Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 8385

This is a great outline of how the outbreak could end (from best to worst-case scenario): 1. Public health interventions control the 2019 n-CoV 2. The virus burns itself out (I love this analogy of viruses to fires) like the Spanish flu 3. It becomes a common virus like ex-pandemic H1N1 (swine) flu.

The World Health Organization has declared the growing coronavirus outbreak in China to be a global health emergency. It’s a recognition that the outbreak — now with nearly 10,000 cases — may continue to spread beyond China, and that the nations of the world should lend their assistance and be prepared.

Read more | >

At 35 meters, the wingspan of the new BAE Systems aircraft equals that of a Boeing 737, yet the plane weighs in at just 150 kilograms, including a 15 kg payload. The unmanned plane, dubbed the PHASA-35 (Persistent High-Altitude Solar Aircraft), made its maiden voyage on 10 February at the Royal Australian Air Force Woomera Test Range in South Australia.

“It flew for just under an hour—enough time to successfully test its aerodynamics, autopilot system, and maneuverability,” says Phil Varty, business development leader of emerging products at BAE Systems. “We’d previously tested other sub-systems such as the flight control system in smaller models of the plane in the U.K. and Australia, so we’d taken much of the risk out of the craft before the test flight.”

The prototype aircraft uses gallium arsenide–based triple-junction solar cell panels manufactured by MicroLink Devices in Niles, Ill. MicroLink claims an energy conversion efficiency of 31 percent for these specialist panels.

Read more | >

The magnetic field in one zone on Mars is about 10 times stronger than scientists expected, and it’s changing rapidly.

New data gathered from NASA’s InSight lander, which has been on the Red Planet for a little over a year now, shows that the planet’s magnetic field fluctuates rapidly. InSight is the first landing mission to carry a magnetic sensor, which allows it to measure these fields from up close.

Read more | >

Researchers at California Polytechnic State University have developed a low-cost approach that improves cell-free biotechnology’s utility for bio-manufacturing and portability for field applications.

Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) is a biotechnology that harnesses active in a without the presence of living cells, allowing researchers to directly access and manipulate biochemical processes. Scientists and engineers are looking to utilize cell-free biotechnology for numerous applications including on-demand biomanufacturing of biomaterials and therapeutics, point-of-care diagnostics of disease biomarkers and environmental pollutants, and transformative biochemical education platforms.

Cell-free biotechnology researchers have already made many of these applications a reality in the lab, but getting them to work in the field, clinic and classroom is more difficult. The cellular machinery extracted for use in cell-free biotechnology contains biomolecules such as proteins and RNAs, which break down at , greatly limiting the shelf life of the cellular machinery. Transporting it from one laboratory to another or taking it out of the lab for field applications requires refrigeration to maintain its activity. Being tethered to the “cold chain” is a fundamental limit to meeting cell-free biotechnology’s potential.

Read more | >

Even in this experiment, though, the “psychology” of the algorithm in decision-making is counter-intuitive. For example, in the basketball case, the most important factor in making the decision was actually the player’s jerseys rather than the basketball.

Can You Explain What You Don’t Understand?

While it may seem trivial, the conflict here is a fundamental one in approaches to artificial intelligence. Namely, how far can you get with mere statistical associations between huge sets of data, and how much do you need to introduce abstract concepts for real intelligence to arise?

Read more | >