Lifeboat Foundation

Over the past decades, engineers have created increasingly advanced and highly performing integrated circuits (ICs). The rising performance of these circuits in turn increased the speed and efficiency of the technology we use every day, including computers, smartphones and other smart devices.

To continue to improve the performance of integrated circuits in the future, engineers will need to create thinner transistors with shorter channels. Down-scaling existing silicon-based devices or creating smaller devices using alternative semiconducting materials that are compatible with existing fabrication processes, however, has proved to be challenging.

Researchers at Purdue University have recently developed new transistors based on indium oxide, a semiconductor that is often used to create touch screens, flatscreen TVs and solar panels. These transistors, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronics, were fabricated using atomic layer deposition, a process that is often employed by transistor and electronics manufacturers.

Scientists are increasingly concerned that the lack of reproducibility in research may lead to, among other things, inaccuracies that slow scientific output and diminished public trust in science. Now, a team of researchers reports that creating a prediction market, where artificially intelligent—AI—agents make predictions—or bet—on hypothetical replication studies, could lead to an explainable, scalable approach to estimate confidence in published scholarly work.

Replication of experiments and studies, a critical step in the scientific process, helps provide confidence in the results and indicates whether they can generalize across contexts, according to Sarah Rajtmajer, assistant professor in information sciences and technology, Penn State. As experiments have become more complex, costly and time consuming, scientists increasingly lack the resources for robust replication efforts—what is often referred to now by them as the “replication crisis.”

“As scientists, we want to do work, and we want to know that our work is good,” said Rajtmajer. “Our approach to help address the replication crisis is to use AI to help predict whether a finding would replicate if repeated and why.”

We’ve showcased plenty of EV conversions on the channel before, but up until now they’ve mostly been high-end, beautifully refurbished classics. In this episode, Jack heads to France to investigate the entry-level of EV conversion. For €5,000 after government subsidies, a company by the name of Transition One claims it can turn your old banger into a no fuss, no-emissions electric car. Is this the answer to overpriced new cars? Could this be the key to accelerating EV uptake? Check out the episode to find out.

00:00 Welcome to a crusty Fiat!
1:54 Welcome to Transition One.
3:35 One very charismatic founder.
5:30 How does it work?
7:37 The gearbox lives!
8:50 How much??
12:12 Range and specs.
13:39 Who fits it?
14:43 How many orders?
15:35 When can I buy one?
17:12 Final thoughts.

Continue reading “An ultra-cheap electric car conversion kit is FINALLY here!” »

The achievement, published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communication journal today, could see the Morrison government’s so-called hydrogen stretch goal of $2 a kilogram to make the fuel competitive reached as soon as 2025, the Hysata chief executive, Paul Barrett, said.

“We’ve gone from 75% [efficiency] to 95% – it’s really a giant leap for the electrolysis industry,” Barrett said.

Renewable energy from sources such as wind and solar is making big inroads into the power sector, supplying more than a third of eastern Australia’s electricity in the final three months of 2021. However, decarbonising industry and some transport, such as trucking, is likely to be tougher unless fuels such as hydrogen become much cheaper.

Could Aliens Get Cancer? What is it´s root cause and would cancer evolve in an Alien Biosphere?

Advancing Space Tech For Future Missions — Dr. Douglas Willard, Ph.D., Game Changing Development Program, Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA

Dr. Douglas E. Willard, PhD, (https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/game_changing_de…g-willard/) is Program Element Manager, Game Changing Development Program, Space Technology Mission Directorate, at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Continue reading “Dr. Douglas Willard — Game Changing Development Program, Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA” »

Would you share your data for the common good? Biomechanist Jacqueline Alderson shows how sophisticated simulations based on real data can help prevent disease, illness and injury. Jacqueline Alderson is an Associate Professor of Biomechanics at the University of Western Australia and Adjunct Professor of Human Performance, Innovation and Technology at the Auckland University of Technology. She has always been curious about movement — whether it’s helping surgeons make best practice decisions or helping AFL players avoid knee injuries. She now travels the world to share her knowledge in human movement, wearable tech and artificial intelligence and its role in tracking, analysing and intervening in the human condition. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity profoundly changed our thinking about fundamental concepts in physics, such as space and time. But it also left us with some deep mysteries. One was black holes, which were only unequivocally detected over the past few years. Another was “wormholes” – bridges connecting different points in spacetime, in theory providing shortcuts for space travellers.

Wormholes are still in the realm of the imagination. But some scientists think we will soon be able to find them, too. Over the past few months, several new studies have suggested intriguing ways forward.

Black holes and wormholes are special types of solutions to Einstein’s equations, arising when the structure of spacetime is strongly bent by gravity. For example, when matter is extremely dense, the fabric of spacetime can become so curved that not even light can escape. This is a black hole.

Stojkovic and Dai say that by monitoring the motions of stars on our side—such as S2, a known star orbiting about 17 light-hours from Sagittarius A*—we could look for tiny but perceptible accelerations caused by a wormhole’s presence. If telescopic observations of S2’s motion reach a precision of 0.000001 meter per second squared, the duo calculate such measurements could reveal the “imprint” of a star not much larger than our sun pulling on S2 from the wormhole’s far side.

If wormholes do exist, there is some question as to whether they link two points in our own universe or in two different parallel universes. For Dai and Stojkovic’s purposes, however, the difference is academic, because either scenario should produce similar detectable effects. Of course, finding a small acceleration that corresponded to a star on the other side would not be proof of the wormhole’s existence, perhaps instead hinting at unseen smaller black holes nearby, for example. But it might point in that direction. If no such acceleration were detected, given the expectation that a supermassive black hole orbited by stars would exist at a wormhole’s other side, then the presence of such a passageway in Sagittarius A* could be seemingly ruled out.

Cosimo Bambi of Fudan University in China, who was not involved in the paper, notes that a failure to find any anomalous motions could carry implications just as large as those for a success. But he cautions that any excitement about such measurements would be somewhat premature. “Of course, [this study] may be too optimistic,” he says. “But in principle, it’s possible. We cannot exclude [wormholes], right now, from current observations. Sometimes you discover something even if you don’t discover anything.”