Lifeboat Foundation

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was once filmed chatting to two identically dressed lookalikes — escalating wild conspiracies that a body double was recently used to claim he is alive and well.

Footage from July 2017 discovered by the Sun shows the Hermit Kingdom’s leader with the doppelgangers as he showed off a new missile.

The pair appear the same height and size, with identically cut hair shaved at the back and sides, and wearing suits perfectly matching the one worn by their leader, the Sun noted.

Blue Origin has never been much for marketing. Now, as it has won a large NASA contract, it is opening up a merchandise store.

As France makes the wearing of facial masks mandatory on public transport, it’s trialling new AI technology to check whether passengers are complying. The software, made by French startup Datakalab, is being trialed first in Paris, and will only generate anonymous statistical data.

In the future, people getting ready for a flight — and fearing impending jet lag — might fit an assortment of additions into their carry on: masks, gloves, and maybe a medicinal mushroom hailed for delivering animalistic sex drive.

That’s because a new study suggests that a synthetic form of cordycepin, a compound found in a medicinal fungus with a reputation for keeping bedroom doors closed, may help ease the pain of jet lag.

My hero.

Musk hit a key performance target on Wednesday, meaning the billionaire is set for another award of share options under a 2018 performance plan.

A University of Saskatchewan (USask) research team has uncovered how bats can carry the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus without getting sick—research that could shed light on how coronaviruses make the jump to humans and other animals.

Coronaviruses such as MERS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and more recently the COVID19-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus, are thought to have originated in bats. While these viruses can cause serious and often fatal disease in people, for reasons not previously well understood, bats seem unharmed.

“The bats don’t get rid of the virus and yet don’t get sick. We wanted to understand why the MERS virus doesn’t shut down the bat immune responses as it does in humans,” said USask microbiologist Vikram Misra.

Graphene light sail of 3mm in diameter with a mass of 0.25 mg ‘sets sail’ when pointed with a 1W laser. The prototype has a graphene micromembrane design that reduces the overall mass while keeping functional the complete area of the sail. Credit: Dr. Santiago Jose Cartamil-Bueno.

Overseas exploration and trade during the Age of Discovery (15th-17th centuries) were possible by sail technology, and deep-space exploration will require the same for the coming Age of NewSpace. This time, however, the new sails shall move with light instead of wind, for which these light sails need to be extremely large, thin, lightweight, reflective, and strong.

In a light-hearted leap for humankind, ESA-backed researchers demonstrate the laser-propulsion of graphene sails in microgravity.

A new paper by physicist Edward Witten proposes hunting Planet 9 using a fleet of laser-launched probes like Breakthrough Starshots’.

After three years of intensive data-gathering and careful drawing, the mapmakers’ work was complete.

The complex terrain they charted, with all its peaks, valleys and borders, is only about half an inch long and weighs less than a jellybean: the brain of the laboratory mouse.

In a paper published today in the journal Cell, the Allen Institute mapmakers describe this cartographical feat—the third iteration of the Allen Mouse Brain Common Coordinate Framework, or CCFv3 (https://portal.brain-map.org/), a complete, high-resolution 3D atlas of the mouse brain.