Lifeboat Foundation

When did animals originate? In research published in the journal Palaeontology, we show that this question is answered by Cambrian period fossils of a frond-like sea creature called Stromatoveris psygmoglena.

The Ediacaran Period lasted from 635 to 542m years ago. This era is key to understanding animal origins because it occurred just before the “Cambrian explosion” of 541m years ago, when many of the animal groups living today first appeared in the fossil record.

Yet when large fossils from the Ediacaran Period were first identified during the 20th century they included unique frond-like forms, which were not quite like any living animal. This prompted one of the greatest debates still raging in evolution. What exactly were these enigmatic fossils, often called the Ediacaran biota?

Continue reading “Scientists take a closer look at Earth’s first animals” »

SPACE FORCE: Vice President Pence delivers remarks on the Trump administration’s plan to establish a new branch of the U.S. military.

Researchers discover new type of lung cell.

Microsoft researchers recently unveiled a new ability for XiaoIce: it’s a Chinese language poet that’s inspired by images.

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We explore some of the ramifications arising from superflares on the evolutionary history of Earth, other planets in the solar system, and exoplanets. We propose that the most powerful superflares can serve as plausible drivers of extinction events, and that their periodicity corresponds to certain patterns in the terrestrial fossil diversity record. On the other hand, weaker superflares may play a positive role in enabling the origin of life through the formation of key organic compounds. Superflares could also prove to be quite detrimental to the evolution of complex life on present-day Mars and exoplanets in the habitable zone of M- and K-dwarfs. We conclude that the risk posed by superflares has not been sufficiently appreciated, and that humanity might potentially witness a superflare event in the next $\sim {10}^{3}$ years, leading to devastating economic and technological losses. In light of the many uncertainties and assumptions associated with our analysis, we recommend that these results should be viewed with due caution.

A new rumor has suggested that NVIDIA will be using the new GeForce RTX branding on their upcoming GeForce 20 series graphics card lineup.

The Amazon.com founder is likely to meet a goal of having his Blue Origin space-travel company work with NASA to return to the moon.