Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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See why history may hang in the balance on this critical launch attempt.

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Continue reading “Starship Launch Set 8am 17 Apr 23 Historic Launch Attempt” | >

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Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord!
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We humans have always been explorers. The great civilizations that have arisen across the world are owed to our restless ancestors. These days, there’s not much of Earth left to explore. But if we look up, there’s a whole universe out there waiting for us. Future generations may one day explore the cosmos and even settle entire other galaxies. But there is a hard limit to how much of the universe we can expand into. So, how big can humanity get?

Episodes Referenced:
Is Interstellar Travel Possible?: https://youtu.be/wdP_UDSsuro.
What If Humanity Is Among The First Spacefaring Civilizations?: https://youtu.be/uTrFAY3LUNw.

The Edges of Our Universe by Toby Ord: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.01191.pdf.

Continue reading “Check Out Untold Earth on PBS Terra” | >

A tiny computer chip was implanted into seven mice at once

The implant created by the engineers at Columbia is record-breakingly small, but it’s also breaking new ground in simply existing as a wholly functional, electronic circuit whose total volume is less than 0.1 cubic millimeter. In other words, it’s the size of a dust mite, not to mention far more compact than the world’s smallest computer, which is a cube-shaped device precisely 0.01-inches (0.3 mm) on each side. The smaller, new chip is only visible with a microscope, and pushed the envelope in power-sourcing and communications ingenuity design.

Typically, small electronics feature radio frequency (RF) modules capable of transmitting and receiving electromagnetic signals, this method generates wavelengths too large to originate from devices as small as the new one. Alternatively, ultrasound wavelengths are far smaller at specific frequencies because the speed of sound is a lot slower than the speed of light at which all electromagnetic waves move. Consequently, the Colombia team of engineers integrated a piezoelectric transducer capable of functioning like an “antenna” for wireless communication and powering using ultrasound waves.

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Scientists looked more than 13 billion years into the past to discover a unique, minuscule galaxy that could help astronomers learn more about galaxies that were present shortly after the Big Bang.

A team of scientists led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe a very small galaxy that is more than 13 billion years old.

This galaxy created new stars at a very fast rate for its size. It is one of the smallest galaxies ever found at this distance (which is about 500 million years after the Big Bang).

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The universe began about 14 billion years ago with a single point that contained a vast array of fundamental particles, according to the prevailing theory known as the Big Bang. Under the pressure of extreme heat and energy, the point inflated and then expanded to become the universe as we know it. That expansion continues to this day.

Unlocking the mysteries of what happened in that first instant is a key subject of nuclear physics research. Rosi Reed, associate professor, and Anders Knospe, assistant professor―both in the Department of Physics―are on the leading edge of that research, probing the nature of that initial matter created, quark-gluon plasma, a fluid made up of subatomic particles. With support from the National Science Foundation, they have built a highly-specialized to measure aspects of the universe that have never before been measured.

Reed and Knospe are installing their event plane detector at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Ion Collider (RHIC) in Long Island, New York, one of only two operating particle collider facilities in existence. They are running experiments to forward their collaborative and individual research on the strong nuclear force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature, along with gravity, electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force. The strong force holds atomic nuclei together.

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Finally got around to reading through the Feng Zhang laboratory’s amazing SEND (Selective Endogenous ENcapsidation for cellular Delivery) paper!

[Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg6155] The authors describe a new gene therapy delivery vehicle which leverages virus-like particles (VLPs) originally produced within human cells. These VLPs arise from ancient retroviral genomic fragments that were integrated into the human genome long ago and eventually were utilized to benefit our own physiology. Because they are recognized as ‘self’ by the immune system, the VLPs have potential as a novel gene therapy delivery modality. In this paper, Segel et al.

Aera’s strategy is to harness these proteins, and structures, to move the cargo of genetic medicines: RNAi, antisense RNA, mRNA, or a genetic editing payload, for example. To date, proteins and nucleic acids have been packaged. The company’s first goal is to move smaller nucleic acids like ASOs and siRNA from cell to cell.

What is known about PNPs is “quite limited,” said Akinc. Their role in the human body is particularly opaque. The literature goes back only to 2018. They are called virus-like particles (VLPs) in the literature, but Aera thinks that PNP is a more technically accurate name.

Continue reading “Feng Zhang’s Delivery Platform Launched by Aera Therapeutics” | >