Lifeboat Foundation

But hyperloops are no longer quite so hypothetical. A handful of firms are now competing to develop the necessary technology. And in addition to designing the magnetically levitated pods and testing them on small-scale tracks, the firms are taking preliminary steps to set up hyperloop routes in the U.S. and abroad.

“It’s happening far faster than I would have ever expected, and it’s happening all over the world,” said Dr. David Goldsmith, a transportation researcher at Virginia Tech.

One of the biggest players is Musk himself. His whimsically named Boring Company is planning to dig a hyperloop tunnel that would make it possible to travel from Washington, D.C. to New York City in half an hour (the fastest Amtrak trains make the trip in just under three hours). Meanwhile, a pair of California-based startups, Virgin Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, are developing routes in North America, Asia, and Europe.

Continue reading “Elon Musk’s hyperloop dream may come true — and soon” »

Six years after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, a specialized robot has been able to capture images of melted uranium fuel from the site for the first time.

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MhAX, or Microhomology-Assisted eXcision.

Gene editing has the power to completely reshape our world.

It promises everything from fixing the genetic faults that lead to disease, to destroying disease-causing microbes, to improving the nutrition of the foods we eat and even resurrecting extinct species like the wooly mammoth — all largely thanks to the genetic editing tool CRISPR, which has both popularized this work and made it possible.

Continue reading “Gene Editing Just Got So Precise, Researchers Can Change Single Letters of DNA Code” »

Celularity, a leading U.S. biotechnology company, is seizing on an opportunity to use cells to target diseases. The CEO, Dr. Robert Hariri, says placenta can be used to augment longevity and immunity. https://www.celularity.com

Celularity’s Massively Transformative Purpose (MTP) is to harness the power of the living cell to augment biology, immunity and longevity.

Continue reading “Placenta makes 100-years old the new 60 — Fox Business Mornings With Maria” »

Doctors from Yale University used bacteria-killing viruses collected from a Connecticut pond to successfully treat a man with a bacterial infection.

Materials that conduct electricity without resistance might mimic black hole physics.

This enhanced Hubble Telescope image show two galaxies in the starting phases of merging into one. Here’s what this cosmic collision is doing to them.

More than 200 artificial intelligence startups applied for Nvidia’s Inception contest, which seeks to identify the best AI startups. The company created the program to find new uses for its graphics processing units (GPUs), but it’s also hoping these startups will change the world.

So far, the company has identified more than 2,800 AI startups over the years through Inception. I listened to pitches from 12 finalists in a Shark Tank styled judging event last week. Each is competing to be one of three finalists to share the $1 million prize pool.

“We’re trying to enable our ecosystem of deep learning neural networks,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, as he introduced a panel of four judges. The 12 semi-finalists gave their 8-minute pitches, six finalists were selected, and the final winners will be picked at the company’s GPU Technology Conference on March 27 in San Jose, California. They ranged from AI for bionic arms to faster, cheaper, and more accurate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.

Continue reading “Nvidia Inception’s AI health care startups cover neural interfaces to better MRI” »