Lifeboat Foundation

NASA ’s Lucy spacecraft has successfully completed thermal vacuum testing of both solar panels, the final step in checking out these critical spacecraft components in preparation for launch this fall. Once the Lucy spacecraft’s solar panels are attached and fully extended, they could cover a five-story building.

Lucy, the 13th mission in NASA’s Discovery Program, requires these large solar panels as it will operate farther from the Sun than any previous solar-powered space mission. During its 12-year tour of the Trojan asteroids, the Lucy spacecraft will operate a record-breaking 530 million miles (853 million km) from the Sun, beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

Circa 2017

Tomato peels and eggshells are used in a sustainable rubber that could be used to make car tires.

Shorthand, the Australian startup behind a no-code platform that allows publishers and brands to create multimedia stories, has raised $10 million Australian (just under $8 million U.S.) from Fortitude Investment Partners.

CEO Ricky Robinson told me via email that this is Shorthand’s first institutional round of funding, and that the company has been profitable for the past two years.

“We’ve been lucky enough to grow to where we are today through an entirely inbound, organic model that leverages the beautiful content that our customers create in Shorthand to generate leads,” Robinson wrote. “But we’ve been testing other channels with some success and the time is right to ramp up those other marketing initiatives. That’s where we’ll be spending this funding, while also investing heavily in our product to keep Shorthand at the cutting edge of storytelling innovation for the web.”

Aging is maleable and can be intervened to slow down and even reverse it.
Several experiments in animal models have shown that certain gene therapies as well as interventions via partial cellular reprograming can significantly extend healthspan and lifespan in mice and other model organisms.

An article published on December 30, 2020 in Fortune magazine, reaches the following conclusions:
* Without treatments to slow or reverse aspects of biological aging, an aging population means we are in for a health care cost tsunami.
* The most exciting opportunity for such an improvement in health productivity is to understand and address the biology of aging.
* There is promising scientific research on reversing aspects of aging, some of which is not far from clinical application.
* While all this research represents thrilling progress, we invest far too little in research that could help us go further in understanding and treating aging.

Continue reading “Aging isn’t nice — Let’s bring world leaders to the quest of solving it” »

Neuralink, co-founded by Elon Musk in 2016, has revealed a macaque with chips embedded on each side of its brain, playing a mind-controlled version of the 1972 video game, Pong.

Although established in 2016, Neuralink remained secretive about its work until July 2019, when Musk presented his concept for a new brain–machine interface (BMI). Not only would this help physically diseased or injured people, Musk believed it could also treat mental illness – and even be used by healthy individuals who might wish to enhance themselves.

A prototype in August 2020 demonstrated the Neuralink technology in a pig. This coin-sized chip, featuring a read/write link, contained 1024 channels with a wireless megabit data rate and all-day battery life. Brain signals conveying the pig’s sense of smell could be seen in real time. The FDA had by then approved it as a breakthrough device, allowing use in limited human trials under the US federal guidelines for testing medical devices.

Design could allow large numbers of qubits to be integrated in one device.

The rise of the EV.

“More companies now tell me they’re not spending money on engines because the incremental improvements aren’t worth it. There’s very little we can do to engines now to make them significantly more powerful or more efficient. The engine has been engineered to its end.”

Maurizio Bisogni.

Continue reading “The Gas Engine Is Dead. Welcome to the Electric Revolution” »

Men’s sperm counts are dropping, but women are stretching the clock.

“The reproductive life span of women in the United States has increased over the past 6 decades, as menarche has been starting earlier and coming later, according to an observational study.”

Changes in age at both menarche and, study of women followed over 6 decades shows.

Continue reading “Reproductive Life Span of U.S. Women Increasing” »

# Just 5 days left to upload an abstract to the SRIC3 Call for Papers! ## We need you to lead the Space Renaissance!

Choose among the following symposia tracks, all of them concurring to a coherent strategy for Space Settlement, kicking off the Civilian Space Development before 2025: * The immense social benefits of expanding Civilization into Outer Space * Civilization risk mitigation: space as the main Knight, defending humanity against the ‘Apocalypse’ multi-crisis * Global collaboration, working with Agencies, Companies, Space Advocacy Associations, United Nations and Governments of Planet Earth to promote Civilian Space Development and the 18th UN SDG * Space Safety: protecting human life and health in space, space debris recovering and reuse, space weather, defense from asteroids * Policies to Enable Communities Beyond Earth: technologies, financing, & Common Law * Earth orbit industrial development * The Moon and Cislunar development * Space Based Solar Power, feeding the Civilian Space Development * Greening the Solar System * Mars, the Asteroids Belt and beyond * A conceptual timetable for the founding steps of Space Settlement * Living, Sport, Art and Culture in Space, a Scifi futurologist–presentist narration * Congress Thesis 1 — Status of civilization and perspective of expansion into outer space * Congress Thesis 2 — A strategy to develop the Space Renaissance, towards 2025.

Continue reading “Call for papers abstract submission Space Renaissance” »