Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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One of the worst environmental disasters of the decade is currently underway in a quiet community 25 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Putrid, methane-rich natural gas has been spewing into the air at an estimated rate of nearly 1,300 metric tons per day for over two months. Experts are calling it the climate version of the BP oil spill, and the leak isn’t going to be contained anytime soon.

Natural gas is often touted as a cleaner energy source than oil or coal, because of the lower greenhouse gas emissions associated with burning it. But as this disaster highlights, there are insidious risk to natural gas production. Coupled with weak regulation, they can make this energy source as dirty as the fossil fuels it’s meant to replace.

“The science is crystal clear: if you allow the methane to leak, you can wipe out its climate benefits,” Tim O’Connor, director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Oil and Gas Program in California told Gizmodo.

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While many people are looking back on pivotal events of 2015 — famous deaths, terrorism, and the horse and pony Republican presidential debates — a disturbing solar flare report is trending again.

Recently, the White House made preparations for unpredictable and severe space weather events. And much of the clamor focuses on the possibility of a catastrophic coronal mass ejection striking Earth, citing an AOL latest news story.

According to a Newsy video report (below), an intense solar flare narrowly missed a direct hit with Earth by a matter of days in 2012. NASA said an intense CME launched towards the planet at speeds of over 6 million miles per hour.

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My new article for Vice Motherboard. It’s about one of the biggest ideas I believe in–the necessity to spend more money directly on science goals instead of bomb making and defense:

It just so happens that there is another way—a method that would satisfy liberals and conservatives alike. Instead of always spending more on our military, we could transition our nation and its economy into a scientific-industrial complex.

There’s compelling reason to do this beyond what meets the eye. Transhumanist technology is starting to radically change human life. Many experts expect to be able to stop aging and conquer death for human beings in the next 25 years. Others, like myself, see humans merging with machines and replacing our every organ with bionic ones.

Such a new transhuman society will require many trillions of dollars to satisfy humans ever-growing desire for physical perfection (machine or biological) in the transhumanist age. We could keep our economy humming along for decades because of it.

Continue reading “We Must Cut the Military and Transition to a Science-Industrial Complex” | >

Speculations around whether biotech stocks are in a bubble remain undecided for the second year in a row. But one thing stands as indisputable—the field made massive progress during 2015, and faster than anticipated.

For those following the industry in recent years, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

In fact, according to Adam Feuerstei at The Street, some twenty-eight biotech and drugs stocks grew their market caps to $1 billion or more in 2014, and major headlines like, “Human Genome Sequencing Now Under $1,000 Per Person,” were strewn across the web last year.

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It’s been a short 20 years since Mayor and Queloz first detected 51 Peg b, the first exoplanet discovered around a solar type star. This is my personal take on this all; kind of takes me back. I can still smell the thyme at Haute-Provence.

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