Lifeboat Foundation

Mineral’s plant buggy looks like a platform on wheels, topped with solar panels and stuffed with cameras, sensors, and software.

But maybe there’s a better way—and Mineral wants to find it.

Like many things nowadays, the key to building something better is data. Genetic data, weather pattern data, soil composition and erosion data, satellite data… The list goes on. As part of the massive data-gathering that will need to be done, X introduced what it’s calling a “plant buggy” (if the term makes you picture a sort of baby stroller for plants, you’re not alone…).

Continue reading “Alphabet’s New Moonshot Is to Transform How We Grow Food” »

Congratulations from Ogba Educational Clinic.

The 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics has been awarded to Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for their work on black holes.

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish krona (about $1.1 million) and half goes to Penrose, with Genzel and Ghez sharing the other half of the prize.

Continue reading “Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez bag the Nobel Prize for Physics” »

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have significantly boosted the output from a system that can extract drinkable water directly from the air even in dry regions, using heat from the sun or another source.

The system, which builds on a design initially developed three years ago at MIT by members of the same team, brings the process closer to something that could become a practical water source for remote regions with limited access to water and electricity. The findings are described today in the journal Joule, in a paper by Professor Evelyn Wang, who is head of MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering; graduate student Alina LaPotin; and six others at MIT and in Korea and Utah.

The earlier device demonstrated by Wang and her co-workers provided a proof of concept for the system, which harnesses a temperature difference within the device to allow an adsorbent material — which collects liquid on its surface — to draw in moisture from the air at night and release it the next day. When the material is heated by sunlight, the difference in temperature between the heated top and the shaded underside makes the water release back out of the adsorbent material. The water then gets condensed on a collection plate.

The tardigrades went about daily life while scientists blasted them with UV radiation.

Sustainability comes to the happiest place on Earth! Solar power helps make this Disney World McDonald’s one of the first net-zero fast food restaurants.

AI is revolutionizing the way we build video games.

Researchers have developed a method to ‘squeeze’ visible light in order to see inside tiny memory devices. The technique will allow researchers to probe how these devices break down and how their performance can be improved for a range of applications.

The team, led by the University of Cambridge, used the technique to investigate the materials used in random access memories, while in operation. The results, reported in the journal Nature Electronics, will allow detailed study of these materials, which are used in memory devices.

The ability to understand how structural changes characterize the function of these materials, which are used for low-power, ultra-responsive devices called memristors, is important to improve their performance. However, looking inside the 3D nanoscale devices is difficult using traditional techniques.

China shows off its ability to rapidly launch 48 weaponized drones from the back of a truck, as well as from helicopters.

Nearly 400 ISPs qualify for auction, with SpaceX as the only LEO satellite ISP.