Lifeboat Foundation

The building blocks of life can, and did, spontaneously assemble under the right conditions. That’s called spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis. Of course, many of the details remain hidden to us, and we just don’t know exactly how it all happened.

Or how frequently it could happen.

The world’s religions have different ideas of how life appeared, of course, and they invoke the magical hands of various supernatural deities to explain it all. But those explanations, while colorful tales, leave many of us unsatisfied.

Understanding where outdoor cats go is important for keeping them, and native wildlife, safe.

Another reminder that the solar system is awesomely bonkers.

Circa 2019

An asteroid that’s filled with gold and enough precious metals to turn everyone on Earth into a billionaire is being studied by NASA.

The asteroid – known as 16 Psyche – has a mass of less than 1% of our moon and it contains heaps of platinum, iron and nickel alongside the gold. The combined total value of all those precious metals would equal out at something like $700 quintillion.

Continue reading “Gigantic golden asteroid could make everyone on Earth a billionaire” »

A British grandfather-of-nine has become the first person in the world to benefit from a pioneering triple-combo heart-failure treatment.

Robert Brind, 63, from Whitstable, Kent, had three new wireless implants fitted over the course of six months to help his heart beat properly again.

One prompts the heart to beat at a normal rate, another makes sure both sides beat in unison, while the third is on standby to shock the heart if it suddenly starts to fail.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday approved Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc’s coronavirus test, which would allow the firm to increase capacity to 1.4 million tests a week, a Trump administration official said.

“This will dramatically increase our ability to test people for the virus,” the official said. It was not immediately clear if capacity referred to test kit production or processing of tests performed on individual patients.

The move comes as the Trump administration struggles to meet demand for testing. The FDA has already approved emergency authorization for a faster coronavirus test made by Swiss diagnostics maker Roche.

Along with academic research departments around the world, private sector medical technology companies are getting in on the action, seeking ways to increase longevity and health span.

China and South Korea used smartphone apps to monitor people with the disease. But Americans have different views of privacy and data collection.

Coronavirus’s economic danger is exponentially greater than its health risks to the public. If the virus does directly affect your life, it is most likely to be through stopping you going to work, forcing your employer to make you redundant, or bankrupting your business.

The trillions of dollars wiped from financial markets this week will be just the beginning, if our governments do not step in. And if President Trump continues to stumble in his handling of the situation, it may well affect his chances of re-election. Joe Biden in particular has identified Covid-19 as a weakness for Trump, promising “steady, reassuring” leadership during America’s hour of need.

Continue reading “Coronavirus will bankrupt more people than it kills — and that’s the real global emergency” »