Lifeboat Foundation

Whoever manages it first, we are on the cusp of a new age sparked by fusion giving more than it gets (producing more energy than it uses), then miniaturization for practical use and mass manufacture. That would essentially mean that we have access to an infinite, cheap, safe, and clean energy source. No more coal. No more nuclear waste. Massively less global warming. Even better, given the fact that the world runs on an energy economy built around energy scarcity, we will essentially become a post-scarcity civilization. And THAT my friends is a permanent, impossible to overstate game changer. For EVERYTHING and EVERYONE — FOREVER.

But first, scientists need to see if it’s ready.

If we can take just a fraction of the time that’s spent gaming, and make it useful for science, then that’s practically a limitless resource.

The idea of citizen science isn’t a new one. Amateur scientists have been making important discoveries as far back as Ug the Neolithic hunter and her ‘wheel’, while even Newton, Franklin, and Darwin were self-funded for part of their careers, and Herschel discovered Uranus while employed as a musician. It’s only from the late 20th century that it’s crystallised into what we know today, with the North American Butterfly Association using its members to count the popular winged insects since 1975. Zooniverse has users classify images to identify stellar wind bubbles, track coronal mass ejections, and determine the shape of galaxies. Then there’s [email protected] and other cloud computing projects—they count too.

How virtual artworks allow you to see anything from the sun to a giant spider in your own home.

Using a method called quantum annealing, D-Wave’s researchers demonstrated that a quantum computational advantage could be achieved over classical means.

A ghostly particle that smashed into Antarctica in 2019 has been traced back to a black hole tearing apart a star while acting like a giant cosmic particle accelerator, a new study finds.

Archer Aviation, the electric aircraft startup that recently announced a deal to go public via a merger with a blank-check company, plans to launch a network of its urban air taxis in Los Angeles by 2024.

The announcement comes two months after the formation of the Urban Air Mobility Partnership, a one-year initiative between Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and Urban Movement Labs to develop a plan for how to integrate urban aircraft into existing transportation networks and land use policies. Urban Movement Labs, launched in November 2019, is a public-private partnership involving local government and companies to develop, test and deploy transportation technologies. Urban Movement Labs and the city of Los Angeles are working on the design and access of “vertiports,” where people can go to fly on an “urban air mobility” aircraft. Urban air mobility, or UAM, is industry-speak for a highly automated aircraft that can operate and transport passengers or cargo at lower altitudes within urban and suburban areas.

Archer Aviation’s announcement comes two weeks since it landed United Airlines as a customer and an investor in its bid to become a publicly traded company via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. Archer Aviation reached an agreement in early February to merge with special purpose acquisition company Atlas Crest Investment Corp., an increasingly common financial path that allows the startup to eschew the once traditional IPO process. The combined company, which will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange with ticker symbol “ACHR,” will have an equity valuation of $3.8 billion.

Continue reading “Archer Aviation aims to launch network of urban air taxis in Los Angeles by 2024” »

Circa 2016

In the future, the doctor will follow you home with little measuring devices implanted in your body.

Russia said Saturday that its scientists had detected the world’s first case of transmission of the H5N8 strain of avian flu from birds to humans and had alerted the World Health Organization.

Authorities in race to contain outbreak amid mistrust within communities over virus resurgence, response efforts.