Lifeboat Foundation

“Smart” contact lenses sound like something from a sci fi movie — but they’re real, and they could help troops in the field.

French engineering school IMT Atlantique revealed what it calls “the first stand-alone contact lens with a flexible micro battery” earlier this month.

And, notably, it caught the attention of the U.S. military’s attention: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is reportedly interested in the contact lens to augment troops’ visual capabilities in the field, according to Task and Purpose — meaning the gadget could represent the augmented contact lens that DARPA has spent a decade searching for.

Continue reading “DARPA: This Smart Contact Lens Could Give Soldiers Superpowers” »

But even with existing research, achieving sustained fusion inside a reactor is still many years out.

Rain, seas and a surface of eroding organic material can be found both on Earth and on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. However, on Titan it is methane, not water, that fills the lakes with slushy raindrops.

The experiments could create a new kind of monkey — and a big ethical dilemma.

Apr 25

CRISPR’d crops could help us address both hunger and obesity.

Here is a vegetable weeding robot designed to increase efficiency on large-scale vegetable farms. It works autonomously and can cover up to 12 acres in 9 hours. It uses GPS and camera to get the job done with accuracy.

Dino is designed to reduce labor costs and free up time for farming teams to focus on more important tasks. It can be put on a schedule and since it’s electric, only minimal maintenance is required.

Continue reading “Dino: Autonomous Weeding Robot Covers 12 Acres in 9 Hours” »

Like memory in conventional computers, quantum memory components are essential for quantum computers—a new generation of data processors that exploit quantum mechanics and can overcome the limitations of classical computers. With their potent computational power, quantum computers may push the boundaries of fundamental science to create new drugs, explain cosmological mysteries, or enhance accuracy of forecasts and optimization plans. Quantum computers are expected to be much faster and more powerful than their traditional counterparts as information is calculated in qubits, which, unlike the bits used in classical computers, can represent both zero and one in a simultaneous superstate.

Photonic quantum memory allows for the storage and retrieval of flying single-photon quantum states. However, production of such highly efficient quantum memory remains a major challenge as it requires a perfectly matched photon-matter quantum interface. Meanwhile, the energy of a single photon is too weak and can be easily lost into the noisy sea of stray light background. For a long time, these problems suppressed quantum memory efficiencies to below 50 percent—a threshold value crucial for practical applications.

Now, for the first time, a joint research team led by Prof. Du Shengwang from HKUST, Prof. Zhang Shanchao from SCNU, Prof. Yan Hui from SCNU and Prof. Zhu Shi-Liang from SCNU and Nanjing University has found a way to boost the efficiency of photonic quantum memory to over 85 percent with a fidelity of over 99 percent.

Continue reading “Physicists set a new record of quantum memory efficiency” »

Although the many experiments searching for evidence of dark matter have yet to turn up any solid proof of the stuff yet, they are making other amazing discoveries. The XENON1T experiment has now revealed the longest half-life ever seen in an element, which is far, far longer than the age of the universe.

To help put the first generation of space colonists on the right footing, Purdue University’s Resilient ExtraTerrestrial Habitats (RETH) Institute is building a one-quarter-scale space habitat similar to ones that may one day be built on the Moon and Mars. It is hoped habitats boasting a combination of “resilience, intelligence, and autonomy” will stand up to the many hazards space can throw at them.