Lifeboat Foundation

Though no one died in the accident, the catastrophe serves as a wake-up call to the potential for more deadly freight rail derailments, public health advocates warn. By one estimate, 25 million Americans live in an oil train blast zone, and had the derailment occurred just a few miles east, it would be burning in downtown Pittsburgh, with tens of thousands of residents in immediate danger.

Ineffective oversight and a largely self-monitoring industry that has cut the nation’s rail workforce to the bone in recent years as it puts record profits over safety is responsible for the wreck, said Ron Kaminkow, an Amtrak locomotive engineer and former Norfolk Southern freight engineer.

“The Palestine wreck is the tip of the iceberg and a red flag,” said Kaminkow, who is secretary for the Railroad Workers United, a non-profit labor group that coordinates with the nation’s rail unions. “If something is not done, then it’s going to get worse, and the next derailment could be cataclysmic.”

The official body charged with virus classification has released four new principles that bring order to the viral world. This provides a unified framework that will enable all viruses to be classified, something vitally needed as genome technologies continue to discover millions of new virus species.

Since the ancient civilizations of Greece and Egypt, humans have attempted to classify life on Earth by putting organisms into related groups to understand life and infer relationships.

This classification of life, or taxonomy, took a giant step forward in the 18th century when Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus established a hierarchical classification system that grouped organisms based on common characteristics. Significantly, he developed a Latin naming system that described each organism by group (genera) and specific name (species). Higher ranks brought related genera together into families, families into orders and so on through classes, phyla and kingdoms.

Engineers from Caltech have discovered that Leonardo da Vinci’s understanding of gravity—though not wholly accurate—was centuries ahead of his time.

In an article published in the journal Leonardo, the researchers draw upon a fresh look at one of da Vinci’s notebooks to show that the famed polymath had devised experiments to demonstrate that gravity is a form of acceleration—and that he further modeled the gravitational constant to around 97 percent accuracy.

Da Vinci, who lived from 1,452 to 1,519, was well ahead of the curve in exploring these concepts. It wasn’t until 1,604 that Galileo Galilei would theorize that the distance covered by a falling object was proportional to the square of time elapsed and not until the late 17th century that Sir Isaac Newton would expand on that to develop a law of universal gravitation, describing how objects are attracted to one another. Da Vinci’s primary hurdle was being limited by the tools at his disposal. For example, he lacked a means of precisely measuring time as objects fell.

If you ask it the right questions, ChatGPT represents an incredible resource and tool. And people noticed fast — within five days it gained over 1 million users, and now Microsoft is in talks for a potential $10 billion investment in the company.

As a reporter, the hype surrounding the AI tool intrigued me, and a colleague of mine said it’s journalism chops were convincing (though only if you didn’t squint too hard to notice articles were riddle with misinformation).

Knowing that ChatGPT’s database cut off in 2021, I asked it to write a stock market story about trading trends in 2020, and in less than one minute it spat out a 400-word story that mapped out S&P 500 moves, meme stocks, and shares that rallied during the early days of the pandemic.

face_with_colon_three year 2017 This is essentially a light based battery 🔋 😳

Device running on atoms, not electrons, could power atom-based circuits.

Researchers from The University of Queensland have discovered the active compound from an edible mushroom that boosts nerve growth and enhances memory.

Professor Frederic Meunier from the Queensland Brain Institute said the team had identified new active compounds from the mushroom, Hericium erinaceus. This type of edible mushroom, commonly known as the Lion’s Mane Mushroom, is native to North America, Europe, and Asia. It is commonly sought after for its unique flavor and texture, and it is also used in traditional Chinese medicine to boost the immune system and improve digestive health.

Researchers have discovered lion’s mane mushrooms improve brain cell growth and memory in pre-clinical trials.

Science fiction films love to show off huge leaps in technology. The latest Avatar movie features autonomous, spider-like robots that can build a whole city within weeks. There are space ships that can carry frozen passengers lightyears away from Earth. In James Cameron’s imagination, we can download our memories and then upload them into newly baked bodies. All this wildly advanced tech is controlled through touch-activated, transparent, monochrome and often blue holograms. Just like a thousand other futuristic interfaces in Hollywood.

When we are shown a glimpse of the far future through science fiction films, there are omnipresent voice assistants, otherworldly wearables, and a whole lot of holograms. For whatever reason these holograms are almost always blue, floating above desks and visible to anyone who might stroll by. This formula for futuristic UI has always baffled me, because as cool as it looks, it doesn’t seem super practical. And yet, Hollywood seems to have an obsession with imagining future worlds washed in blue light.

Continue reading “Why all of Hollywood UI looks the same” »

An international team of scientists has found a way to regenerate kidneys damaged by disease, restoring function and preventing kidney failure. The discovery could drastically improve treatments for complications stemming from diabetes and other diseases.

Diabetes causes many problems in the body, but one of the most prevalent is kidney disease. Extended periods of elevated blood sugar can damage nephrons, the tiny filtering units in the kidneys, which can lead to kidney dysfunction and eventually failure.

Continue reading “Scientists regenerate kidneys to reverse diabetes damage in mice” »

It’s a galaxy-eat-galaxy universe out there.

Astronomers used the motion of stars to reconstruct a galactic collision that happened 2 billion years ago at the nearest neighboring large galaxy.