Lifeboat Foundation

A previously unknown virus that can infect humans and cause disease has been identified by scientists in Japan. The novel infectious virus, named Yezo virus, is transmitted by tick bites and causes a disease characterized by fever and a reduction in blood platelets and leucocytes. The discovery was made by researchers at Hokkaido University and colleagues, and the results have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Keita Matsuno, a virologist at Hokkaido University’s International Institute for Zoonosis Control, said: “At least seven people have been infected with this new virus in Japan since 2,014 but, so far, no deaths have been confirmed.”

The Yezo virus was discovered after a 41-year-old man was admitted to the hospital in 2019 with fever and leg pain after being bitten by an arthropod believed to be a tick while he was walking in a local forest in Hokkaido. He was treated and discharged after two weeks, but tests showed he had not been infected with any known viruses carried by ticks in the region. A second patient showed up with similar symptoms after a tick bite the following year.

Circa 2009

The futuristic thought of antimatter that is typically related to sci-fi movies may one day be able to provide propulsion to vehicles. Antimatter, is an exact oppposite copy of matter. Identical to matter, but with its electrical charge completely opposite of the original matter. Think of a battery with a positive and negative pole. The positive pole repsresenting matter, and the negative pole representing antimatter.

Antimatter is the exact oposite of matter. A definition as provided by Wikipedia concludes that antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles. For example, an antielectron (a positron, an electron with a positive charge) and an antiproton (a proton with a negative charge) could form an antihydrogen atom in the same way that an electron and a proton form a normal matter hydrogen atom. Furthermore, mixing matter and antimatter would lead to the annihilation of both in the same way that mixing antiparticles and particles does, thus giving rise to high-energy photons (gamma rays) or other particle–antiparticle pairs.

Continue reading “Antimatter Could Provide Electric Propulsion To Vehicles” »

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have achieved a near 100 percent increase in the amount of antimatter created in the laboratory.

Using targets with micro-structures on the laser interface, the team shot a high-intensity laser through them and saw a 100 percent increase in the amount of antimatter (also known as positrons). The research appears in Applied Physics Letters.

Previous research using a tiny gold sample created about 100 billion particles of antimatter. The new experiments double that.

For decades, we’ve dreamed of visiting other star systems. There’s just one problem – they’re so far away, with conventional spaceflight it would take tens of thousands of years to reach even the closest one.

Physicists are not the kind of people who give up easily, though. Give them an impossible dream, and they’ll give you an incredible, hypothetical way of making it a reality. Maybe.

Continue reading “Faster-Than-Light Travel Is Possible Within Einstein’s Physics, Astrophysicist Shows” »

“Where is everybody?”

The Fermi Paradox has perplexed scientists for years. We examine the possibility that we haven’t heard from any aliens is because no one is transmitting.

NASA’s next asteroid-bound mission to explore the earliest days of our solar system is nearly ready to launch.

The Lucy spacecraft is targeting a launch window that opens on Saturday (Oct. 16). After blastoff, the spacecraft will make a 12-year journey to the outer solar system, where it will visit half a dozen ancient “Trojan” asteroids that orbit in the same path as the planet Jupiter.

Could eating your favorite food help with memory retention? It might.

Not all who wander are lost – but sometimes their cell phone reception is. That might change soon if a plan to project basic cell phone coverage to all parts of the globe comes to fruition. Lynk has already proven it can use a typical smartphone to bound a standard SMS text message off a low-earth-orbiting satellite, and they don’t plan to stop there.

Formerly known as Ubiquitilink, Lynk was founded a few years ago by Nanoracks founder Charles Miller and his partners but came out of “stealth mode” as a start-up in 2019. In 2020 they then used a satellite to send an SMS message from a typical smartphone, without requiring the fancy GPS locators and antennas needed by other, specially made satellite phones.

Continue reading “It’ll Soon be Possible to Make Satellite Phone Calls With Your Regular Phone” »

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune may have sent the Earth-sized planet barreling toward deep space.

Scientists believe that there could be a ninth planet in our solar system, lurking somewhere beyond Neptune—but don’t get too excited, because this isn’t about Pluto.

Rather, this is the story of a mysterious Earth-or Mars-sized planet that may have swirled beyond the asteroid belt, among the gas giants, before they ultimately swept this potential “Planet 9” toward the outer reaches of our solar system… or even into deep space. The theory makes sense on its face: Jupiter is kind of known as a bully, after all.

Continue reading “Gas Giants May Have Bullied Planet 9 to the Fringes of Our Solar System” »