Lifeboat Foundation

Tesla coil music concert at the University of Illinois.
Engineering Open House, 2013

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The cable, called hollow-core fiber, is a next-generation version of the fiber-optic cable used to deliver broadband internet to homes and businesses. Made of glass, such cables carry data encoded as beams of light. But instead of being solid, hollow-core fiber is empty inside, with dozens of parallel, air-filled channels narrower than a human hair.

Because light travels nearly 50% faster through air than glass, it takes about one-third less time to send data through hollow-core fiber than through the same length of standard fiber.

The difference is often just a minuscule fraction of a second. But in high-frequency trading, that can make the difference between profits and losses. HFT firms use sophisticated algorithms and ultrafast data networks to execute rapid-fire trades in stocks, options and futures. Many are secretive about their trading strategies and technology.

Anyone who has followed the career of Elon Musk knows that he formulated a set of goals many years ago, and has worked tirelessly and methodically to reach those goals, a process that he knew would take years or decades. Even casual observers are familiar with Tesla’s Master Plan, a three-part strategy to bring a mid-priced EV to the mass market.

CRISPR gene editing in mice has been used to correct a mutation that can cause rapid ageing, dramatically improving the animals’ health and lifespan.

New gene-editing technology could be used to save species from extinction—or to eliminate them.

Circa 2020

“Seasteader” housing built on platforms would rise and fall with the tides, but practical challenges are huge.

In Michelle O’Malley’s lab, a simple approach suggests a big leap forward in addressing the challenge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Scientists have long been aware of the dangerous overuse of antibiotics and the increasing number of antibiotic-resistant microbes that have resulted. While over-prescription of antibiotics for medicinal use has unsettling implications for human health, so too does the increasing presence of antibiotics in the natural environment. The latter may stem from the improper disposal of medicines, but also from the biotechnology field, which has depended on antibiotics as a selection device in the lab.

“In biotech, we have for a long time relied on antibiotic and chemical selections to kill cells that we don’t want to grow,” said UC Santa Barbara chemical engineer Michelle O’Malley. “If we have a genetically engineered cell and want to get only that cell to grow among a population of cells, we give it an antibiotic resistance gene. The introduction of an antibiotic will kill all the cells that are not genetically engineered and allow only the ones we want — the genetically modified organisms [GMOs] — to survive. However, many organisms have evolved the means to get around our antibiotics, and they are a growing problem in both the biotech world and in the natural environment. The issue of antibiotic resistance is a grand challenge of our time, one that is only growing in its importance.”

Circa 2010

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, are used in many applications to gather intelligence without risking human lives. These aircraft, however, have limited flight time because of their reconnaissance payload requirements coupled with their limited scale. A microwave-powered flight vehicle would be able to perform a reconnaissance mission continuously.

Using beamed microwave energy from a remote source on the ground, the airplane gathers energy using onboard antennas. A rectifying antenna, or rectenna, harvests power and rectifies it into a form usable by an onboard electric motor that drives the propeller, providing thrust. Using a rectenna array affixed to the underside of the aircraft, the power needed to maintain flight can be remotely transmitted.

Continue reading “Microwave Energy Transmission for Aircraft” »

O,.o circa 2014.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane… no, it’s a Microwave!?
More details and photos on this team project:
http://www.flitetest.com/articles/microwave-plane.

Continue reading “Flite Test | Microwave Plane” »