Lifeboat News: The Blog – Safeguarding Humanity

Scientists Discover New, Bizarre Eel-Like Creature in Florida

Dec 14
2018

Florida residents, you have a new neighbor — and it has the body of an eel and the spots of a leopard. It also has two small arms with gills sticking out of its body, and lives in the swamps of the Panhandle.

The creature is actually a new species of legless salamander or siren. It is being officially called Siren reticulata, or the Reticulated Siren, and its discovery was published in the journal PLOS One journal last week.

Scientists say the two-foot-long Reticulated Siren is among the largest species discovered in the United States in over 100 years.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Spots InSight Hardware on Mars

Posted by Alberto Lao in space

Dec 14
2018

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may not have managed to spot InSight under its parachute, but it has finally spotted the lander, its parachute, and its heat shield resting on the Martian surface. The images confirm the location of InSight’s landing site, a little to the north and west of the center of the landing ellipse.

First, the fantastic hardware images:

Facebook co-founder: Give the 99% a $6,000 raise

Posted by Shane Hinshaw in futurism

Dec 14
2018

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes — a millionaire many, many times over — is behind this big idea.

Chris Hughes earned nearly half a billion dollars after co-founding Facebook. Now he’s arguing for fairer wages in the form of a $500 monthly ‘social dividend’ for low- and middle-class Americans.

Biologists Engineered An Assassin Virus to Kill Bacteria on Command

Posted by Shane Hinshaw in biotech/medical

Dec 14
2018

“It’s brilliant and insidious!”

These assassins could help in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

AI for Scholarship: How Machine Learning can Transform the Humanities

Posted by Steve Nichols in robotics/AI

Dec 14
2018

Will AI transform — or replace — the Humanities?

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to revolutionize the Humanities by transforming how we analyze texts.

This Could Be the Best Quantum Computer Yet

Posted by Genevieve Klien in computing, particle physics, quantum physics

Dec 14
2018

A startup based in Maryland has released and tested an impressive new quantum computer that demonstrates the power of an occasionally overlooked quantum computing architecture.

Companies like IBM, Google, and Rigetti are developing new kinds of computer processors that rely on the mathematics of subatomic particles to potentially perform calculations difficult for classical computers to do. These devices use superconductors as the basis for their qubits. A company called IonQ, however, has now announced a state-of-the-art system that relies on the quantum nature of atoms themselves, and it’s one of the best-performing quantum computers yet.

‘Marie’ Is the First Life-Sized, 3D-Printed Human Body

Posted by Genevieve Klien in 3D printing, biotech/medical

Dec 14
2018

Marie—a five-foot-one, fifteen-pound 3D printed body—could be used to help create better radiation treatments for cancer.

Clothing patch is like a personal heating system

Posted by Genevieve Klien in futurism

Dec 14
2018

A new flexible patch sewn into your clothes could one day keep you warm—and lower your electricity bill at the same time.

Surprises are in store for the New Horizons’ fly by

Posted by Genevieve Klien in space

Dec 14
2018

There will be no New Year’s Eve revelry for those working on NASA’s New Horizon’s space probe. They will need to be stone cold sober with their wits about them when, on New Year’s Day 2019, it whizzes past one of the fossil building blocks of the planets and one of the most primitive bodies in the Solar System.

Tiny implantable wireless devices could help people repair nerves and lose weight

Posted by Shane Hinshaw in electronics

Dec 14
2018

Implanted electronics are typically large, require batteries, and sometimes need replacement—but new technology could change that.

Some of the devices even dissolve in the body once their work is done.