Lifeboat Foundation

Rooftop coatings can keep homes cool — like cooling paper that helps radiate heat away. Or they can trap heat inside, keeping homes warm.

But what is the optimal rooftop coating for homes with both a hot and cold season?

Scientists have come up with an answer: an all-season covering that keeps homes warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

In our global struggle to deal with COVID-19 and the existential threat that is climate change, there is a growing anti-intellectual, anti-science movement afoot.

Is 21st-century civilization following Rome and China as we turn to disinformation delivered by the technologies science has fostered?

A team from the Tulane University School of Science and Engineering has developed a new family of two-dimensional materials that researchers say has promising applications, including in advanced electronics and high-capacity batteries.

Led by Michael Naguib, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Engineering Physics, the study has been published in the journal Advanced Materials.

“Two-dimensional materials are nanomaterials with thickness in the nanometer size (nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter) and lateral dimensions thousands of times the thickness,” Naguib said. “Their flatness offers unique set of properties compared to bulk materials.”

On 12 May at 15:00 CEST, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project will hold a press conference to present groundbreaking Milky Way results from the EHT.

The ESO Director General will deliver the opening words. EHT Project Director Huib Jan van Langevelde and EHT Collaboration Board Founding Chair Anton Zensus will also deliver remarks. A panel of EHT researchers will explain the result and answer questions from journalists.

Continue reading “Press Conference at ESO on new Milky Way results from the EHT team, followed by a public Q&A event” »

For our inaugural episode of Let’s Talk Longevity, we want to figure out if we are anywhere near Longevity Escape Velocity. Defined as a hypothetical situation in which life expectancy is extended longer than the time that is passing, we decided the best conversation on it would be with its biggest advocate, Dr. Aubrey de Grey, and an equally well-known skeptic of the likelihood of it taking place, Dr. Charles Brenner. This debate did not need hosts!

Join us for the live Q&A on Twitter Spaces this Thursday, May 12th at 12 pm PDT
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1ypKdEmgDANGW

Continue reading “On Longevity Escape Velocity with Aubrey de Grey & Charles Brenner” »

Well, happily, Ingenuity did call home after about 24 hours. According to NASA, the link was stable, and the solar array managed to charge its batteries to 41 percent. The engineers say they hope to resume Ingenuity’s flight campaign within the next several days after bringing the helicopter’s batteries to a full charge.

Unfortunately, this may be the beginning of the end for a helicopter that has vastly exceeded all expectations. The NASA engineers have had to take some fairly drastic steps to preserve Ingenuity’s battery charge. For example, they have now commanded the helicopter’s heaters to come on only when the battery’s temperature falls to −40°, far colder than the previous point of 5° Fahrenheit. It is not known how many of the off-the-shelf components on the vehicle will fare without this additional heating during the cold Martian nights.

And Mars will only get colder and darker for the next 10 weeks as winter deepens.

The freighter will help get China’s Tianhe core module ready for a new crewed mission.

China has launched a new cargo mission to its space station module in preparation for the arrival of a new crew in June.

A Long March 7 rocket carrying the robotic Tianzhou 4 spacecraft lifted off from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in southern China’s Hainan Province today (May 9) at 1:56 p.m. EDT (1756 GMT; 1:56 a.m. local time on May 10).