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Jan 23, 2022

Radian announces plans to build one of the holy grails of spaceflight

Posted by in category: space travel

A Washington-state based aerospace company has exited stealth mode by announcing plans to develop one of the holy grails of spaceflight—a single-stage-to-orbit space plane. Radian Aerospace said it is deep into the design of an airplane-like vehicle that could take off from a runway, ignite its rocket engines, spend time in orbit, and then return to Earth and land on a runway.

“We all understand how difficult this is,” said Livingston Holder, Radian’s co-founder, chief technology officer, and former head of the Future Space Transportation and X-33 program at Boeing.

On Wednesday, Radian announced that it had recently closed a $27.5 million round of seed funding, led by Fine Structure Ventures. To date, Radian has raised about $32 million and has 18 full-time employees at its Renton, Washington, headquarters.

Jan 23, 2022

Spaceship Neptune Is the Low-Tech, Cheaper Way to Reach the Edge of Space

Posted by in categories: cosmology, space travel

Science fiction literature is filled with strange ideas about how to travel to space and in it. We’ve got anything from hyperloops to wormholes and space elevators, strings, FTL-capable ships, and even the crown jewel of instant transport, teleportation. I know this because I really, really enjoy sci-fi.

Jan 23, 2022

Like ‘The 1929 Crash’—New Crypto Winter Warning As Sell-Off Wipes $1.5 Trillion From The Combined Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, BNB, Cardano And XRP Price

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, blockchains, cryptocurrencies

A new “crypto winter” could be around the corner after a huge crypto price crash has wiped $1.5 trillion from the combined cryptocurrency market —hitting bitcoin, ethereum, BNB, solana, cardano and XRP hard.

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The bitcoin price has this week fallen to levels not seen since July last year, losing 20% over the last week and dropping to half its all-time high of almost $70,000. Other top ten cryptocurrencies ethereum, BNB, solana, cardano and XRP have all lost between 20% and 30% from their price this past week (with Wall Street giant JPMorgan issuing a stark ethereum price warning).

Jan 23, 2022

Supercentenarian (112 — 116y) Blood Test Analysis

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, sex

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Papers referenced in the video:
Main study:
Clinical course of the longest-lived man in the world: A case report.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34973348/

Continue reading “Supercentenarian (112 — 116y) Blood Test Analysis” »

Jan 23, 2022

Quantum dots boost perovskite solar cell efficiency and scalability

Posted by in categories: quantum physics, solar power, sustainability

Perovskites are hybrid compounds made from metal halides and organic constituents. They show great potential in a range of applications, e.g. LED lights, lasers, and photodetectors, but their major contribution is in solar cells, where they are poised to overtake the market from their silicon counterparts.

One of the obstacles facing the commercialization of solar is that their power-conversion efficiency and operational stability drop as they scale up, making it a challenge to maintain in a complete solar cell.

The problem is partly with the cell’s electron-transport , which ensures that the electrons produced when the cell absorbs light will transfer efficiently to the device’s electrode. In perovskite solar cells, the electron-transport layer is made with mesoporous titanium dioxide, which shows low electron mobility, and is also susceptible to adverse, photocatalytic events under ultraviolet light.

Jan 23, 2022

UK startup to build flying taxi hubs in 65 cities

Posted by in categories: drones, innovation

This article was originally published by Christopher Carey on Cities Today, the leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders. For the latest updates, follow Cities Today on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, or sign up for Cities Today News.

UK start-up Urban-Air Port (UAP) has announced plans to establish 200 hubs for flying taxis and cargo drones across 65 cities globally over the next five years.

The firm is set to launch its first ‘vertiport’, dubbed the “worlds smallest airport”, in Coventry in April, and says a “significant investment” from Hyundai Motor Group’s urban air division Supernal will enable expansion to further sites.

Jan 23, 2022

First-ever electric bus designed and developed in Africa

Posted by in categories: engineering, sustainability, transportation

Nairobi, Kenya - Opibus has just introduced the first all-electric bus in Kenya as well as the first African designed electric bus ever. This is the first major step in the company’s vision to provide a locally designed and developed electric bus that can be mass-produced for the pan-African market, by the end of 2023. This is a step towards realizing Opibus goal of electrifying Africa’s public transport system, deploying products tailored for the local use case. The bus is designed and developed in-house with local engineering talent, while at the same time utilizing local manufacturing partners.

The key to the technology is the Opibus proprietary electric vehicle platform, which is modular and can be the foundation for several types of vehicles. This enables the creation of a bus that is suitable for the African use case, in its reliability, durability and price point. This also means local and global contract manufactures can be used to create a globally competitive product, with a rapid scale-up.

Jan 22, 2022

Using Ice To Boil Water: Heat Transfer Discovery Expands on 18th Century Physics Principle

Posted by in category: physics

Associate Professor Jonathan Boreyko and graduate fellow Mojtaba Edalatpour have made a discovery about the properties of water that could provide an exciting addendum to a phenomenon established over two centuries ago. The discovery also holds interesting possibilities for cooling devices and processes in industrial applications using only the basic properties of water. Their work was published today (January 21, 2022) in the journal Physical Review Fluids.

Water can exist in three phases: a frozen solid, a liquid, and a gas. When heat is applied to a frozen solid, it becomes a liquid. When applied to the liquid, it becomes vapor. This elementary principle is familiar to anyone who has observed a glass of iced tea on a hot day, or boiled a pot of water to make spaghetti.

When the heat source is hot enough, the water’s behavior changes dramatically. According to Boreyko, a water droplet deposited onto an aluminum plate heated to 150 degrees Celsius.

Jan 22, 2022

New research expects a gloomy year for Bitcoin as DeFi and DAOs rise

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, finance, governance

Another major player in the cryptocurrency world is forecasting a dismal year for Bitcoin (BTC) in 2022. Following the United States Federal Reserve’s and other central banks’ tightening of liquidity measures, Huobi Research believes that BTC will enter a bear market. On the brighter side, decentralized finance (DeFi) will continue to expand and adapt, with decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) governance eventually becoming a major driver of activity on the chain.


Following the Federal Reserve’s and other central banks’ tightening of liquidity measures, Huobi Research believes that Bitcoin will enter a bear market.

Jan 22, 2022

Taming the multiverse: Stephen Hawking’s final theory about the big bang

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Professor Stephen Hawking’s final theory on the origin of the universe, which he worked on in collaboration with Professor Thomas Hertog from KU Leuven, was published in 2018 in the Journal of High Energy Physics.