Lifeboat Foundation

TOKYO — Japanese technology giant SoftBank has committed billions of dollars to bailing out office-space sharing startup WeWork in a daring vote of confidence from its intrepid founder Masayoshi Son.

WeWork’s woes are substantial enough that some analysts say they could derail the investment ambitions of SoftBank’s mammoth Vision Fund.

But, as one of the most innovative companies in conservative Japan Inc., SoftBank is no stranger to risk-taking. SoftBank oversees an expanding conglomerate of businesses spanning telecommunications, energy and humanoid robots:

Coupled with a high enough battery capacity to keep a vehicle running during darker hours, solar-powered cars have the potential to completely outdo other new types of tech that are currently in the pipeline — from hybrid vehicles to hydrogen-powered cars.

• Toyota, Sharp, and NEDO have teamed up to manufacture a unique car that could “run forever”, according to Bloomberg.
• There have been promising advances in developing thin enough solar panels for curved surfaces, as well as in tech for charging vehicles while they’re in motion.
• The solar cells the companies are working on attaching to the car are only 0.03 mm thick, so they can be attached to curved areas on cars like the roof, the hood, or the hatchback.
• By pairing more efficient solar cells with high-capacity batteries to keep vehicles running at night, solar cars have the potential to outperform hybrid vehicles and hydrogen-powered cars.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

A solar-powered electric car that runs without needing charging may sound impossible, but Toyota, Sharp, and NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization of Japan) have joined forces to hopefully make it a reality.

By pairing together the best solar panels on the market with the most efficient batteries available — not to mention years worth of experience with car-manufacturing — the companies are hoping, theoretically, to produce a vehicle that might run forever.

To go where no man has gone before (and to get back) will require quite a bit of oomph. All that energy must come from somewhere. Traditional chemical rocket fuels could work for some missions, but nuclear-based propulsion systems have several advantages.

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) rockets use a nuclear reaction to heat liquid hydrogen. When the hydrogen is heated, it expands and is forced through a nozzle to produce thrust. This is similar to how air can stream out of the stem of a balloon and cause it to fly across the room. With rockets, this happens with much greater speed and force.

These hydrogen propelled rockets are designed for space exploration, not for use on Earth, and subsequently would not be turned on (i.e. brought critical) until after they left Earth. Although the specific type of fuel for these applications has not been formally selected, the fuel envisioned for use in an NTP environment is uranium fuel.

As the Big Bang theory goes, somewhere around 13.8 billion years ago the universe exploded into being, as an infinitely small, compact fireball of matter that cooled as it expanded, triggering reactions that cooked up the first stars and galaxies, and all the forms of matter that we see (and are) today.

Just before the Big Bang launched the universe onto its ever-expanding course, physicists believe, there was another, more explosive phase of the early universe at play: cosmic inflation, which lasted less than a trillionth of a second. During this period, matter—a cold, homogeneous goop—inflated exponentially quickly before processes of the Big Bang took over to more slowly expand and diversify the infant universe.

Recent observations have independently supported theories for both the Big Bang and cosmic inflation. But the two processes are so radically different from each other that scientists have struggled to conceive of how one followed the other.

The employees get paid $15 an hour cleaning the green space in Austin.

AUSTIN, Texas — The homeless often face barriers when trying to find employment. This week, after reaching the one-year anniversary of their new program, a nonprofit said they are making a difference for those trying to get on their feet and find a job.

In October 2018, The Other Ones Foundation (Too Found) created its Workforce First program to provide the homeless with jobs cleaning the green space in Austin and reduce panhandling.

Continue reading “More than 100 homeless people now have jobs through Austin nonprofit” »

Scientists from the universities of Alberta and Toronto developed a blueprint for a new quantum battery that doesn’t leak charge.

“A quantum battery is a tiny, nano-size battery meant to be used for applications on the nano scale,” explained U of A chemist Gabriel Hanna, who was principal investigator on the study.

He said the research provides a theoretical demonstration that creating a loss-free quantum battery is possible—offering an advantage over previously proposed quantum batteries.

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Rare genetic variants could point to new treatments for severe psychiatric disorder.

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Continue reading “Using Drones to Plant 20,000,000 Trees” »

Flying robots that deliver packages to people’s doorsteps are no longer science fiction. Companies including Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Wing and Uber Technologies Inc. are starting the most advanced trials of drone delivery in U.S. history.

While commercial drone delivery faces many hurdles, government-approved tests by the tech giants will mark the first time consumers in parts of the country experience the technology. Wing this month started tests in Christiansburg, Va., while Uber says it will experiment in San Diego…

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