Lifeboat Foundation

A moderate geomagnetic storm kicked up in Earth’s skies Friday morning (April 20), bringing green and rare electric-blue auroras that stretched as far south as Indiana.

The space-weather news site Spaceweather.com reported that an “interplanetary shock wave” hit Earth’s magnetic field at about 3:50 a.m. EDT (2350 on April 19 GMT), quadrupling the intensity of the flow of particles streaming from the sun toward Earth, called the solar wind. The incoming wave of material resulted in a G2-level, or moderate, geomagnetic storm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). These types of storms can cause power grid fluctuations and have some impact on radio communications. [See Spectacular Photos of Auroras from Space]

And they also cause enhanced auroras. This storm led to auroras possibly reaching through Canada and as far south as New York, Wisconsin and Washington state in the U.S., the SWPC said.

Continue reading “‘Interplanetary Shock Wave’ Spawns Electric-Blue Auroras” »

The new results obtained with GIRAFFE on the VLT seem to show that collisions and merging are important in the formation and evolution of galaxies. Here, such a collision is shown in this artist’s impression.

Artificial intelligence

Your next pilot could be drone software

Airplanes could be safer with technology at the helm. A key sticking point is human opinion.

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Tour the ISS to catch up with the astronauts and hear their testimonials about what it feels like to watch Earth from space every day.

The National Geographic Channel has one major treat coming up for its viewers, reports Space.com.

Continue reading “See The First-Ever 3D Virtual Reality Film Shot In Space, Courtesy Of National Geographic [Video]” »

This full 360° view of La Silla Observatory showcases the mountaintop telescopes in all their glory. The telescopes are silhouetted against a starry background, with the Milky Way visible close to the horizon, the column and band of the zodiacal light across the sky, and the Magellanic Clouds rising higher in the sky.

La Silla was built in 1969 as ESO’s very first observatory, at which point it became the largest astronomical observatory of its time, leading Europe to the frontline of astronomical research. Since then, it has led to an enormous number of scientific discoveries, including several “firsts”.

This deep sky view was achieved using the Vixen Polarie mount.

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Speculating about the geological record of a technologically advanced civilization may help in the search for alien societies and poses an important question about our own future on earth.

A new microchip technology capable of optically transferring data could solve a severe bottleneck in current devices by speeding data transfer and reducing energy consumption by orders of magnitude, according to an article published in the April 19, 2018 issue of Nature.

Researchers from Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California Berkeley and University of Colorado Boulder have developed a method to fabricate silicon chips that can communicate with light and are no more expensive than current chip technology. The result is the culmination of a several-year-long project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency that was a close collaboration between teams led by Associate Professor Vladimir Stojanovic of UC Berkeley, Professor Rajeev Ram of MIT, and Assistant Professor Milos Popovic from Boston University and previously CU Boulder. They collaborated with a semiconductor manufacturing research team at the Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the State University of New York at Albany.

The electrical signaling bottleneck between current microelectronic chips has left light communication as one of the only options left for further technological progress. The traditional method of data transfer-electrical wires-has a limit on how fast and how far it can transfer data. It also uses a lot of power and generates heat. With the relentless demand for higher performance and lower power in electronics, these limits have been reached. But with this new development, that bottleneck can be solved.

Continue reading “Researchers illuminate the path to a new era of microelectronics” »

Peripheral Elevation of a #Klotho Fragment Enhances Brain Function and Resilience in Young, Aging, and α-Synuclein Transgenic Mice.

Klotho is a longevity factor associated with cognitive enhancement when genetically and widely overexpressed over the lifetime of mice. Leon et al. show that peripheral delivery of a klotho fragment, αKL-F, acutely enhances cognition and neural resilience in young, aging, and disease model mice, establishing its therapeutic relevance and dissecting its underlying mechanisms.

Breakthrough in predicting chaotic systems using machine learning may significantly improve forecasting the weather, earthquakes, cardiac arrest, and many other chaotic phenomena.

In new computer experiments, artificial-intelligence algorithms can tell the future of chaotic systems.