Lifeboat Foundation

Racing closer to the Sun than ever before, the Parker Solar Probe is unlocking the secrets of our solar system’s fiery heart.

NASAs Parker Solar Probe has successfully transmitted a beacon signal back to Earth, confirming it is in good health and functioning normally after its record-breaking close approach to the Sun.

The mission operations team at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, received the signal just before midnight EST on December 26. During its closest approach on December 24, the spacecraft traveled at an astonishing 430,000 miles per hour and came within 3.8 million miles of the Sun’s surface, making it the closest any human-made object has ever been to our star.

An international team of scientists, led by Dr. Lukas Bruder, a junior research group leader at the University of Freiburg’s Institute of Physics, has successfully created and controlled hybrid electron-photon quantum states in helium atoms.

The team accomplished this by generating specially designed, highly intense extreme ultraviolet light pulses using the FERMI free electron laser in Trieste, Italy. By employing an innovative laser pulse-shaping technique, they were able to precisely control these hybrid quantum states. The groundbreaking findings have been published in Nature.

Super saturday 1: productive day at the OEC!

Our inaugural Super Saturday session kicked off on a high note! Emmanuel showcased his handyman skills by expertly fixing two fluctuating lights at the Ogba Educational Clinic (OEC).

Special thanks to Mr. Kevin for his support in purchasing the necessary parts, including the choke, which made the repair possible.

Continue reading “OpenAI Outlines New For-Profit Structure In Bid To Stay Ahead In Costly AI Race” »

Long gone are the days where all our data could fit on a two-megabyte floppy disk. In today’s information-based society, the increasing volume of information being handled demands that we switch to memory options with the lowest power consumption and highest capacity possible.

Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) is part of the next generation of storage devices expected to meet these needs. Researchers at the Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR) investigated a cobalt-manganese-iron alloy thin film that demonstrates a high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA)—key aspects for fabricating MRAM devices using spintronics.

The findings were published in Science and Technology of Advanced Materials on November 13, 2024.

Researchers from Kyushu University have developed an innovative technique to non-invasively measure two key signals, membrane voltage and intracellular calcium levels, at the same time, in neurons of awake animals. This new method offers a more complete understanding of how neurons function, revealing that these two signals encode different information for sensory stimuli. The research was published in Communications Biology on September 16, 2024.

Neurons are cells that act as the brain’s fundamental building blocks, transmitting information through electrical signals. When a neuron receives a stimulus, changes in membrane voltage (the electrical charge across the neuron cell membrane) trigger the neuron to activate, causing rapid changes in membrane voltage to propagate along the neuron as an electrical signal. These changes in membrane voltage then lead to changes in intracellular calcium (calcium levels inside neurons).

Historically, measuring membrane voltage has involved invasive techniques using electrodes. As a non-invasive alternative, scientists have developed techniques to measure calcium activity using fluorescent proteins that are sensitive to calcium ions as sensors, providing an indirect proxy for neuron activity. However, these different methods mean that the two signals have almost always been studied separately, making it challenging to understand how they interact in real-time and to identify their distinct functions in living animals.

The two professions associated with the lowest levels of death due to Alzheimer’s disease may be surprising.

Taxi and ambulance drivers were found to have the lowest proportion of deaths of more than 440 occupations that were considered in a new observation-based study from Massachusetts physicians.

Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia that affects memory, thinking, and behavior. It impacts millions of Americans and is one of the top 10 causes of death in the US.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) presents myriad opportunities for integrity actors—anti-corruption agencies, supreme audit institutions, internal audit bodies and others—to enhance the impact of their work, particularly through the use of large language models (LLMS). As this type of AI becomes increasingly mainstream, it is critical for integrity actors to understand both where generative AI and LLMs can add the most value and the risks they pose. To advance this understanding, this paper draws on input from the OECD integrity and anti-corruption communities and provides a snapshot of the ways these bodies are using generative AI and LLMs, the challenges they face, and the insights these experiences offer to similar bodies in other countries. The paper also explores key considerations for integrity actors to ensure trustworthy AI systems and responsible use of AI as their capacities in this area develop.

Although this might look like a sci-fi film prop, the Segway Apex H2 is nothing of the sort. It’s a prototype version of the render-only H2 concept first shown earlier this year, and it’s now been given a remarkably affordable price tag — 69,999 Chinese Yuan, which is about £8,000. So, it’s a little less than the recently launched Yamaha R7.

The H2 isn’t powered by anything as ordinary as a parallel twin combustion engine, however. It has two power sources — a hydrogen fuel cell and a battery pack. Technical details are still thin on the ground, but we do at least know it produces 60kW (just under 80bhp) and will crack 62mph in around four seconds, topping out at 93mph. It’ll consume a gram of hydrogen for every kilometre it covers.

Segway has revealed the prototype version of its Apex H2, and it appears to have changed little from the concept.

Continue reading “The Segway Apex H2 Is A Hydrogen Sports Bike That’ll Cost Only £8k” »

1 million plus cases of influenza in Japan this year. This needs to be investigated as it could cause another major pandemic.

Influenza is on the rise across Japan, with weekly case counts increasing in all 47 prefectures.

The National Institute of Infectious Diseases and other organizations say about 5,000 hospitals and clinics across the country reported seeing 211,049 flu patients in the seven-day period up to December 22.

Continue reading “Influenza cases on rise across Japan” »