Lifeboat Foundation

Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction author and futurist, crossed paths with the scientists of the Bell System on numerous occasions. In 1945, he concurrently, but independently, conceived of the first concept for a communications satellite at the same time as Bell Labs scientist, John Robinson Pierce too, was a science fiction writer. To avoid any conflict with his day job at Bell Labs, Pierce published his stories under the pseudonym J.J. Coupling.

In the early 1960s, Clarke visited Pierce at Bell Labs. During his visit, Clarke saw and heard the voice synthesis experiments going on at the labs by John L. Kelly and Max Mathews, including Mathews’ computer vocal version of “Bicycle Built for Two”. Clarke later incorporated this singing computer into the climactic scene in the screenplay for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the computer HAL9000 sings the same song. According to Bob Lucky, another Bell Labs scientist, on the same visit, Clarke also saw an early Picturephone, and incorporated that into 2001 as well.

Continue reading “Interview with author/futurist Arthur C. Clarke, from an AT&T-MIT Conference, 1976” »

Many of the protein shapes are from organisms that are completely unknown to science.

Ukraine’s president says he wants to start raising funds to buy “a whole fleet of sea drones.” Kyiv used sea drones to attack the Russian Black Sea fleet in the end of October, and according to the Ukrainian military, they hit three Russian warships.

Meanwhile, for weeks now the Russian military has been flying explosive-laden “Iranian drones” into critical Ukrainian infrastructure facilities and residential areas. Although British intelligence says most of the drones are now intercepted by air defenses, a third still reach their targets. Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has said the Russians use “20 to 30 Iranian ‘kamikaze’ drones’” every day.

Continue reading “‘Drone warfare’ a game changer in Ukraine? I DW News” »

Money transfer features are a “high priority” for the team.

This chart shows revenue growth for selected tech companies in the first nine months of 2021.

Our start-up on its way to a scale-up is looking for new team members.

Plant-e, founded in 2013, generates electricity with living plants and is the only known company in the world that generates carbon-negative electricity. It doesn’t get any more sustainable than this!

Spark of Nature. It is Plant-e’s mission to provide a high-tech, nature-based solution by generating electricity with living plants.

face_with_colon_three circa 2017.

For decades, scientists have sought to create red blood cells in the lab – a “holy grail” that some hoped could ease regional blood shortages, especially for people with rare blood types.

But now British researchers say they have overcome a major barrier that has plagued many scientists: creating enough red cells to fill a blood bag. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

Continue reading “Using stem cells to create an endless supply of blood” »

face_with_colon_three circa 2017.

Chinese scientists have successfully sent information between entangled particles through sea water, the first time this type of quantum communication has been achieved underwater.

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have discovered the missing puzzle piece in the mystery of how melanoma tumors control their mortality.

In a paper published in Science this week, Jonathan Alder, Ph.D. and his team describe how they discovered the perfect combination of genetic alterations that tumors use to promote explosive growth and prevent their own demise, a development that could change the way oncologists understand and treat melanoma.

“We did something that was, in essence, obvious based on previous basic research and connected back to something that is happening in patients,” said Alder, assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at Pitt’s School of Medicine.