Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 6575

That could reshape the Indian market, which has very few internet companies. While big tech firms are among the largest listed companies in China and the U.S., energy, financials and IT outsourcers currently dominate the Indian market. Reliance Industries —India’s biggest listed company, controlled by the country’s richest man—is pivoting away from oil and gas and last year secured investments from Facebook and Google for its tech unit, Jio Platforms.

Companies such as Zomato, Flipkart and fintech giant Paytm are considering initial public offerings in what could be a transformative moment for India’s stock market.

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SAN BENITO — Willie Rosales Jr. grew up in San Benito, and he never imagined the Valley would become a hub for space travel.

Inspired by all the SpaceX rocket activity near Boca Chica Beach, along with Elon Musk’s vision for the area, Rosales decided to turn his home into a tribute.

“My intentions are for travelers to visit San Benito, and I wanted to pay homage to Elon Musk,” he said.

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One of my favorite science fiction authors is/was Isaac Asimov (should we use the past tense since he is no longer with us, or the present tense because we still enjoy his writings?). In many ways Asimov was a futurist, but — like all who attempt to foretell what is to come — he occasionally managed to miss the mark.

Take his classic Foundation Trilogy, for example (before he added the two prequels and two sequels). On the one hand we have a Galactic Empire that spans the Milky Way with millions of inhabited worlds and quadrillions of people. Also, we have mighty space vessels equipped with hyperdrives that can convey people from one side of the galaxy to the other while they are still young enough to enjoy the experience.

On the other hand, in Foundation and Empire, when a message arrives at a spaceship via hyperwave for the attention of General Bel Riose, it’s transcribed onto a metal spool that’s placed in a message capsule that will open only to his thumbprint. Asimov simply never conceived of things like today’s wireless networks and tablet computers and suchlike.

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In this week’s edition of new unexplained astronomical phenomena, a team of astronomers led by Dr. Leigh Smith from Cambridge found a star 100 times larger than our sun that nearly disappears from the sky every few decades. They also have no idea why it does so.

The star, called VVV-WIT-08, is located 25000 light years away, and decreases in brightness by a factor of 30 rather than disappearing altogether. It’s not the first star to be discovered with this changing brightness pattern, but evidence is beginning to mount that this might just be another example of a new class of stars.

VVV-WIT-08’s name itself is calling out for an explanation. The “WIT” in the middle actually stands for “what is this”, which is what astronomers call stars that are difficult to classify into any particular established category.

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