Lifeboat Foundation

There’s a whole lot going on under the hood of the five images that dropped this week.

A team of researchers led by Virginia Tech’s Michael Bartlett have developed an octopus-inspired glove capable of securely gripping objects underwater. Their research was selected for the July 13 cover of Science Advances.

Humans aren’t naturally equipped to thrive in an underwater environment. We use tanks to breathe, neoprene suits to protect and warm our bodies, and goggles to see clearly. In such an environment, the human hand also is poorly equipped to hold onto things. Anyone who has tried to hold onto a wriggling fish will testify that underwater objects are difficult to grip with our land-dwelling fingers.

Continue reading “Underwater glove puts octopus’ abilities on the hand of humans” »

Desert Sun readers weigh in on possible engineering solutions to Western drought.

Automaker to release its MX-30 SUV equipped with the iconic motor later this year.

TOKYO — Mazda Motor is planning to revive its iconic rotary engine in a plug-in hybrid car by the end of this year as it attempts to simultaneously please fans and cope with tougher environmental rules in its main markets, such as Europe.

In short, we’re buying so much stuff that it’s becoming hard to get that stuff where it needs to be without undue negative impacts on infrastructure, transit networks, traffic, and ultimately, quality of life. People aren’t going to stop buying stuff, so how can we plan for a future where there’s more stuff being moved and our streets aren’t overwhelmingly clogged with semis and delivery vans (and the polluting emissions that come with them)?

A Swiss company has an idea—one that’s pretty original, a bit wacky, and maybe excessive. Or maybe it’s brilliant; you be the judge.

Continue reading “Swiss Company to Build an Intercity Network of Tunnels for Robotic Cargo Pods” »

The daily figure in Tokyo grew by 8,537 from a week earlier to 16,878, marking a week-on-week increase for the 26th straight day.

Nearly two-and-a-half years since the coronavirus pandemic began, the most infectious and transmissible variant yet has arrived.

Repeated Covid-19 waves have left millions of people dead, with only vaccines helping to blunt the toll. Now the virus is spreading again — evolving, escaping immunity and driving an uptick in cases and hospitalizations. The latest version of its shape-shifting, BA.5, is a clear sign that the pandemic is far from over.

The newest offshoot of Omicron, along with a closely related variant, BA.4, are fueling a global surge in cases — 30% over the past fortnight, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Urban air mobility (UAM) company HT Aero continues to make progress toward the “flying car” it has promised to deliver by 2024. XPeng Huitian (aka HT Aero) recently posted a video to Weibo demonstrating an eVTOL prototype taking off, flying around, and being maneuvered like a car. It has the XPeng Motors steering wheel and everything – check it out.

HT Aero is the rebranded name of XPeng Huitian, a majority-owned entity of XPeng Inc. and founder He Xiaopeng. Since its foundation in 2013, HT Aero has conducted over 15,000 safely manned flights with the goal of combining automotive and aerospace technologies to develop safe, domestic electric flying vehicles at scale.

Continue reading “Watch XPeng’s latest video of an HT Aero eVTOL that you drive like a flying car” »

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said today that infections have been detected in 58 countries. Our World in Data lists 7,075 confirmed cases worldwide.

Testing is a challenge

“Testing remains a challenge, and it’s highly probable that there are a significant number of cases not being picked up,” he warned during a speech. “I plan to reconvene the Emergency Committee so they are updated on the current epidemiology and evolution of the outbreak, and implementation of counter measures.”