Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 4265

Newborns need to store vast amounts of new information quickly as they learn to navigate the world. Silent synapses – the immature connections between neurons that have no neurotransmitter activity yet – are thought to be the hardware that allow this rapid information storage to occur early in life.

First discovered decades ago in newborn mice, these potential neurological intersections were thought to disappear as the animals aged. A recent study by researchers from MIT in the US has found this vanishing act might not be as extreme as initially presumed.

The team hadn’t set out to look specifically at these potential connections. Rather, they were continuing previous work on the locations of nerve-cell extensions called dendrites.

Read more | >

The Second World War left many economies in tatters, yet, despite the carnage, some companies managed to thrive in the aftermath of the war.

World War II, like many other wars in history, was a time when a lot of new technology was made quickly. The war started with piston aircraft and ended with fighter planes, rockets, and nuclear weapons.

Aircraft are possibly the most emblematic of all the technology developed during this period. But of all the small and large companies involved in making planes for the war effort on all sides of the conflict, only a handful remained in business after the war’s end. But why? Vahlersvik/iStock.

Read more | >

The experiments were done to prove the effectiveness of 70mm rockets.

BAE Systems has tested its latest drone hunting missiles machine by conducting ground-to-air test firings, according to a press release by the company published on Tuesday.

Rockets fired from a containerized weapon system.

BAE Systems.

Continue reading “BAE Systems’ new drone-hunting missiles can take down unmanned aerial systems” | >

The facility will produce one car a week, to begin with.

Dutch company Lightyear, which has spent the last six years developing technologies to make the world’s first solar-powered electric vehicle has now entered a very important phase of its lifetime. Its first model, Lightyear 0 has now entered production, a company press release said.

As the world moves toward electric modes of transportation, new challenges are being thrown up. Unlike combustion engine-powered vehicles that can be refueled virtually anywhere and in no time, electric vehicles require dedicated charging infrastructure and time to charge the batteries.

Read more | >

The event is likened to the Chicxulub collision on Earth.

A study has found that the megatsunami that swept Mars around 3.4 billion years ago was caused by an asteroid strike on one of its oceans. The event is compared to the likes of the Chicxulub collision—which is believed to have wiped out dinosaurs from the face of the earth about 66 million years ago.

Researchers, led by Alexis Rodriguez of the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, have also suggested that NASA’s Viking 1 Lander, which was deployed on a mission to find evidence of life on Mars in 1976, could have landed near the crater of this megatsunami.

Michalz86/iStock shannonstent/iStock Dominic Jeanmaire/iStock.

Continue reading “Megatsunami on Mars linked to an asteroid strike 3.4 billion years ago” | >

They discovered that removing PLD3 from neurons using gene therapy resulted in a significant decrease in axonal swelling.

A study on Alzheimer’s published recently by Yale University is quite attention-grabbing. Because the disease’s crippling symptoms could be brought on by swelling in the brain brought on by amyloid plaques, say the experts.

One of the main features of Alzheimer’s is the formation of amyloid plaques. Researchers have been trying to shrink these plaques in their researchers for years. In addition, Yale researchers have found that swelling caused by a byproduct of these plaques may be the cause of the disease’s debilitating symptoms.

Read more | >

ChatGPT is remarkable. It’s a new AI model from OpenAI that’s designed to chat in a conversational manner. It’s also a liar. Stuck for ideas on what to talk to a machine about, I decided to interview ChatGPT about the ethics of AI. Would it have the level of self-awareness to be honest about its own dangers? Would it even be willing to answer questions on how it behaves?

Yes, it would. And while ChatGPT started off by being commendably upfront about the ethics of what it does, it eventually descended into telling outright lies. It even issued a non-apology for doing so.

An interview with the cutting-edge chatbot, ChatGPT, ends in a little white lie.

Read more | >

Saturn’s moon Titan is one of the weirdest and most intriguing worlds in our solar system. It is the only place we know of in the universe for sure beyond Earth that has rivers, lakes and larger bodies of liquid, but on Titan these features are filled with flammable hydrocarbons like methane and ethane.

Studying Titan in depth has been difficult due to a thick atmosphere of clouds and haze, but NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is giving scientists their first detailed glimpse of those clouds, and by extension, the weather patterns at work on this unique world.

“We had waited for years to use Webb’s infrared vision to study Titan’s atmosphere,” said JWST Principal Investigator Conor Nixon. “Detecting clouds is exciting because it validates long-held predictions from computer models about Titan’s climate, that clouds would form readily in the mid-northern hemisphere during its late summertime when the surface is warmed by the Sun.”

Read more | >

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii have together captured Saturn’s largest moon Titan in near-infrared.

The new images reveal clouds in the northern hemisphere near Kraken Mare, the largest known methane sea on the giant moon’s surface. Titan is the only other body in the solar system that has rivers, lakes and seas, though instead of water they flow with liquid methane and ethane. These hydrocarbons—as well as water and ammonia—also produce clouds and rain on the giant moon.

JWST’s image—from November 4, 2022 and published for the first time this week—revealed two clouds in the atmosphere, so scientists then pointed the largest optical telescope on Earth, the Keck Telescope, at Titan just 30 hours later to confirm their presence.

Read more | >

Gravity could be a leading cause of irritable bowel syndrome, along with increased serotonin levels and changes in the gut microbiome.

Approximately 20 to 40 percent of all visits to gastroenterologists are due to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms. The common disorder affects between 25 and 45 million people in the United States and up to ten percent of the world’s population, yet experts aren’t sure of how or why it develops.

However, there is no dearth of theories. While one explains that IBS is a gut-brain disorder, another theory states that IBS is caused by abnormalities in the gut microbiome.

Read more | >