Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2018 o.o!

We are not living in the first universe. There were other universes, in other eons, before ours, a group of physicists has said. Like ours, these universes were full of black holes. And we can detect traces of those long-dead black holes in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) — the radioactive remnant of our universe’s violent birth.

At least, that’s the somewhat eccentric view of the group of theorists, including the prominent Oxford University mathematical physicist Roger Penrose (also an important Stephen Hawking collaborator). Penrose and his acolytes argue for a modified version of the Big Bang.

Continue reading “Physicists Spotted the Ghosts of Black Holes from Another Universe” »

Spiral galaxies are one of the most commonly known types of galaxy. Most people think of them as large round disks, and know that our Milky Way is counted among their number. What most people don’t realize is that many spiral galaxies have a type of warping effect that, when you look at them edge on, can make it seem like they are forming a wave. Now scientists, led by Xinlun Chen at the University of Virginia, have studied millions of stars in the Milky Way and begun to develop a picture of a “wave” passing through our own galaxy.

Since humans are not currently able to view the Milky Way in an edge-on orientation, they must resort to more brute force methods to develop models about the what, if any, wave our galaxy has. Luckily, scientists now have the tools to do so, in the form of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and ESA’s Gaia satellite.

The method the team used was to try to identify and track the motions of as many stars as possible. To do this, they used the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) spectrograph, which is part of the SDSS. This preliminary data allowed them to look at both the chemical compositions as well as the motions of hundreds of thousands of stars. While this motion data was helpful in starting to form the picture of the Milky Way’s wave, it was not sufficient to complete it.

The classic gets an electric upgrade.

Giant squids can grow as long as 43 feet and dwell in the deep sea. Sightings are very rare, but in 2012, a diver swam right next to one in Japan.

MONTREAL — A team of researchers from the Montreal Heart Institute believe they have found an effective weapon against COVID-19: colchicine, an oral tablet already known and used for other diseases.

For Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, who led the study, this is a “major scientific discovery,” he said. Colchicine is the first “effective oral drug to treat out-of-hospital patients.”

“To be able to offer this, from Quebec, and for the planet, we are very happy,” said Tardif.

Intelligent Design

DNA is already known to be an ideal storage medium. Why not use cells to do the hard work?

Alibaba is one of the best places around to find the coolest and sometimes weirdest electric vehicles in the world. As part of a new series known as Awesomely weird Alibaba electric vehicle of the week, we’re taking a look at some of our favorites.

This week’s feature is a small-yet-mighty electric pickup truck designed for utility and off-road usage, though it may even be street legal as an NEV in the US.

If the proportions look at bit odd on this electric pickup truck, that’s because they are.

We review a selection of new aircraft on the market, including turbine-powered long-range and super midsized offerings, twin and single-engine turboprops, single-engine experimental and tailwheel aircraft, and light sport aircraft.

The Raspberry Pi Pico GPIO is our way to connect components and devices which we can use in our experiments, Here we create a motion sensor project using a sensor and an LED.