Lifeboat Foundation

Thanks to the work of squirrels, researchers in Siberia were able to grow viable Silene stenophylla plants from 32,000-year-old seeds. This incredible event, which happened in 2012, is still having a dramatic event on the scientific community and now Austrian researchers are trying to sequence the plant’s DNA to find out how it was able to survive so long.

The story starts over 10 years ago, when a team of Russian, Hungarian, and American scientists recovered the frozen seeds in 2007. They were buried 125 feet underground, deep in the Siberian permafrost. The team was investigating the burrows of ancient squirrels when they made the discovery. Fruit and seeds had been perfectly sealed from the elements thanks to the squirrels’ burrowing techniques.

“The squirrels dug the frozen ground to build their burrows, which are about the size of a soccer ball, putting in hay first and then animal fur for a perfect storage chamber,” shared Stanislav Gubin, one of the researchers who explored the burrows. “It’s a natural cryobank.”

Charging station manufacturer Tritium (Nasdaq: DCFC) has formed a partnership with Wise EV, a subsidiary of renewable energy service provider Wise Power, to provide DC fast chargers for a new national EV charging network.

The new network is expected to start with 25 locations at Florida gas stations. Florida is the number-two US state for EV sales, and received the third largest state allocation under the new National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program Guidance.

Wise EV plans to build its network using a hub-and-spoke strategy, centering the charging around metropolitan hubs and connecting those cities with Interstate highways as spokes. The eventual goal is to build a coast-to-coast charging network. The company plans to establish its metropolitan charging hubs in 2022, and connect those hubs with Interstate charging spokes in 2022 and 2023.

Summary: 3,6’-dithiopomalidomide (DP), an anti-inflammatory drug candidate, protected mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease against cognitive decline by reducing neuroinflammation.

Source: NIH

An anti-inflammatory drug candidate, known as 3,6’-dithiopomalidomide (DP), designed by researchers at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), protected lab mice against cognitive decline by reducing brain inflammation.

Cancer, aging, and severe COVID-19 have all been linked to damage from inflammation. Now scientists are flipping their focus to find new drugs that may revolutionize treatments.

The rise of flying space junk also poses unplanned and catastrophic risk of destruction. Here’s how NASA plans to destroy the International Space Station in a safer and more controlled manner.

Musk and SpaceX sent Starlink terminals to Ukraine at the request of a government official after internet service was disrupted across the country by the Russian invasion. A shipment of Starlink ground terminals, which use an antenna and terminal to access the satellite broadband service, arrived in Ukraine by Monday Feb. 28). With the terminals in use, SpaceX is working to keep them online, Musk said.

“Some Starlink terminals near conflict areas were being jammed for several hours at a time,” Musk wrote in a Twitter statement Friday (March 1). “Our latest software update bypasses the jamming.”

I wonder how many of the satellites are damaged?

Continue reading “Elon Musk says SpaceX focusing on cyber defense after Starlink signals jammed near Ukraine conflict areas” »

A new video I uploaded to youtube about the relations between science fiction, science and technology.

Presentation given at the Imaginative Fiction Writers Association.

Continue reading “The relations between science, engineering and science fiction” »

Circa 2013

Can the food industry avoid the mistakes of GM and put nanoketchup on the UK’s menu?

As cities address climate change, they are looking at passive buildings and novel approaches to energy and heating.

Cities are being challenged to tackle climate change through net-zero strategies that include passive homes, geothermal heating, and more.