Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers say they were inspired by living things from trees to shellfish.

They were inspired by living things, from trees to shellfish. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin set their collective advanced minds on creating a plastic that would mimic real life. It would be like many life forms that are soft and stretchy in some places and hard and rigid in others.

Their success, a first ever, using only light and a catalyst to change the properties such as hardness and elasticity in molecules of the same type. The resulting material is ten times stronger than natural rubber and could very well change flexibility of electronics and robotics.

Continue reading “Scientists develop ‘smart plastic’ that changes its form from soft to hard in sunlight” »

Bill Gates founded Breakthrough Energy and has recently announced that its first Catalyst project funding will come in the form of a $50 million grant to LanzaJet’s Freedom Pines Fuels sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plant in Soperton, Georgia.

Breakthrough Energy Catalyst is a unique program that brings together businesses and nonprofits to fund key first-of-its-kind commercial-scale projects that speed up the deployment of essential technologies.

Researchers created an artificial intelligence process that determines when and where wildfires will occur.

Wildfires have caused extreme fire damages across the globe, along with many deaths. It is significant to know when wildfires are spreading, and where, to prevent loss of life. Realizing this important information in advance is key. Forecasting wildfire danger can be a difficult task because of the complexity involving climate system, interactions with vegetation and socio-economic components.

Currently, available information for widespread fires only provides limited data and information.

Continue reading “A newly developed AI-based method can accurately predict wildfires” »

They also discovered the earliest proof of the moment when the planet’s magnetic poles switched places.

The Earth’s crust was pushing and tugging like present plate tectonics at least 3.25 billion years ago, according to new research published today (Oct .24) in PNAS, which examined fragments of the most ancient rocks on the planet.

The research also offers the oldest evidence of the moment when the planet’s magnetic north and south poles switched places.

Continue reading “Harvard scientists find proof that Earth’s plate tectonics date back at least 3.25 billion years ago” »

Just in time for Halloween’s spooky season, a quantum sensor now has double the spookiness by combining entanglement between atoms and delocalization of atoms.

Future quantum sensors will be able to provide more precise navigation, explore for needed natural resources, more precisely determine fundamental constants, look more precisely for dark matter, or maybe someday discover gravitational waves thanks to a team of researchers led by Fellow James K. Thompson from the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Thompson and his team have for the first time successfully combined two of the “spookiest” features of quantum mechanics: entanglement between atoms and delocalization of atoms. By doubling down on these “spooky” features, better quantum sensors can be made.

Continue reading “In a world first, researchers combine two of the ‘spookiest’ features of quantum mechanics” »

“The project has certainly been a rewarding exercise in bringing art and science together.”

The magnetic signals from the ESA’s Swarm satellite project were turned into sound by researchers at the Technical University of Denmark. The outcome is quite thrilling for something that is supposed to protect us.

“The team used data from ESA’s Swarm satellites and other sources and used these magnetic signals to manipulate and control a sonic representation of the core field. The project has certainly been a rewarding exercise in bringing art and science together,” musician and project supporter Klaus Nielsen, from the Technical University of Denmark, explained the project in the ESA’s release. team used data from ESA’s Swarm satellites and other sources and used these magnetic signals to manipulate and control a sonic representation of the core field. The project has certainly been a rewarding exercise in bringing art and science together,” musician and project supporter Klaus Nielsen, from the Technical University of Denmark, explained the project in the ESA’s release.

The ongoing saga between Elon Musk and Twitter is set to come to an end this week as he needs to finalize the purchase by October 28th, 2022.

The latest update on Elon Musk’s plan to buy Twitter is that this week could be a turning point. It may even see the deal finally sealed.

Continue reading “Elon Musk’s Twitter deal may be finalized this week. Here’s what to expect” »

Put horror movies and games aside for a few minutes to listen to something truly unsettling this Halloween season. The has released audio of what our planet’s magnetic field sounds like. While it protects us from cosmic radiation and charged particles from solar winds, it turns out that the magnetic field has an unnerving rumble.

You can’t exactly point a microphone at the sky and hear the magnetic field (nor can we see it). Scientists from the Technical University of Denmark collected by the ESA’s three Swarm satellites into sound, representing both the magnetic field and a solar storm.

Continue reading “Listen to the eerie sounds of a solar storm hitting the Earth’s magnetic field” »

Our immune system is the first line of defense against disease, but unfortunately it can go rogue and attack healthy tissues. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have now engineered a protein that may help prevent these autoimmune diseases by boosting the number of regulatory T cells (Tregs).

The immune system keeps a vigilant watch over our bodies at all times, tagging and destroying foreign pathogens or problematic cells to prevent illness. However, sometimes it can get a little overzealous and start attacking the body’s own cells, which can trigger a range of autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

To prevent these issues from arising, immune cells called Tregs play the vital role of keeping the immune system responses in check, but they can fail at this job. So for the new study, the researchers set out to boost their numbers, following previous studies that have shown promise in doing so to help treat autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease.