Lifeboat Foundation

Steven PostrelIrwin Allen called…

When producer Irwin Allen’s popular television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea debuted its second season on ABC in September, 1965, viewers would note some exciting changes and additions to the show. Voyage was now broadcast in color, the nuclear submarine Seaview had been modified into a sleeker, four-windowed look, and the show would feature an important new star: the Flying Sub, a vehicle that flies through the air at incredible speeds and submerges to travel underwater at great depths.

The Flying Sub (also referred to as the FS-1) quickly became a signature element of the show, featured in almost every episode not only as a quick transport from the Seaview to land, but as an underwater exploration and defense vehicle that could dock at underwater research laboratories or on other submarines, and do battle with the menagerie of undersea monsters that threatened the Seaview. With its upswept, manta ray-like shape, vivid yellow-and-blue paint scheme, twin stabilizer fins, upper and lower hatches, gleaming headlights and the large forward windows that allowed viewers to actually see Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane (or at least miniature figures of them) at the controls of the craft, the Flying Sub became one of the most familiar and unique sights on ABC television in the 1960s, adding action and excitement to a TV show already overflowing with visual wonders.

Continue reading “Flying Sub Deluxe Edition” »

Using a robot confined to a sphere, scientists have proven bodies can move freely in curved spaces without pushing against anything.

The sad truth is that our electricity markets currently lack the ability to accept the vast amounts of renewable energy capacity to meet state targets and corporate commitments to procure clean energy. A study by Princeton University found that high-voltage transmission capacity would need to expand by 60% to meet clean energy targets, representing billions of dollars in needed utility upgrades.

However, we can avoid much of this need by siting renewable resources closer to where they are needed – at the distribution level of the grid. In order to do so, we will need to take several key steps to solve major system barriers to expanding renewable energy on the grid. The good news is that with some policy improvements – some major and some minor – renewable energy capacity at the distribution level can meet needs without the long lead time required for larger, utility-scale resources.

The two spiral galaxies are about 60 million light-years from Earth.

Astronomers at the Gemini North telescope in Hawai’i have released a stunning image that shows two spiral galaxies in the process of colliding and merging.

The clashing galaxies NGC 4,568 and NGC 4,567 — also known as the Butterfly galaxies due to the dual-lobed shape their interaction causes — are located 60 million light-years away from Earth in the Virgo Cluster and will form a brand new elliptical galaxy in around 500 million years, according to a statement from NOIRLab, which operates the Gemini North telescope.

A recent “gigantic jet” of lighting shot up 50 miles into space, a phenomenon that scientists are just beginning to understand.

A new black widow pulsar has been discovered eating its companion star while a third star circles the binary system.

A team of scientists obtained a magnificent photograph of a faraway galaxy, reminding us all how little we are in the grand scheme of things.

This monster galaxy’ is around 12 billion light-years away from Earth and produces new stars 1,000 times faster than our own Milky Way galaxy.

Scientists utilized the £1.1 billion ALMA Observatory in Chile to capture views of the galaxy with a resolution ten times better than any previous attempt, naming it ‘COSMOS-AzTEC-1.’

Stephen Hawking’s suggestion that black holes “leak” radiation left physicists with a problem they have been attempting to solve for 51 years.

In what is arguably his most significant contribution to science, Stephen Hawking suggested that black holes can leak a form of radiation that causes them to gradually ebb away, and eventually end their lives in a massive explosive event.

This radiation 0, later called “Hawking radiation,” inadvertently causes a problem at the intersection of general relativity and quantum physics — the former being the best description we have of gravity and the universe on cosmically massive scales, while the latter is the most robust model of the physics that governs the very small.

Continue reading “What Happens When Black Holes Die?” »

On Sunday, Earth’s magnetic field was pelted by a solar wind stream reaching velocities of more than 600 kilometers (372 miles) per second.

While that’s nothing too alarming – solar storms often pummel our planet triggering spectacular auroras – what is weird is that this storm was totally unexpected.

“This event was not in the forecast, so the resulting auroras came as a surprise,” SpaceWeather reported.