Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 6441

A new coronavirus variant, C.1.2, has been detected in South Africa and a number of other countries, with concerns that the variant could be more infectious and evade vaccines, according to a new preprint study by South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform. The study is awaiting peer review.

The C.1.2 variant first detected in South Africa is more mutated compared to the original virus than any other known variant.

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Circa 2017

Transformers are found at generating stations and distribution substations. Their primary function is to reduce the high voltages used to transport electricity long distances to the lower voltages needed by homes and businesses. But today’s transformers only operate in one direction. They are poorly equipped for boosting electricity from local sources — typically wind and solar — to the higher voltages needed to mesh efficiently with the larger grid.

Beginning in 2,010 researchers at the National Science Foundation’s FREEDM Systems Center at NC State introduced the first solid state transformer. It could perform all of the functions of a traditional transformer, but could also redirect power as needed to address changes in supply and demand.

“The SST is a fundamental building block in the smart-grid concept,” says Iqbal Husain, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the school and director of the FREEDM Center. “It can scale down voltage for use in homes and businesses, but it can also scale up voltage from solar panels or other residential-scale renewable sources in order to feed that power back into the grid. And because the SST is a smart technology, it can switch back and forth between those two functions as needed.”

Continue reading “Solid State Transformers Could Be Key To Smart Grid Functionality” | >

Article at gnews reports on announcement by Dr. Ozaki, chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association Greenlight for Ivermectin in Japan. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Since Tokyo summer Olympic Game ended on August 8 2021, the urgent status of the pandemic as Japan is now in its worst surge of the COVID-19 pandemic since the onset of the crisis in such a megacity of 14 million. Most recently, a record number of new cases were reported at 20,140 on August 14. Deaths aren’t as high as successive waves of the pandemic from February2021to the end of May, but nerves are frayed with record numbers of infections. Dr. Ozaki, The chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association, recently led an emergency press conference on August 13 Dr. Haruo Ozaki shared those 18,000 new infections are reported daily. However, the death count has eased as compared to previous surges.

How to deal with the current dilemma is a huge challenge to Japanese government and medical agencies? Fortunately, India has an excellent testimonial. Since April 28 India medical officials started providing Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to its massive population. As India is the major pharmaceutical manufacture in the world, they were ready for this massive drug distribution. Miraculously, COVID cases have plummeted quickly since then thanks to the new rules.

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Karim Hijazi is CEO of Prevailion, a cyber intelligence company that monitors and detects active threats by infiltrating hacker networks. Hijazi is also a former director of intelligence for Mandiant and a former contractor for the US intelligence community.

Ransomware has taken the spotlight lately following a string of brazen attacks on major U.S. companies.

And as bad as this kind of malware is, businesses and investors can expect to face a growing number of sophisticated cyber threats that could be even more disruptive and difficult to prevent.

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Circa 2020

Since electric vehicles first started hitting the mainstream, people have been asking “why doesn’t that have a solar panel roof?” The answer has always been the same: solar panels just don’t generate that much power. That’s not a huge problem for solar racers, with their ultra-light weight and super-aerodynamic shapes, but for the minuscule daily range a solar roof would give you on your typical daily driver, you’re still gonna need to plug it in.

Ah, but what if your daily driver was the closest thing on the road to a solar racer? An EV truly designed with ludicrous levels of efficiency as the primary goal? Something so aerodynamically slippery that it makes a mockery of the production car world? Well, that’s the Aptera. And its manufacturers claim that its 180 small solar panels, making up an area of more than three square meters (32.3 sq ft), will harvest enough energy that many drivers will never have to charge it.

The top-spec Aptera can self-generate as much as 45 miles (72 km) of range per day in ideal conditions, which is more than twice the average daily mileage of American car owners. And that doesn’t have to be a terribly large amount of energy, thanks to its extreme frugality.

Continue reading “Aptera opens orders on 1,000-mile solar EV that never needs charging” | >

Tesla may be the world’s most valuable automaker but it’s also under a federal investigation over its Autopilot semi-autonomous driving system. Teslas with Autopilot engaged have crashed into police cars and emergency vehicles parked on the side of the road and the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) understandably wants to know what’s going on.

On top of this, a pair of US Senators are demanding another investigation over the Autopilot name itself, claiming it’s misleading. Bear in mind Autopilot is rated at only Level 2 whereas Level 5 autonomy requires zero human input. Far too many Tesla owners don’t seem to understand that, hence the Senators’ concerns. And now Elon Musk has confirmed the next stage of the Full Self-Driving Beta will arrive soon.

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A P-8I maritime patrol aircraft of the Indian Navy was spotted flying over the Philippines, close to the South China Sea, almost all of which is claimed by China. The submarine-hunting aircraft is in the region to participate in the Malabar Exercise, featuring the navies of all four Quad countries.

This edition of the Malabar naval exercise is being hosted by the United States Navy in the Western Pacific, off the coast of Guam. The area is not far from the South China Sea, where China has built a large number of artificial islands and militarized them to strengthen its territorial claims over these waters, which host some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

China opposes the deployment of foreign military vessels in the region, including the Freedom of Navigation Patrols conducted by the US to assert its right to use the waterways in the South China Sea.

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