Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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“Modern satellite technology will allow us to explore our celestial backyard.”

The University of Sydney and Bulgarian aerospace manufacturer EnduroSat have teamed up to search for alien life in our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri.

The plan for the TOLIMAN mission is to search for planets in the habitable zone around two Sun-like stars in the system, Alpha Centauri A and B, which are located four light-years from Earth.

ESA

The new mission was dubbed TOLIMAN after the star’s ancient Arabic name. It was backed by Breakthrough Initiatives, which is also responsible for a mission that aims to one day send a light sail probe to the star system.

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Engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas marked a significant advancement in their field by completing a successful test flight of an electric motor drive on a hybrid electric aircraft, according to a university release.

The project may have a substantial impact on the aeronautics sector and have enormously positive effects on environmental quality.

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Explorer will take road trips in its stride, with charging from 10–80 per cent in 25 minutes.

U.S.-based carmaker Ford has announced its new all-electric Explorer, the first of many EVs to come from the company as part of the company’s rebranding in Europe, according to a press release.

The vehicle seats five across two rows and offers ample storage space of around 470 liters in five-seat mode, making it perfect for exploring cities and beyond.

Ford.

The mid-sized crossover is designed to set families off on their next adventure, with an aerodynamic exterior that reflects the iconic American SUV and a bold “shield” design that takes the place of a traditional grille.

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Food tech startup Farther Farms has developed a process that keeps foods that would normally need to be refrigerated or frozen fresh at room temperature — and their first product is a bag of shelf-stable French fries.

The cold chain: Microorganisms are a major cause of food spoilage, and they thrive at room temperature. By keeping some foods cold, we can slow the growth of these microbes, extending the life of the food.

To do that, the foods must be prepared, shipped, and stored along a temperature-controlled supply chain (a “cold chain”). If the cold chain is broken at any point along the way, the food may quickly become unsafe to eat.

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Unfortunately for the field of cosmology, there is only one universe. This makes performing experiments in the same way as other scientific fields quite a challenge. But it turns out that the universe and the quantum fields that permeate it are highly analogous to quantum fluids like Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), at least from a mathematical point of view. These fluids can be the subject of experiments, allowing cosmology to be studied in the lab.

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In a paper published in Nature, researchers at Heidelberg University in Germany have for the first time used a BEC to simulate an expanding universe and certain quantum fields within it. This allows for the study of important cosmological scenarios. Not only is the universe currently expanding, but it is believed that in the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang it underwent a period of extremely rapid expansion known as “inflation.” This process would have expanded the microscopic fluctuations of quantum fields in the early universe to the size of galaxy clusters, seeding the large-scale structure of our universe today.

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Scientists in the US managed to put together a living computer by cultivating over 80,000 mouse stem cells (opens in new tab) (via IT Home) (opens in new tab). One day, the hope is to have a robot that uses living muscle tissue to sense and process information about its environment.

Researchers at the University of Illinois have used tens of thousands of living mouse brain cells to build a computer that can recognize patterns of light and electricity. The team presented their findings at the American Institute of Physics in the form of a computer about the size of your palm.

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