Lifeboat Foundation

Protein intake is known to be vital for maintaining brain function in older individuals. Now, using a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers have shown that the intake of a specific set of amino acids can inhibit the death of brain cells, protect the connections between them, and reduce inflammation, preserving brain function. Their research suggests that this amino acid combination called Amino LP7 can hinder the development of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) sparked worldwide excitement in March as particle physicists reported tantalising evidence for new physics — potentially a new force of nature. Now, our new result, yet to be peer reviewed, from Cern’s gargantuan particle collider seems to be adding further support to the idea.

Our current best theory of particles and forces is known as the standard model, which describes everything we know about the physical stuff that makes up the world around us with unerring accuracy. The standard model is without doubt the most successful scientific theory ever written down and yet at the same time we know it must be incomplete.

Famously, it describes only three of the four fundamental forces – the electromagnetic force and strong and weak forces, leaving out gravity. It has no explanation for the dark matter that astronomy tells us dominates the universe, and cannot explain how matter survived during the big bang. Most physicists are therefore confident that there must be more cosmic ingredients yet to be discovered, and studying a variety of fundamental particles known as beauty quarks is a particularly promising way to get hints of what else might be out there.

NASA has released a new video that imagines future human explorers and space tourists.

Robotic missions have toured much of our Solar System – but so far, the only place beyond Earth where humans have stood is the Moon. That may change in the coming decades, with space agencies vying to achieve the historic milestone of putting the first astronaut on Mars. Towards the end of this century, as the cost of launching into space is reduced to a few cents per kilogram, space tourism may become as cheap as a transatlantic flight today. New forms of space propulsion in the 22nd century and beyond may open up the stars to human settlement.

In this short film, NASA has visualised some of the distant places that lie waiting to be explored. We get a glimpse of people on the Red Planet, standing in a cloud city on Venus, drifting towards the water plumes of Enceladus, and even kayaking on Titan. We are then provided with scientifically accurate depictions of exoplanets that humans may visit in the more distant future.

Most of us control light all the time without even thinking about it, usually in mundane ways: we don a pair of sunglasses and put on sunscreen, and close—or open—our window blinds.

But the control of light can also come in high-tech forms. The screen of the computer, tablet, or phone on which you are reading this is one example. Another is telecommunications, which controls light to create signals that carry data along fiber-optic cables.

Scientists also use high-tech methods to control light in the laboratory, and now, thanks to a new breakthrough that uses a specialized material only three atoms thick, they can control light more precisely than ever before.

Jetson One is an electrical VTOL flying vehicle you can actually buy—well, pre-order—that shows not only that it can be done but that it can be done with style and flair. The catch is battery life—about 20m flight time per charge for a 187lb rider.

A complete vehicle is 92 000 USD and is delivered to you as a partially (50%) assembled kit for home completion. It contains everything you need, from the aluminium space frame to motor controllers, propellers and motors. You will also receive detailed build instructions.

Continue reading “VTOL electronic vehicle flies one and is yours for $92k” »

Topology in optics and photonics has been a hot topic since 1,890 where singularities in electromagnetic fields have been considered. The recent award of the Nobel prize for topology developments in condensed matter physics has led to renewed surge in topology in optics with most recent developments in implementing condensed matter particle-like topological structures in photonics. Recently, topological photonics, especially the topological electromagnetic pulses, hold promise for nontrivial wave-matter interactions and provide additional degrees of freedom for information and energy transfer. However, to date the topology of ultrafast transient electromagnetic pulses had been largely unexplored.

In their paper Nat. Commun., physicists in the UK and Singapore report a new family of electromagnetic pulses, the exact solutions of Maxwell’s equation with toroidal topology, in which topological complexity can be continuously controlled, namely supertoroidal topology. The electromagnetic fields in such supertoroidal pulses have skyrmionic structures as they propagate in free space with the speed of light.

Skyrmions, sophisticated topological particles originally proposed as a unified model of the nucleon by Tony Skyrme in 1,962 behave like nanoscale magnetic vortices with spectacular textures. They have been widely studied in many condensed matter systems, including chiral magnets and liquid crystals, as nontrivial excitations showing great importance for information storing and transferring. If skyrmions can fly, open up infinite possibilities for the next generation of informatics revolution.

Almost every time we talk about Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) concepts, we are looking at a scaled-down version of an aircraft that can carry four-five people and some cargo. And an Israel-based company, Urban Aeronautics is determined to create the first flying car and they are doing a pretty good job at it.

The flying car’s lift is generated by fully enclosed counter-rotating ducted fans that are placed both in the rear and front of the car. After years of testing, the company has unveiled a sleeker exterior this year that can zip past at a top speed of 150 mph (241 kph) and has a range of around 100 miles (160 km). The project noise levels from this are still 78 dB, which are quite acceptable for city limits, the company claims. The company has completed technology demonstrations using helicopter engines where the car has flown at low altitudes of 49 feet (15 m).

Continue reading “Israel Took One Step Closer to Making Compact Wingless ‘Flying Cars’ Real” »

Built for critical research, continuous LEO presence, and space tourism.

Nanoracks, Voyager Space, and Lockheed Martin just announced that they aim to launch the first-ever free-flying commercial space station into low Earth orbit (LEO) by 2027 as part of a collaboration with NASA, a press statement reveals.

The space station, called Starlab, will be used for conducting critical research, ensuring continuous U.S. presence in low Earth orbit, and also for “tourism and other commercial and business activities,” Lockheed Martin explains. The fact that the space station is free-flying means that it will not be locked into one orbital position.

In recent years, the continued exploitation of natural resources and depletion of our forests has been a major issue, to say the least. The fight for sustainability has become increasingly important as we face the challenge of climate change and its effects on our planet. One possible solution to this problem is to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help increase sustainable logging practices.

Beyond data science, AI can be used in conjunction with autonomous robots that are specially designed for forestry work which may provide an answer for this global problem. AI can be applied specifically to logging operations such as planning where trees should be cut down and predicting the best time of day for cutting trees so they do not disrupt nesting birds or other animal habitats.

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