Lifeboat Foundation

A single “super photon” made up of many thousands of individual light particles: About ten years ago, researchers at the University of Bonn produced such an extreme aggregate state for the first time and presented a completely new light source. The state is called optical Bose-Einstein condensate and has captivated many physicists ever since, because this exotic world of light particles is home to its very own physical phenomena.

Researchers led by Prof. Dr. Martin Weitz, who discovered the super photon, and theoretical physicist Prof. Dr. Johann Kroha have returned from their latest “expedition” into the quantum world with a very special observation. They report of a new, previously unknown phase transition in the optical Bose-Einstein condensate. This is a so-called overdamped phase. The results may in the long term be relevant for encrypted quantum communication. The study has been published in the journal Science.

Mars Incorporated has developed an autonomous robot that will follow shoppers around a grocery store to tempt them with candy before they checkout.

The company working on a militarized version of BD’s Spot. It looks like just a straight copy. Sadly, no FB page, and didn’t see any other robots on there besides this. I think some humanoid robot competition would be helpful.

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Privacy & Legal

Elon Musk is going to pay $100 million towards a prize to come up with the best carbon capture technology. (Or so he tweets. Details are scarce so far.)

The maverick tech CEO’s promise is not particularly notable for its generosity. With a net worth of over $200 billion, $100 million is 0.05% of Musk’s wealth.

But still, the richest person in the world’s tweet brings attention to an often-overlooked technology that has been around since the 1970s but has mostly been relegated to niche corners of the energy community.

30 Pieces of silver for the masses.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) just published a report titled Fossil Fuel Foolery, which identified 10 tactics that the fossil fuel industry used as excuses for not accepting accountability for its impacts on the environment and human health. DesmogBlog noted that the industry used a long list of deceptive tactics that concealed environmental destruction harming Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) as well as low-income communities. Not surprising — the fossil fuel industry only cares about money, and if the planet and human health stand in the way of that, so be it.

The article gave a snapshot of the report findings, and one of the most disturbing things I took notice of was the common tactic that the NAACP described as “co-opt community leaders and organizations and misrepresent the interests and opinions of communities,” sometimes with financial support, to “neutralize or weaken public opposition.”

Continue reading “The Fossil Fuel Industry Used Deception To Conceal Damage To BIPOC — NAACP Report” »

Public can try pulling faces to trick the technology, while critics highlight human rights concerns.

Here’s my latest video (audio issues fixed!):

Papers referenced in the video:

Continue reading “Gut Bacteria Boost Host NAD Metabolism” »

Extract from a conversation that María Blasco, Director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO for its acronym in Spanish) had with Mario Alonso Puig during the celebration of the South Summit 2020.

In this segment María Blasco refers to aging, cancer, telomerase, and life extension. The conversation is in English and I added subtitles in Spanish.

Continue reading “Dr. María Blasco refers to Telomerase and Life Extension (in English with S/T en Español)” »

While a Mars rover can explore where no person has gone before, a smaller robot at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia could climb to new heights by mimicking the movements of a lizard.

Simply named X-4, the university’s climbing robot has allowed a team of researchers to test and replicate how a lizard moves in the hope that their findings will inspire next-generation robotics design for disaster relief, remote surveillance and possibly even space exploration.

In a scientific paper published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the team states that lizards have optimized their movement across difficult terrain over many years of evolution.