Lifeboat Foundation

That vast majority of quadcopter drones produce thrust in a very straightforward way: the propellers push air downwards at a high speed which creates lift. But that doesn’t mean other means of propulsion can’t be used. YouTuber Tom Stanton often experiments with unconventional drones and methods of propulsion, and in his newest video he has made a drone fly using the Coandă effect.

The Coandă effect, named after Romanian inventor Henri Coandă, describes the propensity for fluids — including air — to cling to convex surfaces as they move across them. That’s because a low pressure zone is created around the curved surface, and the atmospheric pressure of the surrounding air pushes the moving air along. This effect can be used to redirect the flow of air, which is how Stanton wanted to provide thrust for a drone. Instead of having propellers that push directly down on the air, he used an impeller to push air outwards horizontally. The impellers are mounted on top of domes, and the Coandă effect pulls the air downwards to provide thrust.

Continue reading “Tom Stanton Builds a Drone That Flies Using the Coandă Effect” »

In a bid to accelerate training and inferences taken from artificial intelligence (AI) models, Intel has unveiled its two new processors. These two chips are part of its Nervana Neural Network Processor (NNP) selection.

The AI-focused chips will be called Spring Crest and Spring Hill, as they were disclosed on Tuesday at the Hot Chips Conference, held in Palo Alto, California.

The Hot Chips Conference is an annual tech symposium held annually in August.

Circa 2011

Considering the amount of energy packed in the nucleus of a single uranium atom, or the energy that has been continuously radiating from the sun for billions of years, or the fact that there are 10⁸⁰ particles in the observable universe, it seems that the total energy in the universe must be an inconceivably vast quantity. But it’s not; it’s probably zero.

Light, matter and antimatter are what physicists call “positive energy.” And yes, there’s a lot of it (though no one is sure quite how much). Most physicists think, however, that there is an equal amount of “negative energy” stored in the gravitational attraction that exists between all the positive-energy particles. The positive exactly balances the negative, so, ultimately, there is no energy in the universe at all.

Continue reading “What’s the Total Energy In the Universe?” »

Both recent new Kindle books (will be paperbacks also in time) concern the two streams of this project. Primal Eye 1979–2019 outlines circuit designs and hard considerations and outlines MVT Posthuman Psychology. The other Kindle book — ZENET Game of Immortality — details some of the gaming and soft matters.

Everybody isn’t going to live forever even given new genetic techniques and improved medicines. When you reach a terminal state beyond medical science, the only options seem cryogenic preservation, actual death, or Artificial-Death. PRIMAL EYE 40 years on (1979 to 2019) includes Conscious Circuits, Artifical-Death and Posthuman Psychology.

If you’re looking to build a new home on coastal waters where hurricanes are known to roam, you might want to skip the two-by-fours and cement and instead start drinking bottled soda. A Canadian company has recently completed construction of a home with exterior walls made from recycled plastic, and it’s claimed to be able to withstand winds gusting at over 300 miles per hour.

Built by JD Composites, the three bedroom home is situated near the Meteghan River in Nova Scotia. Aside from a distinct lack of trees, gardens, and neighbors, the house looks like any other dwelling with a clean modern design and a minimalist facade. Inside it’s fully furnished and finished with drywall covered lumber walls, but the exterior is what makes the house appealing as a new, and seemingly much improved, approach to construction.

The Forever Healthy Foundation has recently launched the Rejuvenation Now project, and it has just published a detailed analysis of NAD+ repletion therapies, providing the first scientific overview of this particular approach and of the supplements currently available.

One industry, two types of people

Continue reading “The Rejuvenation Now Project Launches” »

Last year, Pentagon mad science arm DARPA was working on one of its wildest projects yet: a microchip-sized nuclear reactor. The program is now officially done, the agency says. But these sorts of far-out projects have a habit of being reemerging under new managers and new names.

The project, known as the “Chip-Scale High Energy Atomic Beams” program, is an effort aimed at working on the core technologies behind a tiny particle accelerator, capable of firing subatomic particles at incredible speeds. It’s part of a larger DARPA plan to reduce all sorts of devices to microchip-scale – including cryogenic coolers, video cameras and multi-purpose sensors. All of the projects are ambitious (this is DARPA, after all). But this had to be the most ambitious of the lot. Here’s how DARPA’s plans for fiscal year 2009 described it:

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Can Nicola figure out the answer to these intriguing biology questions? More importantly, can you? Let’s find out!

In this trivia episode of X10, Giuliano discovers just how much Nicola knows about some weird and interesting facts related to biology.