Lifeboat Foundation

Antoine Galand, Director of Technology, GraphWear

Nanotechnology was once the stuff of science fiction, but today the concept of creating devices and machines that are several thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair is a well-established fact. The rise of nanotechnology has already transformed industries ranging from consumer electronics to textile manufacturing and cosmetics by unlocking new materials and processes at the nanoscale. The device you’re reading this on, for example, is only possible because of techniques adopted in the semiconductor industry that enable us to pattern silicon and metals to create the microscopic circuits and switches that are at the heart of modern computers.

One of the most promising applications of our newfound ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules is in healthcare, where the ability of doctors to treat disease has been hamstrung by relatively blunt “macro” solutions. The human body is a remarkably complex system where, fundamentally, nanoscale processes occurring inside cells are what determine whether we are sick or healthy. If we’re ever going to cure diseases like diabetes, cancer or Alzheimer’s, we need technologies that work at their scale. Although medical nanotechnologies are relatively new, they’re already impacting the way we diagnose, treat and prevent a broad range of diseases.

Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he’s got an answer: “536.” Not 1,349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults. But 536. In Europe, “It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year,” says McCormick, a historian and archaeologist who chairs the Harvard University Initiative for the Science of the Human Past.

A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. “For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year,” wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2,300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record “a failure of bread from the years 536–539.” Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, McCormick says.

Historians have long known that the middle of the sixth century was a dark hour in what used to be called the Dark Ages, but the source of the mysterious clouds has long been a puzzle. Now, an ultraprecise analysis of ice from a Swiss glacier by a team led by McCormick and glaciologist Paul Mayewski at the Climate Change Institute of The University of Maine (UM) in Orono has fingered a culprit. At a workshop at Harvard this week, the team reported that a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere early in 536. Two other massive eruptions followed, in 540 and 547. The repeated blows, followed by plague, plunged Europe into economic stagnation that lasted until 640, when another signal in the ice—a spike in airborne lead—marks a resurgence of silver mining, as the team reports in this week.

Studies of dense carbon materials formed by bolide impacts or produced by laboratory compression provide key information on the high-pressure behavior of carbon and for identifying and designing unique structures for technological applications. However, a major obstacle to studying and designing these materials is an incomplete understanding of their fundamental structures. Here, we report the remarkable structural diversity of cubic/hexagonally (c/h) stacked diamond and their association with diamond-graphite nanocomposites containing sp³-/sp²-bonding patterns, i.e., diaphites, from hard carbon materials formed by shock impact of graphite in the Canyon Diablo iron meteorite. We show evidence for a range of intergrowth types and nanostructures containing unusually short (0.31 nm) graphene spacings and demonstrate that previously neglected or misinterpreted Raman bands can be associated with diaphite structures. Our study provides a structural understanding of the material known as lonsdaleite, previously described as hexagonal diamond, and extends this understanding to other natural and synthetic ultrahard carbon phases. The unique three-dimensional carbon architectures encountered in shock-formed samples can place constraints on the pressure–temperature conditions experienced during an impact and provide exceptional opportunities to engineer the properties of carbon nanocomposite materials and phase assemblages.

Scientists found something unexpected inside a meteorite that hit Earth 50,000 years ago.

Graphene found interlocked with diamonds inside an ancient meteorite could be the key to superfast, supercharged tech.

A new artificial intelligence system has been asked to produce an image from inside of a black hole, and the results are stunning.

Correction & clarification: A prior version of this story contained inaccurate information. Pancreatic cancer is poised to pass colon cancer as the second deadliest tumor type.

Barbara Brigham was having a very bad 2020.

Her 97-year-old mother, whom she’d cared for years, died in January. Her husband, who’d suffered the ill effects of Agent Orange since his tours of duty in Vietnam, died of cancer in June. In September, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which has a five-year survival rate of only around 10%.

DoD has already funded Starship Cargo concepts studies and is interested in a troop rocket! Will we have SpaceX Starship Troopers? I look into what DoD is interested in, why the one hour mission just is not going to happen, alternatives and a concept for a launch on demand system. Be sure to watch to the end to catch that fun concept!
For gardening in your Lunar habitat Galactic Gregs has teamed up with True Leaf Market to bring you a great selection of seed for your planting. Check it out: http://www.pntrac.com/t/TUJGRklGSkJGTU1IS0hCRkpIRk1K
Awesome deals for long term food supplies for those long missions to deep space (or prepping in case your spaceship crashes: See the Special Deals at My Patriot Supply: www.PrepWithGreg.com.

Circa 2019

This study assessed the safety and efficacy of deep tissue laser therapy on the management of pain, functionality, systemic inflammation, and overall quality of life of older adults with painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy.

The effects of deep tissue laser therapy (DTLT) were assessed in a randomized, double-masked, sham-controlled, interventional trial. Forty participants were randomized (1:1) to receive either DTLT or sham laser therapy (SLT). In addition to the standard-of-care treatment, participants received either DTLT or SLT twice weekly for 4 weeks and then once weekly for 8 weeks (a 12-week intervention period). The two treatments were identical, except that laser emission was disabled during SLT. Assessments for pain, functionality, serum levels of inflammatory biomarkers, and quality of life (QOL) were performed at baseline and after the 12-week intervention period. The results from the two treatments were compared using ANOVA in a pre-test-post-test design.

Continue reading “Effect of deep tissue laser therapy treatment on peripheral neuropathic pain in older adults with type 2 diabetes: a pilot randomized clinical trial” »

Clijsen, R., Brunner, A., Barbero, M., Clarys, P. & Taeymans, J. Effects of low-level laser therapy on pain in patients with musculoskeletal disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med. 53, 603–610 (2017).

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