Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 8,564

Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.

Log in for authorized contributors

Amazon Prime Air lands FAA approval for drone deliveries

Amazon Prime Air has cleared a regulatory hurdle, moving the online retail giant one step closer to dropping packages off at your doorstep with drones. The US Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday issued Amazon Prime Air a “a Part 135 air carrier certificate,” allowing it to begin commercial drone deliveries in the US.

“Amazon Prime Air’s concept uses autonomous [unmanned aircraft systems] to safely and efficiently deliver packages to customers,” said a spokesperson for the FAA on Monday. “The FAA supports innovation that is beneficial to the public, especially during a health or weather-related crisis.”

Amazon and other companies are trying to make drones the future of deliveries.

Rocket Lab returns to service with successful launch for Capella

Live coverage: Rocket Lab launches Capella’s first commercial radar satellite – Spaceflight Now.

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand carrying Capella Space’s Sequoia radar remote sensing satellite. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

Rocket Lab’s live video webcast begins approximately 15 minutes prior to launch, and will be available on this page.

KitoTech raises $3M as demand soars for its at-home no-stitch wound closure kit

Seattle healthcare startup KitoTech Medical faced a challenge at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was difficult to pitch the company’s microMend wound closure device to new hospitals and clinics, limiting the ability to grow its business.

So in response, KitoTech quickly pivoted and developed two new consumer-focused products — and the results have been “remarkable,” according to CEO Ron Berenson.

KitoTech just raised $3 million to help support its growth. The company is known for its microMend device, which was made from technology originally developed at the University of Washington. It uses tiny staples that poke into the skin on either side of a wound and is applied over a cut like a traditional butterfly bandage. The process is painless and can heal wounds up to three times faster than those closed with traditional sutures, according to the company.

Scientists create a robot made entirely of living cells

Scientists have unveiled the first ever “living robot,” an organism made up of living cells, which can move around, carry payloads, and even heal itself.

“All of the computational people on the project, myself included, were flabbergasted,” said Joshua Bongard, a computer scientist at the University of Vermont.

Robots made of frog skin and heart cells can crawl, move stuff and heal themselves.

China again boosts R&D spending

China continued its yearslong run of double-digit percentage increases in spending on R&D in 2019, but the nation is likely to fall short of a long-standing goal of increasing R&D expenditures to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) by this year. But not hitting the target “should not be considered a failure, as China has been increasing its R&D expenditure over the past several decades at a rate higher than GDP growth,” says Cao Cong, a science policy specialist at the University of Nottingham’s Ningbo, China, campus.

But nation likely to miss 2020 goal of spending 2.5% of GDP on R&D.

Falcon 9 launches with SAOCOM 1B

SpaceX launched Argentina’s SAOCOM 1B radar observation satellite from Cape Canaveral at 7:18 p.m. EDT (2318 GMT) Sunday.

A Falcon 9 rocket headed toward the south on a trajectory hugging the Florida East Coast on the first flight into polar orbit from Cape Canaveral since 1969, and the first stage booster returned to the spaceport for an onshore landing minutes after liftoff.

Continuing coverage: https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/2020\/08\/30\/falcon-9-saocom-1b-mission-status-center\/