Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 12068

There are some very inexpensive ways of testing human effects of spinning motions and artificial gravity in space. We could probably do our first tethre based experiments, and our first short arm centrifuge experiments in space as well, within a year or two of deciding that this is a priority project.

But as for building such a module — it would be expensive to do the module — depending how it works. But not impossibly so. They actually had an idea to do this, the Nautilus X ISS demo, costed as between $83 million and $143 million at the time (2011) and requiring three years to develop, so if they had started then, it would be in space by now:

Read more

UC San Diego is establishing a robotics institute aimed at developing machines that can interpret such things as facial expressions and walking styles and size up people’s thoughts, actions and feelings.

The See-Think-Do technology is largely meant to anticipate and fulfill people’s everyday needs, especially for the growing number of older Americans who want to remain in their own homes instead of moving into an assisted-living facility or nursing home.

Engineers also envision creating robots so good at sizing up people, places and situations that they could help evacuate crowds from dangerous areas and pick through the rubble of an earthquake in search of survivors.

Read more

Forty-eight scientists from 50 institutions in the U.S. have formed the Unified Microbiome Initiative Consortium (UMIC). The scientists envision a coordinated effort spanning national cross-institutional and cross-governmental agency support with the goal of driving forward cutting-edge microbiome research, enabling breakthrough advances in medicine, ecosystem management, sustainable energy, and production of commodities. Their proposal was published online in the journal Science on Oct. 28.

Read more

Black holes have long captured the public imagination and been the subject of popular culture, from Star Trek to Hollywood. They are the ultimate unknown – the blackest and most dense objects in the universe that do not even let light escape. And as if they weren’t bizarre enough to begin with, now add this to the mix: they don’t exist.

By merging two seemingly conflicting theories, Laura Mersini-Houghton, a physics professor at UNC-Chapel Hill in the College of Arts and Sciences, has proven, mathematically, that can never come into being in the first place. The work not only forces scientists to reimagine the fabric of space-time, but also rethink the origins of the universe.

“I’m still not over the shock,” said Mersini-Houghton. “We’ve been studying this problem for a more than 50 years and this solution gives us a lot to think about.”

Read more

In the Holy Bible, Jesus Christ taught us how to attain eternal life. In John 6:71, for example, Jesus Christ said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

A Russian scientist, however, believes that he can have eternal life through the power of science, more specifically through the power of 3.5-million-year-old bacteria.

Read more

To critics, it’s flat-out junk science, not even worth thinking about. But its inventor, Roger Shawyer, has doggedly continued his work. As Danger Room reported last year, Chinese scientists claimed to validate his math and were building their own version.

Shawyer gave a presentation earlier this week on the Emdrive’s progress at the CEAS 2009 European Air & Space Conference. It answered few questions, but hinted at how the Emdrive might transform spaceflight — and warfare. If the technology works, that is.

The heart of the Emdrive is a resonant, tapered cavity filled with microwaves. According to Shawyer, a relativistic effect generates a net thrust, an effect confirmed by various Emdrives he has built as demonstrations. Critics say that any thrust from the drive must come from another source. Shawyer is adamant that the measured thrust is not caused by other factors.

Read more