Lifeboat Foundation

SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk has shared more details about when in 2020 we can expect the company’s Starlink low-latency, high-bandwidth satellite internet service to actually be available to customers. He said on Twitter that a private beta for Starlink would begin in around three months, with a public beta to kick off roughly three months after that.

The initial beta test will apply to those located in “high latitudes,” Musk added. To date, SpaceX has said that Starlink service will initially be made available to customers in Canada and in the northern United States in 2020, with additional service expansion to follow to other parts of the world throughout 2021. On Twitter in response to a question about whether Germany counts as “high latitude,” Musk said that it does, indicating beta service at least may be available in more markets than the U.S. and Canada ahead of next year.

Late last year, Musk tweeted saying he was using a Starlink satellite connection to do so, and since then the company has launched six batches of 60 satellites each to build out its network. The small satellites work by flying around the Earth in low orbit, passing off connection between one another to ensure consistent service is provided to ground stations. They orbit lower than geostationary communications satellites, which provides latency and speed benefits, but don’t remain in a fixed position so a large number of them are required to provide consistent connectivity.

As NASA tackles the coronavirus pandemic with the rest of the nation, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine urges and warns space enthusiasts to stay home for next month’s historic launch.

Elon Musk seems to be really interested in Tesla expanding into the home HVAC industry — going as far as saying that he is “dying to do it.”

He first brought up the idea in an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience almost two years ago.

Continue reading “Elon Musk hypes up Tesla smart home HVAC, hints at Cybertruck feature” »

For a few years now, scientists at Washington University have been working on techniques to turn stem cells into pancreatic beta cells as a way of addressing insulin shortages in diabetics. After some promising recent strides, the team is now reporting another exciting breakthrough, combining this technique with the CRISPR gene-editing tool to reverse the disease in mice.

The pancreas contains what are known as beta cells, which secrete insulin as a way of tempering spikes in blood-sugar levels. But in those with diabetes, these beta cells either die off or don’t function as they should, which means sufferers have to rely on diet and or regular insulin injections to manage their blood-sugar levels instead.

One of the ways scientists are working to replenish these stocks of pancreatic beta cells is by making them out of human stem cells, which are versatile, blank slate-like cells that can mature into almost any type of cell in the human body. The Washington University team has operated at the vanguard of this technology with a number of key breakthroughs, most recently with a cell implantation technique that “functionally cured” mice with diabetes.

Drawing on data from satellites and Apollo-era missions, scientists at the US Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and the Lunar Planetary Institute have pieced together what they say is the first comprehensive geological map of the Moon.

Our 4.5-billion-year-old satellite is adorned with all kinds of rocks, craters and other interesting geological features. To dig into the details, the scientists looked to regional maps from six Apollo missions and combined these with modern data from recent satellite missions.

Refreshing the historical maps with fresh scientific observations enabled the scientists to put together an incredibly detailed perspective of the Moon, showing its geology at a scale of 1:5,000,000.

The system destroys the #coronavirus in a room in up to half an hour and without causing harm to any of the patients. #GoFigure

The system is built on ultraviolet light which gives off a specific wavelength that has been found to be deadly to the coronavirus, not cancerous and safe for use in close proximity to patients, including those suffering from pulmonary problems.

Boston Dynamic’s robotic dog Spot is helping healthcare workers treat coronavirus patents remotely. Spot is fitted with an iPad and two-way radio so both can communicate in real-time.

Francesca colavita, phd; daniele lapa, phd; fabrizio carletti, phd; eleonora lalle, phd; licia bordi, phd; patrizia marsella, phd; emanuele nicastri, MD; nazario bevilacqua, MD; maria letizia giancola, MD; angela corpolongo, MD; giuseppe ippolito, MD; maria rosaria capobianchi, phd; concetta castilletti, phd

Francesca Colavita, PhD

National Institute for Infectious Diseases “Lazzaro Spallanzani” IRCCS, Rome, Italy (F.C., D.L., F.C., E.L., L.B., P.M., E.N., N.B., M.L.G., A.C., G.I., M.R.C., C.C.)

Dirty air increases risk of respiratory problems that can be fatal for coronavirus patients.