Lifeboat Foundation

Rocket Lab has successfully launched its first rocket of 2019, a mission for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that will test a novel method to deploy a satellite antenna in orbit.

The Electron rocket carrying the single satellite lifted off today, Thursday, March 28 from the company’s Launch Complex 1 on the Māhia Peninsula in New Zealand, where all of the company’s previous four rockets have also launched from. As per tradition, the rocket was given a nickname, this time being “Two Thumbs Up” – in honor of a team member who tragically died in a motorbike accident recently.

Inside the rocket is DARPA’s Radio Frequency Risk Reduction Deployment Demonstration (R3D2) satellite. Weighing in at 150 kilograms (330 pounds), it is the largest single satellite Rocket Lab has ever launched. Indeed, 150 kilograms is the upper limit of what the Electron can lift.

Continue reading “Rocket Lab Launches Experimental Satellite For DARPA On Its First Mission Of 2019” »

In the future, some commonly prescribed medication may have tiny trackers built into each capsule that monitor patients who take them. The technology is part of the ID-Cap system created by etectRx, a Florida company. The system has been submitted to the FDA for review and will undergo a 90-day study with Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Fenway Institute.

Using health care data, researchers trained artificial intelligence to predict premature death in middle-age people.

Rocket Lab’s first launch of 2019 is in the books.

The spaceflight startup’s Electron rocket rose off a pad on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula today (March 28) at 7:27 p.m. EDT (2327 GMT; 12:27 p.m. local New Zealand time on March 29).

Like, don’t even bother reading the article.

In Nordic countries, where cold winters can keep people indoors, buildings often feature what are known as “displacement ventilation” systems. A Spanish study now suggests that such technology may also help keep patients from acquiring infections while in hospitals.

Pain is something that the vast majority of us just have to deal with, and sometimes on a daily basis. Not being able to feel pain is almost unimaginable, but that’s the life one woman in Scotland has been living for 66 years. She doesn’t feel cuts, burns, and even surgery doesn’t register with her, and she’s lived her entire life thinking that was perfectly normal.

Her case, which was published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, only caught the attention of doctors after she recovered from orthopedic hand surgery with no reported pain. As with all patients, she was given a suite of pain-numbing meds while the operation was carried out, but even after the drugs wore off she reported absolutely no pain whatsoever. That’s when doctors realized something was amiss.

The ABRACADABRA experiment sounds like magic but it may help uncover an elusive, invisible particle.

by

• Jackson Ryan

As the artificial brain races towards the singularity, what we often forget is the boost to human brainpower that will accompany it. As we increase our senses and perceptions, humans have a choice what to do with these new superpowers, that can be used to reinforce one’s tunnel vision of life or to ignore it.

This story is part of What Happens Next, our complete guide to understanding the future. Read more predictions about the Future of Fact.

Not everyone experiences the world in the same way. Whether it’s how you react to the results of an election or what tones you hear in a sound clip, observable reality is often not as objective as you think it is.

Emerging technologies such as augmented reality will further blur this line. With AR on mobile devices and head-mounted displays, we’re well within the start of what it means to live an augmented life. Humans are doing a lot of fun things right now, like integrating playful games into our world and painting ourselves with digitally applied effects and makeup. We’re also starting to find utility for AR in the workplace and with hardware designed specifically for the enterprise market.

Continue reading “VR and AR will expand the limits of human perception” »