Lifeboat News: The Blog – Safeguarding Humanity

Engineered natural killer cells may be the next great cancer immunotherapy

Posted by Nicholi Avery in biotech/medical

Nov 14
2018

Inspired by success with T cells, scientists equip other immune cells with cancer-homing protein.

When Silicon Valley gets religion — and vice versa

Posted by Derick Lee in life extension, Ray Kurzweil, transhumanism | 2 Comments on When Silicon Valley gets religion — and vice versa

Nov 13
2018

Some of the tech world’s brightest luminaries hope to postpone the unpleasantness of death, or avoid it entirely. Calico, a secretive company founded by Google, is looking for ways to lengthen human lifespans. Billionaires Larry Ellison, Peter Thiel, and Jeff Bezos have all contributed huge sums for research into anti-aging treatments. Ray Kurzweil, one of the tech industry’s leading futurists, has described three scientific and technological “bridges” that might lead to radically longer life.

Devotees of many religions believe in a soul that lives forever. In transhumanism, techies have found their own version of eternal life — and it’s finding unlikely fans.

Ray Kurzweil — The Path to The Singularity

Posted by Shailesh Prasad in Ray Kurzweil, singularity

Nov 12
2018

How solar panels could cool our homes while harvesting energy

Posted by Genevieve Klien in solar power, sustainability

Nov 12
2018

Warm on top, cool on bottom.

Scientists predict a ‘dark matter hurricane’ will collide with the Earth

Posted by Genevieve Klien in climatology, cosmology, particle physics

Nov 12
2018

Yes, here’s the story of the dark matter hurricane — a cosmic event that may provide our first glimpse of the mysterious, invisible particle.

Jackson Ryan

We Just Got Closer Than Ever to Unlocking Graphene’s Superconducting Powers

Posted by Genevieve Klien in biotech/medical, materials

Nov 12
2018

Scientists are now closer than ever to being able to use graphene as a superconductor – to conduct electricity with zero resistance – making it useful for developing energy efficient gadgets, improving medical research, upgrading power grids, and much more besides.

The key to the new approach is heating a silicon carbide (SiC) crystal, itself a superconductor, until the silicon atoms have all evaporated. This leaves two graphene layers on top of each other in a way that, in certain conditions, offers no resistance to electrical current.

A similar dual-layer approach was also successfully used to turn graphene into a superconductor earlier this year. The difference here is the layers don’t have to be carefully angled on top of each other, which should make it easier to reproduce at scale.

Quantum leap for mass as science redefines the kilogramme

Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in science

Nov 12
2018

Sealed in a vault beneath a duke’s former pleasure palace among the sycamore-streaked forests west of Paris sits an object the size of an apple that determines the weight of the world.

Forged against a backdrop of scientific and political upheaval following the French Revolution, a single, small cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy has laid largely undisturbed for nearly 130 years as the world’s benchmark for what, precisely, is a kilogramme.

The international prototype of the kilogramme, or “Le Grand K” as it is tenderly known, is one of science’s most hallowed relics, an analogue against which all other weights are compared and a totem of the metric system that accompanied the epoch of liberty, equality and fraternity.