Lifeboat Foundation

Housing the world’s rapidly-growing population will require massive urban expansion and lots of concrete and steel, but these materials have a huge carbon footprint. A shift to building cities out of wood could avoid more than 100 billion tons of CO₂ emissions, according to a new study.

Replacing reinforced concrete with timber might sound unwise, but innovations in engineered wood mean it’s now feasible to construct multi-story buildings without traditional materials. So-called “mass timber” is increasingly being used for structural and load-bearing elements in mid-rise developments, which refers to buildings between 4 and 12 stories high.

One of the main selling points of mass timber is that it’s much less carbon-intensive than steel and cement. In theory it’s actually carbon negative, because trees absorb CO₂ in the process of producing wood. But question marks have remained over exactly how much more climate-friendly wood-based construction is, and what impact demand for timber could have on the environment.

“Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both,” he tweeted. “Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice.”

Galadriel is one of the female stars of the show.

Amazon has invested $1 billion in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” series inspired by the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, and former company executives told Insider the company will use the show to determine if Amazon Studios is a worthwhile venture for the company.

After NASA scrubbed it’s uncrewed Artemis 1 mission due to hydrogen leakage problem, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shares a possible solution.

On Saturday, NASA called off Artemis 1 launch because of Hydrogen leakage. Engineers spent around 3 hours to fix the problem but ultimately failed and the launch was cancelled. The current launch window will close on Tuesday and if NASA failed to fix the problem before that then they have to wait until late September or early October for launch.

NASA said “Because of the complex orbital mechanics involved in launching to the Moon, we would have had to launch Artemis I by Tuesday, Sept. 6 as part of the current launch period”.

Check out the math & physics courses that I mentioned (many of which are free!) and support this channel by going to https://brilliant.org/Sabine/ where you can create your Brilliant account. The first 200 will get 20% off the annual premium subscription.

Einstein’s theory of general relativity has made countless correct predictions and yet physicists are constantly trying to prove it wrong. Why? What would it be good for to prove Einstein wrong? And how could it be done? In this video I go through the most promising experiments that physicists currently work on which could prove Einstein wrong.

Continue reading “These Experiments Could Prove Einstein Wrong” »

Hydrogen has huge potential as a clean fuel: it’s abundant (mainly in compounds like water), it doesn’t produce any damaging emissions, and it can also be used to store energy from solar, wind, and tidal sources.

There are challenges in producing enough of the stuff in a practical and affordable way, however. Splitting hydrogen from water can require complicated technology and also relies on pure freshwater – not something that’s plentifully available everywhere.

Now, scientists have come up with a new prototype device that can harvest water from humid air, before splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen.

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Glioblastoma is one of the most aggressive types of brain cancer known to man. For many, the chance of survival is often low. However, a new type of brain tumor therapy could help change things for the better. The therapy, which relies on destroying the “power source” of the cancer, has shown considerable success in mice. The scientists are hopeful it will work the same in humans.

The new therapy hopes to destroy the “power source” of glioblastoma tumors. A new study led by Israeli scientists shows that glioblastoma relies on specific brain cells to fuel the growth of its tumors. As a result, scientists began to look at ways to treat cancer by removing those cells instead. The new brain tumor therapy could completely starve out the cancer cells, allowing patients to enter remission.

Normally doctors would use chemotherapy to target the tumors directly. However, by removing brain cells called Astrocytes, scientists found they could starve out glioblastoma tumors in mice. Further, the tumors remained gone for as long as the astrocytes were repressed. And, even when they stopped suppressing, Dr. Lior Mayo, lead author on the study, says that 85 percent of mice stayed in remission.

According to the researcher, the same technology could be applied to beetles and cicadas as well.

It’s a fun and futuristic vision: an army of remotely controlled cyborg insects that can infiltrate hard to reach locations or monitor crops.

But scientists will have to advance the tech carefully — nobody wants to risk a cyborg cockroach uprising.

For now it tracks down the floral scents that a moth would love, but engineers hope it could help find gas leaks.