Lifeboat Foundation

SpaceX’s super sized Falcon Heavy rocket has a new launch date: spring 2016. That’s according to remarks given by Lee Rosen, SpaceX’s vice president of mission and launch operations, at a conference in Pasadena this week. Space News reports the executive as saying, “It’s going to be a great day when we launch [the Falcon Heavy], some time in the late April – early May timeframe.”

We’ve been hearing about the Falcon Heavy for some time, but it has seen its share of delays. It will be the world’s most powerful operational rocket, capable of launching 115,000 pounds (53,000 kg) into low-Earth orbit. In history, it only comes short of the Saturn V rocket, which powered NASA’s Apollo missions to the moon. SpaceX originally promised to launch the rocket for the first time in 2013. It was then pushed back to this year, but the project was put on ice following the failure of a Falcon 9 rocket on June 28th.

Read more

“Stonehenge is an iconic and mysterious English landmark, but it’s not the only place to attract the interest of local archaeologists. Nearly 100 stone monoliths have been discovered at a site called the Durrington Walls, about two miles north-east of Stonehenge. For the average visitor, there’s little to see at ground level — just the grassy remains of a sloping bank. But with ground-penetrating radar, researchers have mapped the area and discovered evidence of up to 90 stones three feet underground. Around 30 remain intact, measuring up to 4.5 meters tall, while fragments of a further 60 lay beside them.”

Read more

Boeing Space Taxis in a couple of years.

This past Friday, Boeing unveiled its most recent assembly plant in Florida, only the new facility won’t be building commercial jets or fighter aircraft. Instead, it will be building spaceships, yes actual spaceships.

Boeing is aiming to have its soon-to-be-flown spaceships in the air and space by 2017. Dubbed the CST-100 Starliner, the spaceships could potentially be the first commercial spacecrafts on the market, though Boeing is in a tight race with SpaceX.

Continue reading “Space race heating up as Boeing partners with NASA” »

Everyone’s Heard Of The Ice Bucket Challenge For ALS, But We’re Just Beginning To Understand What Causes It.

Publicised in the recent ‘ice bucket challenge’, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a crippling, degenerative condition — but what actually causes it? It may be a transport breakdown, created by blocked nuclear pores.

Read more

As far as the Model 3 goes, Musk relayed that Tesla’s electric car for the masses will be formally unveiled in March of 2016, whereupon the company will begin taking pre-orders. And if pre-orders for the Model S and Model X are any indication, it’s a safe bet that the Tesla Model 3 — sized at about 80% of the Model S — is poised to be a runaway hit. The only looming question is whether or not Tesla’s Model 3 design resonates with consumers.

Price-wise, Musk reiterated a price point he’s trotted out before, namely that the base price on the Model 3 will check in at $35,000. As far as a release date is concerned, Musk said that production will begin in two years time. Musk explained that Tesla first has to wait until the Gigafactory is fully operational before kicking off Model 3 production. Read more

A glitch. Or maybe a need to revise the Standard Model and add some new particles!

Not statistically robust, but present in three different experiments.

Read more

Watch These Embryonic Stem Cells Morph Into Neurons.

UCSF researchers have developed a method to precisely control embryonic stem cell differentiation with light — transforming them into neurons in response to an external cue. The research also revealed an internal timer within stem cells which can ‘tune out’ regular biological noise, but trigger rapid transformation when there is a strong and persistent signal.

Read more

Two experts on robotics and machine learning will reveal breakthrough developments in humanlike robots and machine learning at the annual SXSW conference in Austin next March, in a proposed* panel called “The Holy Grail: Machine Learning + Extreme Robotics.”

Participants will interact with Hanson Robotics’ forthcoming state-of-the-art female Sophia robot as a participant on the panel as she spontaneously tracks human faces, listens to speech, and generates a natural-language response while participating in dialogue about the potential of genius machines.

This conversation on the future of advanced robotics combined with machine learning and cognitive science will feature visionary Hanson Robotics founder/CEO David Hanson and Microsoft executive Jim Kankanias, who heads Program Management for Information Management and Machine Learning in the Cloud + Enterprise Division at Microsoft. The panel will be moderated by Hanson Robotics consultant Eric Shuss.

Read more

Dubai has given the green light to yet another outrageous building project — a 4,000-acre complex of towers inspired by characters from Arabian Nights, including Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor.

“Aladdin City” will feature six towers, some designed to resemble Aladdin’s magic lamp, linked by air-conditioned bridges with moving walkways (magic carpets?).

Construction will begin next year, and although the total cost has yet to be revealed, Hussain Nasser Lootah, Director-General of Dubai Municipality, told the Future of Dubai website that it had the funds to finance the project.

Read more