Lifeboat Foundation

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the Republic of Korea has found that it is possible to replace chemical functional groups with a gold electrode to control the reactivity of a molecule. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes attaching target molecules to a gold electrode to change the properties of immobilized molecules and how their technique performed when used to rate changes in the hydrolysis of certain esters.

In chemistry, functional groups are assortments of atoms that together work to attach carbon skeletons in organic molecules. All organic molecules have their own unique functional groups, which play an important role in the formation of molecules. Functional groups can also donate or take away electrons when one molecule comes into contact with another, which is how many chemical reactions occur.

Chemists have found that they can tinker with functional groups to speed up or slow down reactions to suit their needs, and because of that, functional groups play an important role in chemical synthesis. Unfortunately, developing reactions to produce desired products using functional groups has proven to be slow and difficult work. In this new effort, the researchers have found a way to replace the use of functional groups with a gold electrode to make the work easier. They simply attached molecules to a gold electrode and turned on the electricity. The technique allowed for more control over reactions by varying the amount of electricity supplied to the electrode. In such a capacity, the electrode was able to work as a “universal functional group” to inhibit or propel reactions when the researchers manipulated the amount of electricity applied to the electrode.

The cargo ship of the future is coming.

A wind-powered super sailboat could change how we ship cargo, reducing energy-related carbon emissions in a method still used by 90 percent of manufactured goods. The Wallenius Marine OceanBird can carry 7,000 cars at a time and is powered totally by wind.

Continue reading “This Wind-Powered Super Sailboat Will Carry 7,000 Cars Across the Atlantic” »

As drones become better and better at everything they do, it’s only natural photographers and videographers alike start pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. This particular boundary push is not for the faint of heart, however. I’m reasonably new to the drone world. While I’d been keen to dip a toe for a long time, I had been waiting for commercial applications to justify the acquisition. Thankfully, I found a window and jumped right through it.

A 1.76 pound drone can now move faster than a Tesla at top speed in Ludicrous Mode.

Yesterday, the Drone Racing League set the Guinness World Record for fastest drone, or the category of “fastest ground speed by a battery-powered remote-controlled quadcopter.”

Called the DRL Racer X, the drone can fly at a top speed of 179.6 MPH.

O,.o.

The drone swarm used the affordable off-the-shelf decoy to wreak havoc on enemy integrated air defense systems.

Continue reading “RAF Uses Autonomous Drone Swarm Loaded With Decoys To Overwhelm Mock Enemy Air Defenses” »

Eli Lilly said Wednesday a monoclonal antibody treatment is effective in reducing levels of the virus that causes Covid-19 in patients, and also appears to prevent patients from visiting the emergency room or hospital.

Lilly had previously released results for a similar treatment using one antibody, which experts viewed as promising. But the new results, of a combination of two antibodies, appear, based on limited data provided in a press release, to be more robust. The results also appear roughly similar to those Regeneron presented last week of its own cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies. Last Friday, President Trump was treated with the Regeneron monoclonal antibodies.

Monoclonal antibodies are synthetic versions of the antibodies that are one of the main weapons of the immune system. Researchers believed that injecting them into patients could help treat them.

Circa 2018

In the 2015 movie “The Martian,” astronaut Mark Watney survives on Mars by growing potato plants in his own waste. The scenario is fictional, of course, but it underscores a real-world challenge for NASA: How can the space agency ensure an uninterrupted supply of safe, nutritious food for astronauts who are tens of millions of miles from the nearest supermarket?

The successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket marked a big step toward developing the technology needed to transport colonists to Mars, though the strategy for keeping them and deep-space astronauts fed remains a work in progress.

Continue reading “How recycled astronaut poop might sustain a mission to Mars” »

Many people don’t like the thought of delivery drones buzzing up to their doorstep, with their propellers whirling dangerously close. The RDS1 setup was designed with that in mind, as it drops packages – in free-fall – but doesn’t let them hit the ground.

Created by Los Angeles-based company A2Z Drone Delivery, the RDS1 (Rapid Delivery System 1) incorporates a remotely piloted DJI Matrice 600 Pro hexacopter drone that’s equipped with a motorized reel of Kevlar cord. At the end of that tether is an elastic fabric pouch that can hold a payload weighing up to 2 kg (4.4 lb).

When the drone reaches its destination, it remains hovering at an altitude of 150 ft (46 m). It then releases the brake on its tether reel, allowing the payload pouch to freely fall through the air. Shortly before that pouch reaches the ground, however, the reel brake is gently reapplied, slowing the payload’s descent to a stop.

Organic photovoltaics are a third-generation solar cell technology made of electron donor and electron acceptor materials instead of conventional semiconductor p-n junctions. The performance of this alternative solar cell technology has improved significantly over the past few years and it is now comparable to that of classical inorganic solar cells, both in terms of charge carrier yields (i.e., electrical current generation) and solar spectrum matching.

The only feature of organic photovoltaics that still lags behind traditional solar cells is its achievable voltage (V_OC, which stands for open circuit voltage). As electrical power is the product of voltage and current, however, the poor V_OC of organic solar cells currently prevents their successful commercialization.

Researchers at the Institute of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET) in Germany and the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) in Greece have been investigating specific features of materials used to build organic photovoltaics that could enable greater efficiencies and achievable voltages. Their paper, published in Nature Energy, shows that materials with long exciton lifetimes could be particularly promising for the creation of efficient organic solar cells.