Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Its creator Franky Zapata thinks so, as do the thousands of people who are likely signing up to test drive the JetRacer.

The French inventor and adrenaline junkie is no newbie when it comes to daredevil stunts—or wild inventions. A world champion jet skier several times over, his first invention was the Flyboard, a sort of jetpack/hoverboard combo powered by gas turbines. Next came the Flyboard Air, a similar device powered by jet turbines. Three years ago Zapata crossed the English Channel on a Flyboard Air; the journey took just 22 minutes, with a stop halfway to refuel.

Zapata has employed the same “micro-turbo-jet engines” from his Flyboard on the JetRacer. Though they’re relatively small, the engines pack a punch, perhaps because there are 10 of them. The vehicle can reportedly reach speeds up to 250 kilometers per hour (that’s 155 miles per hour), and an altitude of 3,000 meters/9,800 feet. Its speed and maneuverability come at the expense of range, though, which the website says is “relatively short” without specifying distances.

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I interviewed the gentleman talked about in this article yesterday. If his invention is what he says it is, deploying it to convert the existing inventory of billions of internal combustion engines would get us to net-zero emissions a lot faster.

A POWYS inventor has unveiled a zero-emissions internal combustion engine, which he says could be a game-changer in the fight against climate change.

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The start of the Moon base begins with the Lunar Space Station going online. This is where Elon Musk’s SpaceX Lunar Starship, the HLS (Human Landing System) docks — picking up astronauts to take to the Lunar surface.

It only takes 3 days to reach the Moon. So technological development happens rapidly. From Lunar dust shields, a crater telescope, and a Boring Company tunnel digger digging out lava tubes for Lunar habitats, to a Lunar railroad using levitating cargo robots.

Additional footage from: NASA, ESA, SpaceX, ESA + Foster and Partners, Vladimir Vustyansky, ESO/M. Kornmesser, Relativity Space.

Thumbnail Credit (Used with Written Permission) — ICON and SEArch+

Continue reading “MOON BASE — THE FIRST 10,000 DAYS (Timelapse)” | >

Protons, once thought to be fundamental particles, have been known since 1968 to instead be composed of quarks. Some quarks are actually heavier than protons, but this wasn’t considered a problem because protons were thought to be made up purely of light quarks – two up and one down quark to be precise. However, new research shows protons also contain charm quarks, which are indeed heavier than protons, like a pot holding a bigger pot inside it.

“That goes against all common sense,” said Dr Juan Rojo of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in a statement. “It’s like buying a one-kilogram pack of salt, which then comes out two kilograms of sand.”

However, anyone highly attached to common sense dropped out of quantum mechanics courses in the first six weeks, so Rojo and co-authors were undeterred. In Nature they have revealed that less than one percent of the proton’s mass comes from quarks heavier than the proton.

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The Brain Chemical Involved in Consciousness

So how do we help these people? The brain is more than just a congregation of different areas. Brain cells also rely on a number of chemicals to communicate with other cells, enabling a number of brain functions. Before our study, there was already some evidence that dopamine, well known for its role in reward, also plays a role in disorders of consciousness.

For example, one study showed that dopamine release in the brain is impaired in minimally conscious patients. Moreover, a number of small-scale studies have shown that patients’ consciousness can improve by giving them drugs that act through dopamine.

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Nuclear winter visualizations made by Prof. Max Tegmark using state-of-the-art simulation data from these science papers:
* Lili Xia, Alan Robock, Kim Scherrer, Cheryl Harrison, Benjamin Bodirsky, Isabelle Weindl, Jonas Jägermeyr, Charles Bardeen, Owen Toon & Ryan Heneghan, 2022, published in Nature Food.
* Joshua Coupe, Charles Bardeen, Alan Robock & Owen Toon 2019, J. of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 8522–8543
* Owen Toon, Charles Bardeen, Alan Robock, Lili Xia, Hans Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie, R. Peterson, Cheryl Harrison, Nicole Lovenduski & Richard P. Turco 2019, Sci. Adv. 5: eaay5478
* Alan Robock, Luke Oman & Georgiy L. Stenchikov 2007, J. Geophys. Research 112, D13107.

Special thanks to Chuck Bardeen for data and Meia Chita-Tegmark for editing!

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