Lifeboat News: The Blog – Safeguarding Humanity

Bad Plumbing Helped Cause a Strange Outbreak of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria at a Maryland Hospital

Posted by Genevieve Klien in biotech/medical, government, health

Dec 28
2018

In 2016, a mysterious illness spread inside the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center, the U.S. government’s most prominent research hospital, in Bethesda, Maryland. Patients were somehow being sickened by an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria that practically never causes disease in humans. Two years later, a new study seems to finally have confirmed where this bug likely came from: the hospital’s own plumbing.

During a six-month period in 2016, six patients came down with infections caused by Sphingomonas bacteria. Four of the patients had an antibiotic-resistant strain of a particular species, Sphingomonas koreensis, which was first discovered in some of Korea’s natural mineral water spots in the early 2000s.

The world’s first no-kill eggs have gone on sale after scientists found a way to determine a chick’s sex before it hatches

Posted by Genevieve Klien in sex

Dec 28
2018

German scientists have found a way to determine a chick’s sex while it is still an embryo. This could help end the culling of billions of male chicks.

Portland Now Generates Electricity From Turbines Installed In City Water Pipes

Posted by Marcia Wiegand in futurism

Dec 28
2018

Water flowing through the city’s pipes will generate electricity like a dam with none of the environmental consequences.

Scientists just used rabbit DNA to create a new kind of powerful, air purifying plant

Posted by Marcia Wiegand in biotech/medical, space travel

Dec 28
2018

Great for a spaceship?

It cleans the air five times as efficiently as normal plants.

Our universe: An expanding bubble in an extra dimension

Posted by Genevieve Klien in cosmology

Dec 28
2018

Uppsala University researchers have devised a new model for the universe – one that may solve the enigma of dark energy. Their new article, published in Physical Review Letters, proposes a new structural concept, including dark energy, for a universe that rides on an expanding bubble in an additional dimension.

Enormous 18th-Century Ice House Re-Discovered Under London Street

Posted by Genevieve Klien in habitats

Dec 28
2018

Archaeologists in London have re-discovered a subterranean ice house near Regent’s Park. Dating back to the 1780s, the egg-shaped cavern was used to store ice, which was imported from as far away as Norway.

Made from brick, the structure would have been one of the largest of its kind at the time, according to the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA). The egg-shaped chamber measures 25 feet (7.5 meters) wide and 31 feet (9.5 meters) deep. Archaeologists with MOLA found the ice house, also known as an ice well, along with its entrance chamber and vaulted ante-chamber, during preparations for the development of the Regent’s Crescent residential project.

Drones Used to Find Toy-Like “Butterfly” Land Mines

Posted by Genevieve Klien in drones

Dec 28
2018

Quadcopters with thermal imagery cameras can help detect vicious mini-mines that often kill or maim children.

By Jeremy Hsu on December 28, 2018

Bed bug infestations are only getting worse — here’s why they’re so hard to kill

Posted by Genevieve Klien in futurism

Dec 28
2018

Humans have struggled with bed bugs for thousands of years. Despite our best efforts and technological advances, infestations are only getting worse.

Maryland is turning algae into electricity AND cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay: BTN LiveBIG

Posted by Genevieve Klien in energy

Dec 28
2018

Their pilot system absorbs excess nutrients, sequesters carbon dioxide and re-oxygenates the water, all while producing an efficient form of energy.

Musk: Tesla’s Fully Autonomous Capabilities “About to Accelerate”

Posted by Genevieve Klien in robotics/AI, transportation

Dec 28
2018

The evidence that self-driving vehicle manufacturers aren’t always upfront with the public hasn’t helped either. An excoriating October New Yorker investigation into the early years of the Google self-driving research project that eventually became Waymo found that the company had performed reckless road tests early in its work — and hadn’t always reported accidents.

Road Ahead

Musk’s promise to accelerate fully autonomous research, along with a call for more internal Tesla testers for the program, run precisely counter to that narrative. That’s not surprising: the eccentric Musk is known for imagining futures that are still years away — and using his wealth and influence to attempt to steer history toward or away from them.