Lifeboat Foundation

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Virgin Orbit says it is weeks away from the first orbital launch of its LauncherOne rocket as the company makes plans to move quickly into operations if that flight is successful.

The company said in a series of tweets Jan. 31 that is in final preparations for its test launch, with the LauncherOne rocket attached to its Boeing 747 aircraft for a final series of tests and dress rehearsals at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. That includes a captive carry flight, where the plane will take off with the rocket attached for the entire flight.

The company didn’t disclose when that launch would take place beyond that it was “really close” to being ready for the flight. Dan Hart, chief executive of Virgin Orbit, said that launch would take place in the “coming weeks” during a panel discussion at the SmallSat Symposium here Feb. 4.

Physicists will try to observe quantum properties of superposition—existing in two states at once—on a larger object than ever before.

A team of physicists thinks that they can solve a key mystery about neutrinos and their masses by scanning data from Antarctica’s IceCube Neutrino Observatory.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch is set to complete the longest-ever single spaceflight by a woman.

When she returns to Earth on Thursday, Koch will have spent 328 days on the International Space Station (ISS), surpassing the previous record held by fellow American Peggy Whitson.

Ms Koch will come back in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, parachuting down to a landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

They say it can detect fevers from a distance.

Earlier this year, scientists brought dead pig brains back to life, provoking huge ethical quandaries in the process.

The proliferation of transhumanist thought beyond science fiction and into the public space seems, at first, a minor ideological and physical threat. Numerous concerns about the implications of transhumanism have been raised, but few regarding religious implications. Cultural anthropologist Chris Toumey notes in his article in Nature Nanotechnology the small body of literature grounded explicitly in Christian values, remarking “I would like to see religious thought on nanotechnology develop well beyond a reaction to the more sensationalist parts of the transhumanist vision.” [1] Though the quote specifies nanotechnology, it applies more broadly to non-secular works on the problem(s) with transhumanism. To find literature from Muslims, then, containing an approach to transhumanism guided by Islamic principles is a laborious endeavor. This is not to fault Muslims, but to draw observant, critical eyes to the transhumanist movement.

The existing literature must be studied in order to understand the scope of possible reconciliation/conflict as Muslims formulate their own methods of evaluation. In her book, Cyborg Selves: A Theological Anthropology of the Posthuman, Jeanine Thweatt-Bates, Assistant Professor of Theology at New Brunswick Theological Seminary, outlines her approach: one that is, at once, an overview of two approaches to the ‘posthuman,’ and an analysis of possible reconciliatory discourse with a Christian theological locus. To be clear, it’s not a book on the Christian perspective of the posthuman, but a Christian’s perspective.

The Cyborg

A “beating heart” of frozen nitrogen controls Pluto’s winds and may give rise to features on its surface, according to a new study.

Líthica — Pedreres de s’Hostal quarries in Menorca. The sandstone of varying hues has been used as a construction material on the island ever since the Stone Age.