MXenes have gathered significant scientific interest due to their versatile tunable properties and diverse applications, from energy storage to electromagnetic shielding. Researchers have been working to decipher the complex chemistry of MXenes at the nanoscale.

The team of Dr. Tristan Petit now made a significant progress in MXene characterization, as described in their recent publication (Small Methods, “Nanoscale surface and bulk electronic properties of Ti 3 C 2 Tx MXene unraveled by multimodal X-ray spectromicroscopy”). They utilized SXM to investigate the chemical bonding of Ti 3 C 2 Tx MXenes, with Tx denoting the terminations (Tx=O, OH, F, Cl), with high spatial and spectral resolution. The novelty in this work is to combine simultaneously two detection modes, transmission and electron yield, enabling different probing depths.

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https://youtu.be/Op3zYytUDDs.

Using generative AI, this time lapse sequence shows how melanoma skin cancer develops over 10 years. Starting with normal skin, slow progression to stage 4 melanoma is shown.

Obviously, such a time lapse can not be realistically accomplished as there is no way to know if any given area of skin will turn into cancer. Obviously, somebody with such future knowledge would have to start taking such photos now in the same spot over next 10 years to watch it slowly turn into cancer.

Watch time lapse video of basal cell carcinoma: https://youtube.com/shorts/d_O5zHgKnP8

Continue reading “Melanoma Skin Cancer Development Time Lapse (Normal to Stage 4 Melanoma Over 10 Years)” | >

“Stellar-mass black holes, which contain up to about 30 solar masses, possess much smaller event horizons and stronger tidal forces, which can rip apart approaching objects before they get to the horizon.”

The simulated black hole is designed to imitate the supermassive one at the heart of our galaxy, which has a mass over 4.3 million times that of our Sun. That is almost unfathomably large: the distant view of it you see in the visualizer is from nearly 400 million miles away.

From the point of view of the doomed camera, falling into the event horizon would take three hours. To an outside observer, however, the camera would appear to freeze just before the threshold due to immense distortions in spacetime.

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LISTEN NOW I follow Ithell Colquhoun in describing myself as a Magician born of Nature, and although I reject the Theory of Supernatural Causation nevertheless many posthuman objectives and those of ancient…

Provided to YouTube by Ditto MusicThoth Djehuty’s Book of Magick · Steve NicholsThoth Djehuty’s Book of Magick℗ Steven Leslie NicholsReleased on: 2024–06-17A…

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From the article:

Longtermism asks fundamental questions and promotes the kind of consequentialism that should guide public policy.

Based on a talk delivered at the conference on Existential Threats and Other Disasters: How Should We Address Them? May 30–31, 2024 – Budva, Montenegro – sponsored by the Center for the Study of Bioethics, The Hastings Center, and The Oxford Uehiro Center for Practical Ethics.

For twenty years, I have been talking about old age dependency ratios as an argument for universal basic income and investing in anti-aging therapies to keep elders healthy longer. A declining number of young workers supporting a growing number of retirees is straining many welfare systems. Healthy seniors are less expensive and work longer. UBI is more intergenerationally equitable, especially if we face technological unemployment.

Continue reading “Are Children The Future?: Longtermism, Pronatalism, and Epistemic Discounting” | >