Lifeboat Foundation

This week, a new asteroid mining startup emerged from stealth mode.

Walmart announced an expansion to its drone delivery program that will offer $3.99 deliver fees on shipments of 10 pounds or less.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=sxrNd_Z_cIY

ETA Space is trying to solve one of the biggest problems with space travel. It might just have a solution.

In the early 2000s, scientists from the Human Genome Project announced a breakthrough: they had sequenced the complete human reference genome, including all three billion DNA letter, a scientific undertaking likened at the time to landing astronauts on the Moon.

While the reference genome has come under question as of late, with scientists adding more than two million additional variants, it still doesn’t take a whole lot of space to store the entire sequence on a traditional computer.

And now, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is once again weighing in on an issue outside his expertise, arguing that one could “fit the DNA sequences of all humans alive today in a fairly small data storage system” — a vaguely terrifying thought coming from the richest man in the world, as if he didn’t already have enough fires to put out and problems to solve.

Can quantum science supercharge genetics? | Jim Al-Khalili for Big Think.

This interview is an episode from The Well, our new publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.

Continue reading “What if quantum physics could eradicate illness? | Jim Al-Khalili for Big Think” »

War feels ‘a hundred times more irrational’ when viewed from space.

Satellite images taken from space have been vital in reporting on the war in Ukraine. They have even helped to debunk disinformation that has spread since the start of Russia’s invasion in late February.

While satellites — such as those used by Maxar Technologies to help document the war — are equipped with powerful cameras that can zoom into vast regions, it turns out the conflict is also visible to the naked eye from orbital space.

Continue reading “Ukraine’s crisis: 8 new satellite images reveal the devastation on the ground” »