Lifeboat Foundation

Cadillac is fully aware it needs to continue launching new vehicles that are not only relevant for the times but also offer something new. That something is — big surprise — electrification. At the moment, GM’s luxury brand does not sell an EV and its only hybrid model, the Cadillac CT6 Hybrid, is about to be discontinued. Eventually, the just-revealed 2021 Cadillac Escalade will likely offer a plug-in hybrid variant and, perhaps, an all-electric one as well. Thing is, Cadillac can’t wait that long for an Escalade EV, but it turns out an alternative is coming very soon.

GM President Mark Reuss announced last week at the automaker’s Capital Markets Day presentation the brand’s first-ever EV will debut this April. And yes, it will be a crossover, a fact that was announced a year ago at the Detroit Auto Show. Oddly, Cadillac did not preview this vehicle with a concept in the Motor City.

Scientists at Newcastle University, in the United Kingdom, have 3D printed the world’s first real human corneas. This is unbelievable news since today, there is a significant shortage of corneas available for transplant. In the future, this printing technique could be used to ensure an unlimited supply of corneas.

The cornea is the outermost layer of the human eye and it has an important role in focusing vision. Statistics show that there are currently 10 million people worldwide requiring surgery to prevent corneal blindness as a result of diseases such as trachoma, an infectious eye disorder. On top of that, there are an additional 5 million people who suffer total blindness due to corneal scarring caused by burns, lacerations, abrasion or disease.

For the first time, researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Strasbourg have simulated the formation of galaxies in a universe without dark matter. To replicate this process on the computer, they have instead modified Newton’s laws of gravity. The galaxies that were created in the computer calculations are similar to those we actually see today. According to the scientists, their assumptions could solve many mysteries of modern cosmology. The results are published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Cosmologists today assume that matter was not distributed entirely evenly after the Big Bang. The denser places attracted more matter from their surroundings due to their stronger gravitational forces. Over the course of several billion years, these accumulations of gas eventually formed the galaxies we see today.

An important ingredient of this theory is the so-called dark matter. On the one hand, it is said to be responsible for the initial uneven distribution that led to the agglomeration of the gas clouds. It also explains some puzzling observations. For instance, stars in rotating galaxies often move so fast that they should actually be ejected. It appears that there is an additional source of gravity in the galaxies that prevents this—a kind of “star putty” that cannot be seen with telescopes: dark matter.

Data can be stolen from an air gapped personal computer just by using variations in screen brightness. Researchers at Ben-Gurion University wrote a paper on it.

As the team defines them, “Air-gapped computers are systems that are kept isolated from the Internet since they store or process sensitive information.”

Continue reading “Information theft via manipulating screen brightness in air-gapped computers” »

Scientists from the United States to Australia are using new technology in an ambitious, multi-million-dollar drive to develop a vaccine in record time to tackle China’s coronavirus outbreak.

The new virus has spread rapidly since emerging late last year in China, killing more than 800 people in the mainland and infecting over 37,000. Cases have been reported in two dozen other countries.

Coming up with any vaccine typically takes years, and involves a lengthy process of testing on animals, clinical trials on humans and regulatory approvals.

I am amazed by just how far technology has come!

An image of her daughter was created with ‘virtual reality’ for a mother who lost her daughter in 2016 in South Korea. The moment the mother met her daughter left those in the studio in tears.

Continue reading “‘Virtual Reality’ Reunites with Deceased Daughter” »

Honey??? AEWR

Vegans have more restrictive diets than vegetarians. Not only do vegans avoid meat, but they also avoid animal by-products including dairy and eggs.

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NASA Wallops Flight Facility is scheduled to launch a rocket tonight that will be visible to the DMV as it climbs into the sunset sky.

The facility hopes to launch the 13th Northrop Grumman resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) at 5:39 p.m. near sunset. The Cygnus cargo ship (spacecraft) is the S.S. Robert H. Lawrence, named for the first ever African American selected as an astronaut.

The launch and mission will be carried live by NASA.