Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 658

R.I.P. Phil Philip George Zimbardo. March 23, 1933 – October 14, 2024.

“Success is not about reaching a destination; it’s about the journey and the person you become along the way.”

Philip G. Zimbardo, one of the world’s most renowned psychologists, died Oct. 14 in his home in San Francisco. He was 91.

Broadly, Zimbardo’s research explored how environments influence behavior. He is most known for his controversial 1971 study, the Stanford Prison Experiment, with W. Curtis Banks, Craig Haney, and David Jaffe. The study, intended to examine the psychological experiences of imprisonment, revealed the shocking extent to which circumstances can alter individual behavior. To this day, it is used as a case study in psychology classes to highlight both the psychology of evil as well as the ethics of doing psychological research with human subjects.

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The new technology uses square steel pipes and plates for a flexible foundation structure.

A Japanese company has designed an earthquake-resistant foundation for fixed-bottom offshore wind turbines. Developed by J-Power and the University of Tokyo, the ‘flexible tripile’ foundation is tailored for Japan’s topography.

The newly devised technology incorporates square steel pipes and steel plates in the foundation’s base plate, creating a flexible structure that can deform relatively easily, according to the company.

J-Power claims that the design provides seismic isolation from the ground, improving constructability in areas with shallow bedrock and reducing vibrations caused by earthquakes.

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Plants can emit electric potential when pulling water from their roots to nourish their stems and leaves.

Experiments showed that the electrical potential in plants varies in a cyclic rhythm that matches their daily biological processes. This potential increases with decreased ion concentration or increased pH in the fluid, linking it to the plant’s water transpiration and ion transport mechanisms.

“Our eureka moment was when our first experiments showed it is possible to produce electricity in a cyclic rhythm and the precise linkage between this and the plant’s inherent daily rhythm,” Chakraborty added. “We could exactly pinpoint how this is related to water transpiration and the ions the plant carries via the ascent of sap.”

Chakraborty also noted that not only did the researchers rediscover the plant’s electrical rhythm, articulating it in terms of voltages and currents, alongside potentially tapping electrical power output from them in a sustainable manner with no environmental impact and no disruption to the ecosystem.

Continue reading “Plants can serve as long-term renewable energy source: Study” | >

Airbus U.S. Space & Defense announced on October 15, 2024, the successful completion of the first demonstration of the Lakota UH-72 drone helicopter for the U.S. Marine Corps, conducted at Marine Corps Air Station New River and Camp Lejeune. This demonstration showcased the capabilities of the Aerial Logistics Connector (ALC) system, designed to enhance logistical support in dispersed and challenging environments. As an autonomous platform, the Lakota UH-72 ensures a continuous supply flow without relying on traditional transportation methods, which are often vulnerable or limited.

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It is morally wrong to use AI detectors when they produce false positives that smear students in ways that hurt them and where they can never prove their innocence.

While some educators…

About two-thirds of teachers report regularly using tools for detecting AI-generated content. At that scale, even tiny error rates can add up quickly.

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The research focuses on “cellular senescence,” a process where cells stop dividing and enter a state associated with chronic inflammation and aging.

This cellular state, known as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), involves the secretion of inflammatory proteins that accelerate aging and disease, such as dementia, diabetes, and atherosclerosis.

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Researchers have set a new world record for wireless data transmission, achieving speeds of 938 gigabits per second – roughly 9,000 times faster than current 5G phone networks in the UK.

The breakthrough offers a glimpse at a new era of communications through next-generation 6G technology, which is expected to be deployed commercially within the next decade.

A team from University College London (UCL) achieved the breakthrough by combining both radio and optical technologies for the first time in order to overcome the bottleneck caused by frequency congestion.

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How do plants and fungi communicate with each other? This is what a recent study published in Molecular Cell hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated the “language” conducted between plants and fungi that enables fungi growth. This study holds the potential to help scientists and farmers better understand how to fight disease-causing fungi by growing crops with greater resilience and adversity.

“As we begin to understand how plants and fungi communicate, we will better understand the complexities of the soil ecosystem, leading to healthier crops and improving our approach to biodiversity,” said Dr. Shelley Lumba, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Toronto and a co-author on the study.

For the study, the researchers examined strigolactone (SL), which is a class of plant hormones and signaling molecules responsible for plant development, with the team focusing on how SL influences fungi growth and development by testing SL with yeast. In the end, the researchers found that SL triggered certain genes called “PHO” that are responsible for phosphate metabolism, along with finding that plants release SL when they are low on phosphate, forcing the yeast to alter the amount of phosphate consumes by triggering the protein, Pho84.

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VANCOUVER, Wash. – Scientists have detected unusual seismic activity around Mount Adams in southern Washington, but say it’s no cause for alarm.

Nestled in the Cascades about 50 miles from Yakima, Mount Adams typically only experiences about 1 earthquake every 2–3 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But the agency registered six small quakes just in September alone, ranging in magnitude from 0.9 to 2.0.

The USGS said they were the most earthquakes detected at Mount Adams in a month since 1982, when monitoring began.

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Australian, American and British researchers conducted a prospective analysis of light levels in almost 89 thousand people and concluded that more light exposure at night and less during the day are associated with an increased risk of death from all causes.

Light enhances or disrupts circadian rhythms, depending on the timing of exposure. Circadian disruption contributes to poor health outcomes that increase mortality risk. Whether personal light exposure predicts mortality risk has not been established. We therefore investigated whether personal day and night light, and light patterns that disrupt circadian rhythms, predicted mortality risk. UK Biobank participants (N = 88,905, 62.4 ± 7.8 y, 57% female) wore light sensors for 1 wk. Day and night light exposures were defined by factor analysis of 24-h light profiles. A computational model of the human circadian pacemaker was applied to model circadian amplitude and phase from light data. Cause-specific mortality was recorded in 3,750 participants across a mean (±SD) follow-up period of 8.0 ± 1.0 y.

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