Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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There was a flurry of activity towards the end of the year as large corporations look to establish local HQs. Other firms that have recently received such licenses are Airbus SE, Oracle Corp. and Pfizer Inc.

Saudi Arabia announced the new rules for state contracts in February 2021, saying it wanted to limit ‘economic leakage’ — a term used by the government for state spending that can benefit firms that don’t have a substantial presence in the country.

A key part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic agenda has been to limit some of the billions in spending by the government and Saudi citizens that leave the country each year. Government officials want to stop giving contracts to international firms who only fly executives in and out of the kingdom.

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The first functional semiconductor made from graphene has been created at the Georgia Institute of Technology. This could enable smaller and faster electronic devices and may have applications for quantum computing.

Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology.

Semiconductors, which are materials that conduct electricity under specific conditions, are foundational components of electronic devices like the chips in your computer, laptop, and smartphone. For many decades, their architecture has been getting smaller and more compact – a trend known as Moore’s Law. This has enabled gigantic leaps in a vast range of technologies, from general computing speeds and video game graphics, to the resolution of medical scans and the sensitivity of astronomical observatories.

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As a result, the company is now racing to make the most of the situation, though a full Moon landing is now sounding more or less impossible.

“We are currently assessing what alternative mission profiles may be feasible at this time,” the company wrote.

It’s a sad state of affairs. In the most recent update, the company shared the first photo the lander snapped in space, showing a creased layer of insulation, which may have contributed to the spacecraft’s ongoing issues.

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The therapy—developed at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC)—relies on both the immune system to fight key aspects of Alzheimer’s, plus modified cells that zero in on the brain protein plaques that are a hallmark of the disease.

In patients with Alzheimer’s, amyloid-beta protein forms plaques that prevent nerve cells from signaling each other. One theory is that this might cause irreversible memory loss and behavior changes characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.

The new study was recently published in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration. Researchers used genetically modified immune-controlling cells called Tregs to target amyloid-beta.

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There are very few animals as important to our world as honeybees. There is, of course, the delicious honey they produce, but they are also essential in maintaining food security and the biodiversity that is threatened by climate change and becoming our strongest natural defense against it.

But with the planet facing a -induced loss of , what happens when honeybees die?

New Northeastern University research, published in Communications Biology, aims to help address the impending biodiversity crisis. The researchers say they have found a new strategy for restoring lost biodiversity by, essentially, identifying the equivalent of a honeybee in different ecosystems and reintroducing it into a particular collapsing ecosystem.

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The Space Force announced Friday that it has given Microsoft a contract to continue work on a simulated environment where guardians can train, test new capabilities and interact with digital copies of objects in orbit.

Under the $19.8 million, one-year contract from Space Systems Command (SSC), Microsoft will develop the Integrated, Immersive, Intelligent Environment (I3E) — an augmented reality space simulation powered by the company’s HoloLens headsets. The training tool is a successor to the service’s Immersive Digital Facility (IDF) prototype developed in 2023, according to a press release.

The contract period began Dec. 1, and the deal includes a reserved scope for an additional three years of work, per the release.

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A new mysterious nonprofit group backed by the crypto industry has set up a mailing address about 100 miles away from Washington, D.C., and is making moves to exert power in the nation’s capital.

The Cedar Innovation Foundation, a 501©(4) that was incorporated in Delaware in April, has launched advertisements against at least one powerful lawmaker who’s up for reelection, and quietly hired a group of strategists to fight on its behalf, according to records uncovered by CNBC.

It’s part of a broader effort by the crypto industry to influence Congress ahead of the 2024 elections and as a variety of crypto-related bills begin to weave their way through Washington.

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