Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 7635

But have you ever wondered: how well do those maps represent my brain? After all, no two brains are alike. And if we’re ever going to reverse-engineer the brain as a computer simulation—as Europe’s Human Brain Project is trying to do—shouldn’t we ask whose brain they’re hoping to simulate?

Enter a new kind of map: the Julich-Brain, a probabilistic map of human brains that accounts for individual differences using a computational framework. Rather than generating a static PDF of a brain map, the Julich-Brain atlas is also dynamic, in that it continuously changes to incorporate more recent brain mapping results. So far, the map has data from over 24,000 thinly sliced sections from 23 postmortem brains covering most years of adulthood at the cellular level. But the atlas can also continuously adapt to progress in mapping technologies to aid brain modeling and simulation, and link to other atlases and alternatives.

In other words, rather than “just another” human brain map, the Julich-Brain atlas is its own neuromapping API—one that could unite previous brain-mapping efforts with more modern methods.

Read more | >

U.S. and U.K. defense agencies plan to award $1 million to startups at the first International Space Pitch Day in November during the Defence Space Conference in London.

The rapid pace of space technology development around the world is prompting military organizations to look beyond national borders to find promising technology. The Techstars Allied Space Accelerator established in 2019, for example, received funding from the U.S. Air Force, Netherlands Ministry of Defence, Norwegian Ministry of Defence and Norwegian Space Agency support.

SAN FRANCISCO – U.S. and U.K. defense agencies plan to award $1 million to startups at the first International Space Pitch Day in November during the Defence Space Conference in London.

The event, backed by the U.K. Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Royal Air Force, U.S. Space Force and NATO, is designed to identify commercial technology with military space applications.

Continue reading “U.S. Space Force and U.K. Ministry of Defense to hold International Space Pitch Day” | >

(Inside Science) — What do a volcanologist, a pulmonologist, and a glassmaker have in common? They all worry about bubbles. The physics of how bubbles form, behave and pop is crucial to understanding natural phenomena as well as many industrial processes. According to a new study appearing in the journal Science, scientists have been getting that physics wrong for at least a couple of decades.

The new findings suggest that instead of being driven by gravity, the collapse of bubbles that form on the surface of thick liquids is driven by surface tension, in a complex, unintuitive way. And to find the truth, all the researchers had to do was turn their experiment upside down.

The physics of a bubble depends on how thick — viscous — its fluid is. If a bubble floating on the surface of water is poked and popped, surface tension makes the bubble retract quickly and violently, vanishing in about a millisecond. But in a very viscous liquid, a surface bubble may take up to one full second to collapse. This gives researchers extra time to observe a complex interplay between forces that is perfect for studying the fundamental physics at work in bubble collapse.

Read more | >

Featured Image Source: ΔV Photos @DeltavPhotos via Twitter.

 The United States reemerged as a space power with human spaceflight capabilities when SpaceX launched NASA Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) in May. The mission, referred to as Demo-2, was the first time the agency launched astronauts from American soil since the Space Shuttle fleet was grounded in 2011. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, igniting a new era in human spaceflight. After a two-month-long stay at the orbiting laboratory, the brave pair returned aboard the Crew Dragon they called ‘Endeavour.’

Dragon Endeavour undocked from the space station’s Harmony module on August 1st. Astronauts Behnken and Hurley conducted a 19-hour return voyage. On August 2nd, Dragon reentered Earth’s fiery atmosphere at a speed of around 17,500 miles per hour with the astronauts aboard. The spacecraft experienced high temperatures over 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, it deployed its sets of parachutes to slow down and conduct a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. It was the first splashdown of an American spacecraft carrying crew in 45 years. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine shared his excitement -“We have Splashdown! Welcome home Behnken and Hurley!” he said. It is the first time the company returns humans from space. NASA and SpaceX recovery teams arrived to the spacecraft aboard the ‘Go Navigator’ ship to pick up the astronauts and Dragon. The vessel features a medical room and a helicopter landing pad.

Read more | >

It would be fun to die in Mars.

Imagine living in Texas a few decades from now and suddenly being possessed with the desire to visit the moon. Traditionally, the only way such a dream could become reality would be for you to go through the arduous process of becoming a NASA astronaut and then hoping that Congress would fund a back-to-the-moon program.

If SpaceX’s Elon Musk has his way, a new road will be devised to go to the moon — and Mars and beyond. The scrappy, entrepreneurial space launch company is planning to build an offshore spaceport to launch its Starship spacecraft. The rocket ship would not only fly to far distant destinations in space, but to similar offshore spaceports around the world. Travel to Europe and Asia would be cut from many hours to tens of minutes.

If he has his way, you will be able to travel down to the now-thriving port community of Boca Chica, possibly on a Hyperloop, the mass transit-system inspired by Elon Musk, and book passage on a SpaceX Starship for a vacation on the moon. You might look forward to hiking across the lunar landscape in a spacesuit, like Neil Armstrong so long ago and visiting the Tranquility Base monument and see where he and Buzz Aldrin first trod the moon’s surface.

Continue reading “SpaceX is building the road to the moon and Mars in Texas” | >

In the end, we look back at our careers and reflect on what we’ve achieved. It may have been the hundreds of human interactions we’ve had; the thousands of emails read and replied to; the millions of minutes of physical labor—all to keep the global economy ticking along.

According to Gallup’s World Poll, only 15 percent of people worldwide are actually engaged with their jobs. The current state of “work” is not working for most people. In fact, it seems we as a species are trapped by a global work crisis, which condemns people to cast away their time just to get by in their day-to-day lives.

Technologies like artificial intelligence and automation may help relieve the work burdens of millions of people—but to benefit from their impact, we need to start changing our social structures and the way we think about work now.

Read more | >