Lifeboat Foundation

COVID-19 facemasks & marine plastic pollution.

Our oceans will be flooded with an estimated 1.56 billion face masks in 2020 says a report released today by Hong-Kong-based marine conservation organization OceansAsia. This will result in an additional 4,680 to 6,240 metric tonnes of marine plastic pollution, says the report, entitled “Masks on the Beach: The Impact of COVID-19 on Marine Plastic Pollution.” These masks will take as long as 450 years to break down, slowly turning into micro plastics while negatively impacting marine wildlife and ecosystems.

The report used a global production estimate of 52 billion masks being manufactured in 2020, a conservative loss rate of 3%, and the average weight of 3 to 4 grams for a single-use polypropylene surgical face mask to arrive at the estimate.

Continue reading “Estimated 1.56 billion face masks will have entered oceans in 2020” »

Reading the time on an analogue clock is surprisingly difficult for computers, but artificial intelligence can now do so accurately using a method that had previously proved tricky to deploy.

Computer vision has long been able to read the time from digital clocks by simply looking at the numbers on the screen. But analogue clocks are much more challenging because of factors including variation in their design and the way shadows and reflections can obscure the hands.

MX Linux 21 AHS is finally available with Linux Kernel 5.14 and updated open-source graphics stack. But, is it for everyone?

MX Linux 21 was officially unveiled last month while introducing a new Fluxbox edition. However, the Advanced Hardware Support (AHS) ISO was not a part of it.

Recently, MX Linux announced the availability of MX Linux 21 AHS and a new AHS repo for existing MX Linux 21 users.

Continue reading “MX Linux has Released a New Edition for Newer Hardware” »

Microsoft’s Tutel library, now available in open source, optimizes the training of mixture of experts machine learning systems.

Scientists in South Africa are warning of a new strain of COVID-19. The variant — which is yet to be named — appears to have a high number of mutations. That is of concern, because there’s a possibility it could be able to evade our immune response and be even more transmissible. South Africa has called for an emergency meeting of the World Health Organization to discuss this new variant.

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Continue reading “New COVID-19 variant discovered in South Africa | DW News” »

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Scientists have discovered a new route to produce complex antibiotics exploiting gene editing to re-program pathways to future medicines urgently required to combat antimicrobial resistance, treat neglected diseases and tackle future pandemics.

Researchers from The University of Manchester have discovered a new way of manipulating key assembly line enzymes in bacteria which could pave the way for a new generation of antibiotic treatments.

New research published today in Nature Communications, describes how CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can be used to create new nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) enzymes that deliver clinically important antibiotics. NRPS enzymes are prolific producers of natural antibiotics such as penicillin. However, up until now, manipulating these complex enzymes to produce new and more effective antibiotics has been a major challenge.

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World Economic Forum.

The gigantic roof regulates heat and light, drawing on ancient Mayan design.

Continue reading “This is what buildings of the future will look like: and 5 ways to get there” »

After finding a mysterious indestructible rock in 2015, Hole’s rock has finally been carbon-dated to roughly 100–1,000 years old meteorite.