Lifeboat Foundation

A ball of gas around the Milky Way’s black hole has sparked a new debate. Could it be a massive puff of dark matter?

The orbit of S2 and its stellar companions indicated that they were circling around a massive object, about 4 million times the mass of the Sun. Although astronomers could not directly see the object, they knew it could only be one thing.

Continue reading “Scientists debate the existence of the Milky Ways supermassive black hole” »

Manipulative individuals who endorse the belief that “the ends justify the means” are more likely to endorse technology that allows a person to upload their human consciousness into a machine, according to new research published in Personality and Individual Differences. The study indicates that there is a strong link between the personality trait known as Machiavellianism and acceptance of mind uploading.

The new findings shed light on how psychological dispositions are related to approval of futuristic technology.

“Through-out my adult life I have been hanging out with individuals who self-identify as transhumanists. These people are interesting, since their values and orientation towards the daily life are so different from others,” explained study author Michael Laakasuo, an adjunct professor of cognitive science at the University of Helsinki and principal investigator of the Moralities of Intelligent Machines research group.

Summary: NfL, a single biomarker in the blood, can accurately predict the presence of underlying neurodegenerative disorders, such as FTD and ALS, in people with cognitive problems.

Source: King’s College London.

Levels of a protein called neurofilament light chain (NfL) in the blood can identify those who might have neurodegenerative diseases such as Down’s syndrome dementia, motor neuron disease (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia, when clinical symptoms are not definitive.

It’s an uphill battle.

Clearview AI’s facial recognition system has scraped millions of images from Facebook, LinkedIn, and other services. Is there any way to get out of the company’s database?

“Scientists are meant to know what’s going on, but in this particular case, we are deeply confused.”

Circa 2017 could be used on smartphones to scan the body for illnesses.

Medical techniques for looking inside our bodies have come a long way, but in the future it looks like doctors may be able to see absolutely everything going on under our skin.

Researchers have invented a new kind of camera that can actually see through structures inside the human body, detecting light sources behind as much as 20 centimetres (7.9 inches) of bodily tissue.

Continue reading “A Completely New Type of Camera Can Actually See Through The Human Body” »

A lesson in fluid dynamics.

Could astronauts surf to Mars assisted by a hypersonic shockwave? A new paper in the Journal of Fluid Dynamics suggests it’s a more likely scenario than we think, combining traditional propulsion with a shockwave method for mixing fuel ratios to reach their full explosive potential.

In the new paper, researchers from the University of Southern California investigate the way applying a shockwave helps or hinders how the “scalars,” or different fluids, can mix effectively. Take a leisurely swirl of oxygen and fuel and you might only reach regular supersonic speeds. But add the Nutribullet impact of a shockwave and the oxygen-fuel smoothie could carry you at five times or more the speed of sound, reaching the hypersonic range.

Continue reading “If We Mix Jet Fuel Using Shockwaves, We Can Get to Mars Faster” »

Circa 2020

The behind-the-scenes tales of hit products and creations from Japan: this is Japan’s Top Inventions. This time, an invention that uses magnetic force to help freeze food without destroying its cell structure: a “fresh freezing” system. It was developed by a Japanese venture firm in 1995 as a technology that would help freeze food without altering its flavor. We look into the story behind its creation, inspired in part by microwaves, and learn about the latest versions.

A team at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California have created something that could turn the tide in how fast vaccines come into existence.

They created an AI framework that can significantly speed-up the analysis of COVID vaccine candidates and also find the best preventative medical therapies. This is at a time when more and more COVID mutations are emerging, bringing existing vaccine efficiencies into question.

Virologists are concerned that the mutations will evolve past the first vaccines. The UK even set up a genomic consortium to look solely at where these mutations are cropping up. In the global picture, while some poorer countries wait for access to the vaccine, they become sitting ducks for highly infectious mutations.