Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Four new astronauts are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on Saturday (March 2) as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission.

Crew-8, the eighth operational commercial crew mission for NASA, will lift off Saturday at 11:16 p.m. EST (0416 GMT on March 3) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida using the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft, situated atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The Crew Dragon spacecraft will then dock with the orbiting lab the following day around 2:10 p.m. EST (1910 GMT).

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Earth’s orbit is so populated that the space industry is now developing technologies to remove space debris caused by satellites from an over-crowded low Earth orbit (LEO).

One untapped orbit above Earth does exist, though. The so-called very low Earth orbit (VLEO) would allow satellites to fly in a less crowded space closer to home and take more detailed pictures of our planet.

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Roughly 4 billion years ago, Earth was developing conditions suitable for life. Origin-of-life scientists often wonder if the type of chemistry found on the early Earth was similar to what life requires today. They know that spherical collections of fats, called protocells, were the precursor to cells during this emergence of life. But how did simple protocells first arise and diversify to eventually lead to life on Earth?

Now, Scripps Research scientists have discovered one plausible pathway for how protocells may have first formed and chemically progressed to allow for a diversity of functions.

The findings, published online on February 29, 2024, in the journal Chem, suggest that a chemical process called phosphorylation (where are added to the molecule) may have occurred earlier than previously expected. This would lead to more structurally complex, double chained protocells capable of harboring chemical reactions and dividing with a diverse range of functionalities. By revealing how protocells formed, scientists can better understand how could have taken place.

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Why do I find this so alarming?

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is looking to fuse its artificial intelligence systems into the bodies of humanoid robots as part of a new deal with robotics startup Figure.

Sunnyvale, California-based Figure announced the partnership Thursday along with $675 million in venture capital funding from a group that includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as well as Microsoft, chipmaker Nvidia and the startup-funding divisions of Intel and OpenAI.

Figure is less than two years old and doesn’t have a commercial product but is persuading influential tech industry backers to support its vision of shipping billions of human-like robots to the world’s workplaces and homes.

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Researchers have found water vapor in the disk around a young star exactly where planets may be forming. Water is a key ingredient for life on Earth and is also thought to play a significant role in planet formation, yet until now, astronomers have never been able to map how water is distributed in a stable, cool disk—the type of disk that offers the most favorable conditions for planets to form around stars.

For the first time, astronomers have weighed the amount of water vapor around a typical planet-forming star.

The new findings were made possible thanks to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)—a collection of telescopes in the Chilean Atacama Desert. The University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics hosts the UK ALMA Regional Centre Node (UK ARC).

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Back in 2007, statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb described a “Black Swan” as an occurrence that “is an outlier,” meaning it deviates from accepted wisdom. Accordingly, black swans are unanticipated, and uncommon, and can result from geopolitical, economic, or other unanticipated occurrences.

Because of major advances in computing, we can now anticipate, and, with applied risk management, help contain what was described as Black Swan events. So, in effect, with predictive analytical capabilities enabled by artificial intelligence, most Black Swans have now morphed into what is now termed Grey Swan events.

An industry leader in the insurance sector, Aon, defines Black Swan events as unexpected, unanticipated shocks. They depict unexpected but predicted surprises that are known as “Grey Swan events.” Similar to Black Swans, they can have a profound effect.

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